Taylor Swift reinterprets George Michael’s “Father Figure” on the fourth track of The Life of a Showgirl, a new song that shares its title and includes an interpolation of Michael’s original hit from 1988.
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The estate of the late George Michael released a statement regarding Swift’s recording on Thursday (Oct. 2), just hours before the official release of Showgirl.
“We were delighted when Taylor Swift and her team approached us earlier this year about incorporating an interpolation of George Michael’s classic song ‘Father Figure’ into a brand new song of the same title to be featured on her forthcoming album,” stated George Michael Entertainment in a note shared on Michael’s social media accounts. “When we heard the track we had no hesitation in agreeing to this association between two great artists and we know George would have felt the same. George Michael Entertainment wishes Taylor every success with The Life of a Showgirl and Father Figure.”
Michael’s “Father Figure” remained at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 for two weeks in 1988; it was one of four No. 1 hits from Faith, his debut solo album released in 1987. (The other three No. 1s from Faith include: title track “Faith,” “One More Try,” and “Monkey.”)
“‘Father Figure’ is just a very specific experience that I wrote about,” Michael, who passed away in 2016, once reflected on the song’s origin. “I think there’s a definite pattern in people’s lives where they move away from their parents and then they look for that replacement. It’s always talked about in terms of boys being discarded by their mothers, and then finding a replacement. But you don’t necessarily always hear about that with women, although I’m sure it’s just as much the case, that women in a sense look for a father. Not necessarily a father, but they look for that replacement.”
In 1989, “Father Figure” earned Michael a Grammy nomination for best pop vocal performance, while the parent album Faith won album of the year — and Taylor Swift was born.
The year 1989 would later become the title of Swift’s fifth album — her ’80s pop-influenced Billboard 200 chart-topper from 2014 that, like The Life of a Showgirl, features production by Max Martin and Shellback.
Swift’s The Life of a Showgirl, available at midnight ET on Friday, Oct. 3, marks her twelfth full-length studio album. “Father Figure” is among twelve tracks on the set, which is led by opener “The Fate of Ophelia.”
