Franz Ferdinand, "Michael"

This weekend I picked up the new Franz Ferdinand album, Tonight. It's their third straight set of easily appreciated dance-rock, this one becoming more Duran Durannish as it goes. (Mostly latter-day Duran, though penultimate track "Dream Again" is remarkably similar to 1983's "The Chauffeur"* to my ears.) Tonight will likely make my year-end Top 10 should I make such a list at the end of this year.

But it's not a Tonight track I want to spotlight today, but rather one from FF's self-titled 2004 debut. While "Take Me Out" was the hit from that record, "Michael" was the one that got them initial media attention, owing to its rare-for-any-format (but especially for rock) declarations of attraction to the title character. (The song is clearly not about ex-Bangle Michael Steele.)

"Michael" is very much about a guy crushing on a guy. But it's not really a coming-out song (at least, not any more than that fraudulent Katy Perry ditty was). Rather, it's a love song for the post-labels era, the 2000s' answer to "if it feels good, do it," a statement that what the singer feels for that moment about Michael is right, even if he's only dancing; no matter what anyone else thinks and no matter what he's felt about any man (or woman) in the past or present. "Michael" is a song of liberation from constricted behavior and the labels of self-identity (even if my many straight friends named Michael weren't necessarily so flattered by the attention), and I've been thinking the point of it all is covered by another song from that Franz Ferdinand debut, "The Dark of the Matinee": "How you'd have a happy life / If you did the things you like."

(* Ed. note: I've posted the censored version of the "Chauffeur" vid for the sake of people who access from work.)