George Michael / Faith (2010 Remastered) / 1987
One More Try
guarded, aching, defensively cool
A wary, self-protective ballad about a narrator who has been burned by intimacy and now treats love as a dangerous lesson he'd rather not repeat. George Michael frames the beloved as an authority figure, a 'teacher,' which lets the song dramatize desire as something taught, tested, and painfully failed, before ending on a reluctant crack in the defenses.
fear of vulnerability emotional self-protection power imbalance in relationships pride versus need cyclical heartbreak
Who's speaking
A first-person narrator addresses a former or current lover directly, casting them as a 'teacher' who has taught him painful lessons; the voice is candid about his fear but not fully reliable, since his professed indifference keeps slipping toward longing.
What happens
The song opens with the narrator exhausted by the world's danger and craving safety, then confronts the addressee for a clear answer. As it progresses, he recalls being newly infatuated and unguarded, contrasts that with his current defensiveness, and repeatedly insists he doesn't want to be hurt again. By the end, his claim to have only his pride left collapses into an admission of coldness and a tentative reopening to trying again.
How it's built
The song uses a classic verse-chorus pop structure with the 'teacher' hook functioning as a refrain that recontextualizes each verse's confession. Repetition of the goodbye line and the uptown boy phrase reinforces the narrator's attempt to convince himself of resignation, while the final short coda breaks the pattern, shrinking the song into a single vulnerable admission that undercuts all the prior bravado.
Section by section
Opening verse
“I'm looking out for angels”
The narrator establishes a worldview of exhaustion and threat, positioning romantic safety as something almost spiritual and scarce, which sets up his hypervigilance toward being hurt again.
Pre-chorus demand
He shifts from general weariness to a direct ultimatum, asking for clarity rather than ambiguity, which reveals impatience with emotional limbo as much as genuine desire for resolution.
First chorus
“there are things that I don't want to learn”
The teacher metaphor crystallizes here: love is reframed as curriculum, and refusal to learn becomes a way of refusing further pain, even as the underlying hurt is admitted outright.
Second verse
A flashback to early infatuation contrasts sharply with the guarded present, showing how proximity and power have shifted; what once felt safe now registers as risk, suggesting the 'danger' is really emotional exposure.
Final stanza
“the one thing I have is my pride”
The narrator recasts his self-protection as dignity rather than fear, but the admission of feeling cold immediately after suggests pride is a thin cover for loneliness.
Coda
“Maybe just one more try”
The closing line abandons the song's rhetorical certainty, letting a small, unguarded wish surface after all the insistence on walking away, which reframes the whole song as a negotiation with himself rather than a settled decision.
Craft
- extended metaphor
- Casting the lover as a teacher and love as a lesson lets the narrator discuss heartbreak in terms of instruction and failure, distancing raw emotion behind an almost clinical frame.
- refrain
- The repeated goodbye lines and the uptown boy line function as a chorus that hardens over the song, each repetition trying to seal off the wound rather than open it.
- volta
- The final short stanza reverses the song's insistence on walking away, turning resignation into hesitant hope in just a few lines.
- understatement
- The narrator's claim that he simply has 'pride' left minimizes the depth of hurt implied elsewhere, a defensive coolness that the ending exposes as thin.
Reading it
The most persuasive reading treats the song as an internal argument between self-preservation and longing, where the teacher/student metaphor lets the narrator intellectualize heartbreak while still being overwhelmed by it; the ending suggests the argument is never fully resolved. An alternative reading hears the song as more straightforwardly about a specific betrayal, with 'teacher' referencing a real controlling or manipulative partner, making the closing plea a genuine capitulation rather than an ambivalent softening. The text supports both, since it never specifies the relationship's exact history.
Context
This song comes from George Michael's 1987 album Faith, released as he was establishing himself as a solo artist distinct from Wham!, moving toward more introspective, adult-oriented songwriting. I don't have reliable biographical detail linking this specific song to events in Michael's life, so any autobiographical reading should be treated as speculative.
Listen for
- the shift in vocal tone between the confident verses and the more exposed final lines
- how the 'teacher' word is delivered with slight vocal restraint, as if held at arm's length
- the way repeated goodbyes in the chorus feel increasingly performative
- the sudden intimacy and quietness of the closing line compared to the rest of the arrangement
About George Michael
George Michael was an English singer-songwriter and record producer. Regarded as a pop culture icon, he is one of the best-selling recording artists of all time.
1963 - 2016 / United Kingdom
Full biography and catalogue