加急！！求书〈MOOKWALKER〉！

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the song.) The girl in the song is a composite of people we've been plagued
by over the years. This kind of thing has happened to some of my brothers
and I used to be really amazed by it. I couldn't understand how these girls
could say they were carrying someone's child when it wasn't true. I can't
imagine lying about something like that. Even today there are girls who come
to the gate at our house and say the strangest things, like, "Oh, I'm
Michael's wife," or "I'm just dropping off the keys to our apartment." I
remember one girl who used to drive us completely crazy. I really think that
she believed in her mind that she belonged with me. There was another girl
who claimed I had gone to bed with her, and she made threats. There've been
a couple of serious scuffles at the gate on Hayvenhurst, and they can get
dangerous. People yell into the intercom that Jesus sent them to speak with
me and Gold told them to come - unusual and unsettling things.

A musician knows hit material. It has to feel right. Everything has to feel
in place. It fulfills you and it makes you feel good. You know it when you
hear it. That's how I felt about "Billie Jean." I knew it was going to be
big while I was writing it. I was really absorbed in that song. One day
during a break in a recording session I was riding down the Ventura Freeway
with Nelson Hayes, who was working with me at the time. "Billie Jean" was
going around in my head and that's all I was thinking about. We were getting
off the freeway when a kid on a motorcycle pulls up to us and says, "Your
car's on fire." Suddenly we noticed the smoke and pulled over and the whole
bottom of the Rolls-Royce was on fire. That kid probably saved our lives. If
the car had exploded, we could have been killed. But I was so absorbed by
this tune floating in my head that I didn't even focus on the awful
possibilities until later. Even while we were getting help and finding an
alternate way to get where we were going, I was silently composing
additional material, that's how involved I was with "Billie Jean."

Before I wrote "Beat It," I had been thinking I wanted to write the type of
rock song that I would go out and buy, but also something totally different
from the rock music I was hearing on Top 40 radio at the time.

"Beat It" was written with school kids in mind. I've always loved creating
pieces that will appeal to kids. It's fun to write for them and know what
they like because they're a very demanding audience. You can't fool them.
They are still the audience that's most important to me, because I really
care about them. If they like it, it's a hit, no matter what the charts say.

The lyrics of "Beat It" express something I would do if I were in trouble.
Its message - that we should abhor violence - is something I believe deeply.
It tells kids to be smart and avoid trouble. I don't mean to say you should
turn the other cheek while someone kicks in your teeth, but, unless your
back is against the wall and you have absolutely no choice, just get away
before violence breaks out. If you fight and get killed, you've gained
nothing and lost everything. You're the loser, and so are the people who
love you. That's what "Beat It" is supposed to get across. To me true
bravery is settling differences without a fight and having the wisdom to
make that solution possible.

When Q called Eddie Van Halen, he thought it was a crank call. Because of
the bad connection, Eddie was convinced that the voice on the other end was
a fake. After being told to get lost, Q simply dialed the number again.
Eddie agreed to play the session for us and gave us an incredible guitar
solo on "Beat It."

The newest members of our team were the band Toto, who had the hit records
"Rosanna" and "Africa." They had been well known as individual session
musicians before they came together as a group. Because of their experience,
they knew both sides of studio work, when to be independent, and when to be
cooperative and follow the producer's lead. Steve Porcaro had worked on Off
the Wall during a break as keyboardist for Toto. This time he brought his
band mates with him. Musicologists know that the band's leader David Paich
is the son of Marty Paich, who worked on Ray Charles' great records like "I
Can't Stop Loving You."

I love "Pretty Young Thing," which was written by Quincy and James Ingram.
"Don't Stop Till You Get Enough" had whetted my appetite for the spoken
intro, partly because I didn't think my speaking voice was something my
singing needed to hide. I have always had a soft speaking voice. I haven't
cultivated it or chemically altered it: that's me - take it or leave it.
Imagine what it must be like to be criticised for something about yourself
that is natural and God given. Imagine the hurt of having untruths spread by
the press, of having people wonder if you're telling the truth - defending
yourself because someone decided it would make good copy and would force you
to deny what they said, thus creating another story. I've tried not to
answer such ridiculous charges in the past because that dignifies them and
the people who make them. Remember, the press is a business: Newspapers and
magazines are in business to make money - sometimes at the expense of
accuracy, fairness, and even the truth.

Anyway, in the intro to "Pretty Young Thing," I sounded a bit more confident
than I had on the last album. I liked the "code" in the lyrics, and
"tenderoni" and "sugar fly" were fun rock'n'roll-type words that you
couldn't find in the dictionary. I got Janet and LaToya into the studio for
this one, and they produced the "real" backup vocals. James Ingram and I
programmed an electronic device called a Vocoder, which gave out that E.T.
voice.

