George Michael spent his career singing about freedom. But he never quite found it

In 1984, George Michael released a song called "Freedom" with his pop duo Wham! Six years later, he put out one of his own called "Freedom! '90." And six years after that? A song called "Free" closed his third solo album, "Older."

The specifics of the liberation he's describing in each tune vary; so too did the shape of the British singer's stardom at the time he wrote each of them. But to listen to these songs now — half a decade after Michael's shocking death at age 53 and amid a swelling of interest in his work tied to several new retrospective projects — is to confront the fact that the reason he kept singing about freedom is because he kept not finding it.

"George's life was shot through with disappointment," says James Gavin, author of an exhaustive and empathetic biography, "George Michael: A Life," published last week. "For all the tragedy I uncovered in writing this book, though — for all the childhood sadness and the