I’m in the car with Elysha, Charlie, and my friend, Kaia. We’re listening to music as we make our way to Winding Trails, the lake club where we spend so many of our summer days.
George Michael’s “Careless Whisper” begins playing on the radio from one of our family’s Spotify playlists.
“I hate this song,” I announce, primarily for Kaia’s benefit. Elysha knows how I feel about this song.
I also know she likes it, which is why it’s on our playlist.
We discuss the song and George Michael for a few minutes as we make our way down Route 4 to the lake.
Half an hour later, as Kaia and Elysha enter the restroom at Winding Trails, they hear a song playing on the radio overhead.
It’s “Careless Whisper.” Again.
Elysha and Kaia tell me about the song when they return to the beach, at which point I wonder aloud if George Michael is still alive. I think he is, but Elysha and Kaia disagree. We debate for a bit before one of us finally gets a phone to confirm that George Michael died on Christmas Day in 2016. He is buried alongside his mother and his sister Melanie, who died three years after him to the day.
We also discovered that Kenny G did not play the terrible sax solo on the song. Instead, it was Steve Gregory — the ninth saxophonist to audition. Apparently, Michael was looking for something exceptionally specific in those saxophone parts, and Gregory finally found it by slowing down the song and listening carefully to Michael’s phrasing in the lyrics.
He should’ve ditched the saxophone altogether and replaced it with a guitar, though I still think the song would’ve sucked.
Six hours later, I’m sitting in my office at home when Elysha asks me to come to the living room, where she and Charlie are watching a show called “The Afterparty.” The video is paused. “You’re not going to believe this,” she says and unpauses the video.
On screen, a man stands in the rain, crying out to a woman who is walking away from him. Then “Careless Whisper” begins playing, and the man starts dancing as the voiceover expresses regret about the encounter.
I don’t know why he’s dancing. The song sucks.
But three times in one day? The song is 41 years old. Yes, we actively added it to our Spotify playlist, but then it also played in a restroom at the lake club and appeared in a television show produced in 2025.
All on the same day?
“Coincidentalism,” I say.
While we appreciate and admire the extraordinary nature of coincidences, we also view them as expected outcomes of an unfathomably enormous and complex system of interconnected parts and endless interactions.
That is when we receive a text message from our friend, Kaia.
It’s June 26 when all of these “Careless Whisper” encounters take place.
Kaia’s text message:
“Today is George Michael’s birthday.”
Of course, it is.
Coincidentalism at its best.