"Human Nature" was the song the Toto guys brought to Q, and he and I both
agreed that the song had the prettiest melody we'd heard in a long time,
even more than "Africa." It's music with wings. People asked me about the
lyrics: "Why does he do me that way . . . I like loving this way . . ."
People often think the lyrics you're singing have some special personal
significance for you, which often isn't true. It is important to reach
people, to move them. Sometimes one can do this with the mosaic of the music
melody arrangement and lyrics, sometimes it is the intellectual content of
the lyrics. I was asked a lot of questions about "Muscles," the song I wrote
and produced for Diana Ross. That song fulfilled a lifelong dream of
returning some of the many favours she's done for me. I have always loved
Diana and looked up to her. Muscles, by the way, is the name of my snake.

"The Lady in My Life" was one of the most difficult tracks to cut. We were
used to doing a lot of takes in order to get a vocal as nearly perfect as
possible, but Quincy wasn't satisfied with my work on that song, even after
literally dozens of takes. Finally he took me aside late one session and
told me he wanted me to beg. That's what he said. He wanted me to go back to
the studio and literally beg for it. So I went back in and had them turn off
the studio lights and close the curtain between the studio and the control
room so I wouldn't feel self-conscious. Q started the tape and I begged. The
result is what you hear in the grooves.

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Eventually we came under tremendous pressure from our record company to
finish Thriller . When a record company rushes you, they really rush you,
and they were rushing us hard on Thriller . They said it had to be ready on
a certain date, do or die.

So we went through a period where we were breaking our backs to get the
album done by their deadline. There were a lot of compromises made on the
mixes of various tracks, and on whether certain tracks were even going to be
on the record. We cut so many corners that we almost lost the whole album.

When we finally listened to the tracks we were going to hand in, Thriller
sounded so crappy to me that tears came to my eyes. We had been under
enormous pressure because while we were trying to finish Thriller we also
had been working on The E.T. Storybook , and there had been deadline
pressure on that as well. All these people were fighting back and forth with
each other, and we came to realise that the sad truth was that the mixes of
Thriller didn't work.

We sat there in the studio, Westlake Studio in Hollywood, and listened to
the whole album. I felt devastated. All this pent-up emotion came out. I got
angry and left the room. I told my people, "That's it, we're not releasing
it. Call CBS and tell them they are not getting this album. We are not
releasing it."

Because I knew it was wrong. If we hadn't stopped the process and examined
what we were doing, the record would have been terrible. It never would have
been reviewed the way it was because, as we learned, you can ruin a great
album in the mix. It's like taking a great movie and ruining it in the
ending. You simply have to take your time.

Some things can't be rushed.

There was a bit of yelling and screaming from the record people, but in the
end they were smart and understood. They knew too; it was just that I was
the first to say it. Finally I realised I had to do the whole thing - mix
the entire album - all over again.

We took a couple of days off, drew a deep breath, and stepped back. Then we
came to it fresh, cleaned our ears out, and began to mix two songs a week.
When it was done - boom - it hit us hard. CBS could hear the difference too.
Thriller was a tough project.

It felt so good when we finished. I was so excited I couldn't wait for it to
come out. When we finished, there wasn't any kind of celebration that I can
recall. We didn't go out to a disco or anything. We just rested. I prefer
just being with people I really like anyway. That's my way of celebrating.

The three videos that came out of Thriller - "Billie Jean," "Beat It," and
"Thriller" - were all part of my original concept for the album. I was
determined to present this music as visually as possible. At the time I
would look at what people were doing with video, and I couldn't understand
why so much of it seemed so primitive and weak. I saw kids watching and
accepting boring videos because they had no alternatives. My goal is to do
the best I can in every area, so why work hard on an album and then produce
a terrible video? I wanted something that would glue you to the set,
something you'd want to watch over and over. The idea from the beginning was
to give people quality. So I wanted to be a pioneer in this relatively new
medium and make the best short music movies we could make. I don't even like
to call them videos. On the set I explained that we were doing a film , and
that was how I approached it. I wanted the most talented people in the
business - the best cinematographer, the best director, the best lighting
people we could get. We weren't shooting on videotape; it was 35-mm film. We
were serious.

For the first video, "Billie Jean," I interviewed several directors, looking
for someone who seemed really unique. Most of them didn't present me with
anything that was truly innovative. At the same time I was trying to think
bigger, the record company was giving me a problem on the budget. So I ended
up paying for "Beat It" and "Thriller" because I didn't want to argue with
anybody about money. I own both of those films myself as a result.

"Billie Jean" was done with CBS's money - about $250,000. At the time that
was a lot of money for a video, but it really pleased me that they believed
in me that much. Steve Baron, who directed "Billie Jean," had very
imaginative ideas, although he didn't agree at first that there should be
dancing in it. I felt that people wanted to see dancing. It was great to
dance for the video. That freeze-frame where I go on my toes was
spontaneous; so were many of the other moves.

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"Billie Jean's" video made a big impression on the MTV audience and was a
huge hit.

"Beat It" was directed by Bob Giraldi, who had done a lot of commercials. I
remember being in England when it was decided that "Beat It" would be the
next single released from Thriller , and we had to choose a director for the
video.

I felt "Beat It" should be interpreted literally, the way it was written,
one gang against another on tough urban streets. It had to be rough . That's
what "Beat It" was about.

