"Everything She Wants" was a song by British pop duo Wham!,
released in 1984 on Epic Records on a double A-side with "Last
Christmas". It was written by George Michael, one half of the
duo.
Upon release, "Last Christmas" took the majority of the
attention and airplay as it was appropriate in early December
as Christmas approached. However, the presence of an
equally-billed flip side meant that radio stations had
something else to play once "Last Christmas" had lost its
topicality.
A five-minute song (there also exists a
six-and-a-half-minutes-long version with an added bridge),
"Everything She Wants" is written from the angle of a man
rapidly approaching desperation at the material demands of his
partner which seem to be coming to a head, despite the amount
of work he does to keep them happy. In a twist, the second
verse takes the story a step further by revealing that the
woman is pregnant but the man cannot find any happiness in the
announcement because of the extra pressure a baby will put upon
him.
The presence of the Band Aid project meant that the double
A-side peaked at number two in the UK singles chart, although
in the process it became the biggest selling record not to get
to number one. However, in the USA, the song did reach the
summit of the Billboard Hot 100, and became the third
number-one song in a row from 1984's
Make It Bigalbum.
Wham! would go on to have two more number-one hits in the UK
before splitting at their height in 1986.
Although Michael bemoaned much of Wham!'s material as he
began his solo career, "Everything She Wants" remained a song
of which he was proud, and he continued to perform it in his
shows. Furthermore, Michael remarked in an interview (to
promote 25 Live tour) that "Everything She Wants" is his
favourite Wham! song.
The song was remixed and re-released as "Everything She
Wants '97" for the greatest hits album
If You Were Therein 1997.
The song was also mentioned in a landmark 1998 sampling
copyright decision in the case of
Santrayll v. Burrell. Federal Court Judge Peter K.
Leisure concluded that MC Hammer had sampled music by another
rap group (The Legend). The Legend admitted to sampling Wham!'s
"Everything She Wants" (among other songs) and not disclosing
the sampled works when filing for copyright registration. In
essence, Hammer argued that because The Legend admitted to
sampling (i.e. "Everything She Wants"), this constituted a
knowing failure to advise the Copyright Office of facts that
might have led to the rejection of the copyright application.
Meaning: no copyright protection, no lawsuit for infringement
against Hammer. The court disagreed and found that: (1) it was
possible that a jury might find that the failure to disclose
the samples was not deliberate and (2) the samples played such
a minor role in The Legend's song that the unauthorized use of
samples "could not possibly have led the Copyright Office to
reject the copyright applications."
The popular Canadian teen drama Degrassi: The Next
Generation, which named each episode after an 80s hit song,
named an episode after this song.
Rapper Foxy Brown sampled "Everything She Wants" on the
single "I Can't" from her number one album
Chyna Doll.