That’s why I’m always gettin’ stoned yeah Bush, and former British Prime Minister Tony Blair in “Shoot the Dog”(2002), a funk-inspired dance song whose lyrics characterize Blair as the lap dog of the Bush administration: Michael satirized post-9/11 politics, then-US President George W. “ Monkey”chronicles the impact of addiction on a love affair while both “Hand to Mouth” and “Praying for Time”grapple with the politics of poverty and apathy. “Everything She Wants” brings to “a sinewy disco-pop boil” a young man’s struggle to satisfy the material demands of his pregnant lover. “Wham! Rap (Enjoy What You Do)” uses the then-novel sound of African American rap to critique the economic stresses of young white English men in the Thatcher era. Schwartz and others overlook Michael’s thirty-year engagement with political themes. In George Michael’s case, it seems that the politics of genre trump anything that happens in the songs and videos themselves: pop cannot be political. In a recent elegyto the singer, Deb Schwarz echoes the common misconception that Michael’s music became more political after his 1998 arrest and subsequent coming out.