Jesus To A Child

A tribute to a lover George Michael lost in 1993. The song is a melancholy tribute to his lover a Brazilian dress designer called Anselmo Feleppa who he met during a performance at the Rock in Rio II Festival in Rio de Janeiro in 1991. Two years later Anselmo died from an AIDS-related brain haemorrhage.

George Micheal kept dedicating the song to Feleppa every time before he performed it live, the entire album Older was dedicated to the memory of Anselmo, known publicly as a “close friend’ of Michael’s. After Michael’s death in 2016, the founder of charity Childline, Dame Esther Rantzen, revealed that all royalties from this song were secretly donated to this charity, In an interview with BBC News she said: “George helped us to reach out to hundreds of thousands of children through his generosity. I met him a couple of times, he approached us, rather than us going cap in hand to him, but it was an intensely personal gift. He didn’t want it to be known or to be part of his image. He really wanted to keep his help secret, it was an intensety personal gift. It meant we could answer more children.”
Release Date: January 8, 1996

Songwriter/s: George Michael

Label: Virgin

Chart Rankings:
UK – 1
US – 7
Germany – 12
In the UK, ‘Jesus to a child’ topped the Official Charts Company, the British Phonographic Industry (BPI) certified it Silver for sales over 200.000 copies. In the US, the song became George Michael’s highest direct entry in the American charts, it peaked at number 7 on the Billboard Hot 100. On the Billboard Adult Contemporary it peaked at number 5 and on the Billboard Pop Songs it reached number 20. The American Industry Association of America (RIAA) certified it Gold for sales over 500.000 copies. The song topped the charts in 6 countries around the world including Australia, Canada, Finland, Ireland, Norway and Spain. It reached the top 10 charts in several countries such as Belgium, Denmark, France, Italy, Netherlands, New Zealand, Sweden and Switzerland. In France, New Zealand, Norway and Spain it was certified Gold.

Artist’s age on Release Date: Georgios Kyriacos Panayiotou aka George Michael was 33 years old when he released this song.

Cover Versions: Tose Proeski – Amateur artists covered this song on Youtube.