Bow Your Head. The King is Dead.

This has to be the blow heard round the world. June 25th, 2009:
The day the King of Pop died.

My late father-in-law called it 10 years ago. Michael Jackson was on TV defending himself yet again for some inappropriate interaction with a kid, or for proclaiming that he was not bleaching his skin, or, and this is the best one, saying that he had NOT had any plastic surgery!!

My father-in-law shook his head and said "This guy's not going to make it past 50."
"Why do you say that?" I asked.
"He lived too much too fast, and that just can't go on for long." He said.

I really didn't think that was a solid theory. I still don't.
Yet here we are, with one of the world's all-time greatest talents leaving us at EXACTLY the age of 50. My father-in-law's deadline.

He had lost some lustre of late, to be sure, but Michael Jackson, until today was still the King!

There was controversy and there was weirdness, but when MJ came to town, people were always there to greet him. Not just our town, but any town, practically anywhere in the world. This guy fascinated everyone, and he did so from the tender age of 5.

Sadly almost anything you say about Michael has either already been said, or it's just obvious. To say he was one of a kind would imply too many things I don't wish to discuss, so instead, I will recount my recollections.

Born August 29, 1958, he was child number 7 for his parents. With the additions of Randy and Janet,there would be nine in total, at which point I assume Mrs. Jackson's uterus simply disintegrated.

By the time he was 11, he was playing with his brothers in the Jackson 5, with a hit record and loads of adoring fans.
I remember the Jackson 5 (That's right, I'm old, so what!?). I remember their variety show. I remember their Saturday morning cartoon, and I remember when Michael first got together with Quincy Jones to release his magnificent Off The Wall album. As a matter of fact, I still have it. Not the CD, the LP (Okay, I'm old. We get it!)
The big hits were:
Don't Stop Till You Get Enough- a song that to this day, can kick start any party.
Rock With You- with that smooth soul groove that has been much covered, but little improved.
Off The Wall, the title track, which has been sampled, covered and remixed repeatedly in dance music, and the Eddie Murphy imitated ballad,
She's Out Of My Life (Tito, get me some tissue. Jermaine, stop teasing!).
Then somebody heard the B side of one of those singles. A song called Working Day and Night which never became a proper hit but has the freakiest rhythm ever and is still played at sporting events, on TV shows and in commercials!
I wondered how one artist could make one album with so much eclectic great music.
No other pop album in my lifetime even compared.

Until 1983.

That's when Thriller came out (Technically, the end of '82).

The first song I heard was The Girl is Mine, his duet with Paul McCartney. It was good, but not the track that was going to flip the world on its ear. ("Paul, I think I told you, I'm a lover, not a fighter!")

Then, at a time when videos were just starting to shape the music industry in a new way, came Billie Jean. No one knew what this video was about but they had Michael Jackson...dancing...on a street where the cobblestones light up when you dance on them. Then he went for the big finish: the half-kick-leg shake-fake shoe tie. His dancing was so unique that they just let him go. There did not seem to be any choreography.

The turning point was that fateful night of Motown's 25th anniversary.
March 25th 1983.
All the great Motown acts were performing and the Jacksons were all there too. Michael did a medley with his brothers until they suddenly left the stage, leaving him alone to the sound of a familiar new beat, the intro to Billie Jean. In my opinion, this was the moment in which Michael Jackson grabbed the world by the tender parts, never to release them. He started his pelvic thrust to the beat, stood up straight, looked both ways, grabbed his hat, and flung it behind him with such style that no one spoke in anticipation of what was to come. Michael did not disappoint, and as the piece de resistance, hit us with a move that streetdancers had been doing for years, but that would forever become his trademark:

The moonwalk!

Believe me when I tell you that everyone watched in awe for the rest of his performance, rendering anything any other Motown great had done until that very minute, completely insignificant. That was all that would be talked about the next day.

The next thing I remember is being in a shopping mall and seeing a crowd gather in front of the electronics store where the big 36" screen TV was about to play the very newest video for his new song, Beat It.

Up until that moment, all we had seen is Michael with the Jacksons or dancing by himself to his own music, but this viedo was awesome. It was the first time you saw a story being told to a great song that included Eddie Van Halen on guitar, and the greatest choreographed dancing to really ewnhance Michael Jackson's own moves. It was tantamount to the space shuttle's first landing on the moon! Moonwalk and all.

Everyone agreed it was the greatest video we had ever seen......until.....
Thriller!!

Thriller was the mother of all music videos and it's debut was highly anticipated by all. That night, millions of families, mine included, sat and waited and then watched in amazement as the King took it to another level.

By mid-1985, you could still not go to a party without at least one Thriller cut being played, be it PYT, Wanna Be Starting Something or any of the aforementioned.
And just so you don't think it was all dance music, he threw in Human Nature (and they said, "Why, why"?).

From then on, the bar had been raised. Everyone else's best was simply the least we expected from Michael.

He had become so popular that Jewish boys were dressing up as him for Purim. You didn't even need much: One glove, a black hat, and for those fortunate few, a red pleather jacket (What? You think anyone is buying it in real leather?).

I could go on and talk about Bad and Dangerous and everything else, but in my fondest memories, that was Michael Jackson at his best: Young, slick, and still black despite the first of many facial configurations.

So, if his music is his legacy, then we have all received a great inheritance.
We will always have the songs.

Farewell dear Michael. You changed the world.

Go in peace.