I love George Michael’s rendition of ‘brother can you spare a dime’.

He sings it with an intensity that rips into the essence of the lyrics to the degree that you can feel the despair.

There’s a great line in Arthur Miller’s, ‘Death of a Salesman’, in which our hero, Willy Loman tries to explain what, to him, it means to be a man. He says, ‘A man can’t go out the way he came in; a man has to add up to something’.

You can hear that yearning as Michael renders the pain of the song oh-so clearly.

And that’s really it, isn’t it? That a guy wants, no needs to believe that his life is going to add ‘up to something’.

Okay so maybe in his late teens he doesn’t know exactly what; his destination isn’t clear, but the will to get there, wherever it is, and the wherewithal to do so (Balls) is present, and buzzing.

The song is about a guy who thought he was there a couple of times but Fate, in the form of the economic Depression which hit America in the 1930’s got in the way.

Our man is now asking for help to see him through his current shit until… And that’s surely where Determination is such a big player.

Sometimes you have to have the Determination to hold on, to remember that to which you’ve committed, to believe, and to Trust that Life will reveal to you the reason for which you were born.