I Want You Back

So "Beat It" was super, "Billie Jean" spectacular, Thriller a blast. The best song Michael Jackson ever sang, though, was "I Want You Back", his first with his brothers. The way he slid into the chorus bouncing from "ooh" to "baby give me one more chance" was, well, thrilling, and the song just rocked. It rocked better than anything that followed. In my opinion.

Which is not to say that what followed wasn't great. It was, much or most of it. But "I Want You Back" was the best.

What was tragic about Michael Jackson, what ruined it all for me and for many others, was the unbridled, unfettered indulgence of his ego and fantasy.

He was a boy who never had to grow up, who had the potential to make a lot of money for a lot of people who, evidently, didn't have the guts or authority or influence to put a brake on anything the child's feverish imagination dreamt up. He could call his home Neverland, not feel obligated by the orders of a judge, believe that everything he did was the greatest thing anyone ever did.

That's the gist of it, I think, the root from which the weirdness and perversion grew. There was, evidently, no one able, or willing to say: "Whoa there pal. You are NOT the King of Pop."

And it's true: he was the self-proclaimed King of Pop, and there is a huge difference. His enablers in the music industry ( I heard today someone named him "artist of the century" -- what century? who did he beat? Gershwin? Picasso?) and his entourage allowed him to get away with it, to let the child believe he was King of the Beatles, of Elvis, of countless other musicians who have had more of an influence on the music we play and hear, on the way we live, on our attitudes, than Michael Jackson was capable of. He was the King of Promotion, if of anything, and at that he was truly transcendent.

No harm in that, by itself. He was an industry,making all that money for all those people, and, yes, bringing joy and enjoyment to all those others.

But it was promoted, not as promotion, but as fact. Evidently, he believed it himself. And if he could believe he really was the King of Pop, why would he not believe there was nothing he couldn't do? Wasn't his imagination a value in itself ? And so, must it not be unrestrained?

So there he was at the end, perhaps offering himself as The Universal Race and Universal Gender, succeeding only in looking quite ill.

And before that, there he was, marrying not a trophy wife, but a trophy legacy. (Could he or would he ever have married Lisa Marie Rydell? Lisa Marie Perkins?)

To say nothing of the child molestation charges which, I truly believe, he was truly Guilty in our world, merely misunderstood in the world of whose Pop he was King. That is, I don't think he was motivated by lust for children. I think he was just bestowing the light of his love on those who were deprived of that kind of love, though they were the most lovable of the race. In his mind, I think, he was, being generous and compassionate, that's all. For he was, after all, the King of Pop. No one had told him otherwise.

Maybe if, 25 years ago, someone had said "Whoa there pal. You are NOT the King of Pop" that could all have been avoided. Maybe not. But maybe.

So now. Deflate the music a little. Separate it from The King of Pop, and let it be from Michael Jackson. Let him be a singer, songwriter and dancer. Nothing more.

I wish he himself had done that 25 years ago. I think I would have liked him.