When I got back to L.A., I saw Bob Giraldi's demo reel and knew that he was
the director I wanted for "Beat It." I loved the way he told a story in his
work, so I talked with him about "Beat It." We went over things, my ideas
and his ideas, and that's how it was created. We played with the storyboard
and moulded and sculpted it.

I had street gangs on my mind when I wrote "Beat It," so we rounded up some
of the toughest gangs in Los Angeles and put them to work on the video. It
turned out to be a good idea, and a great experience for me. We had some
rough kids on that set, tough kids, and they hadn't been to wardrobe. Those
guys in the pool room in the first scene were serious; they were not actors.
That stuff was real.

Now I hadn't been around really tough people all that much, and these guys
were more than a little intimidating at first. But we had security around
and were ready for anything that might happen. Of course we soon realised we
didn't need any of this, that the gang members were mostly humble, sweet,
and kind in their dealings with us. We fed them during breaks, and they all
cleaned up and put their trays away. I came to realise that the whole thing
about being bad and tough is that it's done for recognition. All along these
guys had wanted to be seen and respected, and now we were going to put them
on TV. They loved it. "Hey, look at me, I'm somebody!" And I think that's
really why many of the gangs act the way they do. They're rebels, but rebels
who want attention and respect. Like all of us, they just want to be seen.
And I gave them that chance. For a few days at least they were stars.

They were so wonderful to me - polite, quiet, supportive. After the dance
numbers they'd compliment my work, and I could tell they really meant it.
They wanted a lot of autographs and frequently stood around my trailer.
Whatever they wanted, I gave them: photographs, autographs, tickets for the
Victory tour, anything. They were a nice bunch of guys.

The truth of that experience came out on the screen. The "Beat It" video was
menacing, and you could feel those people's emotions. You felt the
experience of the streets and the reality of their lives. You look at "Beat
It" and know those kids are tough. They were being themselves, and it came
across. It was nothing like actors acting; it was as far from that as
possible. They were being themselves; that feeling you got was their spirit.

I've always wondered if they got the same message from the song that I did.

When Thriller first came out, the record company assumed it would sell a
couple of million copies. In general record companies never believe a new
album will do considerably better than the last one you did. The figure you
either got lucky last time or the number you last sold is the size of your
audience. They usually just ship a couple of million out to the stores to
cover the sales in case you get lucky again.

That's how it usually works, but I wanted to alter their attitude with
Thriller .

One of the people who helped me with Thriller was Frank Dileo. Frank was
vice president for promotion at Epic when I met him. Along with Ron Weisner
and Fred DeMann, Frank was responsible for turning my dream for Thriller
into a reality. Frank heard parts of Thriller for the first time at Westlake
Studio in Hollywood, where much of the album was recorded. He was there with
Freddie DeMann, one of my managers, and Quincy and I played them "Beat It"
and a little bit of "Thriller," which we were still working on. They were
very impressed, and we started to talk seriously about how to "break" this
album wide open.

Frank really worked hard and proved to be my right hand during the years
ahead. His brilliant understanding of the recording industry proved
invaluable. For instance, we released "Beat It" as a single while "Billie
Jean" was still at number one. CBS screamed, "You're crazy. This will kill
¦Billie Jean'" But Frank told them not to worry, that both songs would be
number one and both would be in the Top 10 at the same time. They were.

By the spring of 1983 it was clear that the album was going to go crazy.
Over the top. Every time they released another single, sales of the album
would go even higher.

Then the "Beat It" video took off.

On May 16, 1983, I performed "Billie Jean" on a network telecast in honour
of Motown's twenty-fifth anniversary. Almost fifty million people saw that
show. After that, many things changed.

The Motown 25 show had actually been taped a month earlier, in April. The
whole title was Motown 25: Yesterday, Today, and Forever , and I'm forced to
admit I had to be talked into doing it. I'm glad I did because the show
eventually produced some of the happiest and proudest moments of my life.

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As I mentioned earlier, I said no to the idea at first. I had been asked to
appear as a member of the Jacksons and then do a dance number on my own. But
none of us were Motown artists any longer. There were lengthy debates
between me and my managers, Weisner and DeMann. I thought about how much
Berry Gordy had done for me and the group, but I told my managers and Motown
that I didn't want to go on TV. My whole attitude toward TV is fairly
negative. Eventually Berry came to see me to discuss it. I was editing "Beat
It" at the Motown studio, and someone must have told him I was in the
building. He came down to the studio and talked to me about it at length. I
said, "Okay, but if I do it, I want to do ¦Billie Jean.'" It would have been
the only non-Motown song in the whole show. He told me that's what he wanted
me to do anyway. So we agreed to do a Jacksons' medley, which would include
Jermaine. We were all thrilled.

So I gathered my brothers and rehearsed them for this show. I really worked
them, and it felt nice, a bit like the old days of the Jackson 5. I
choreographed them and rehearsed them for days at our house in Encino,
videotaping every rehearsal so we could watch it later. Jermaine and Marlon
also made their contributions. Next we went to Motown in Pasadena for
rehearsals. We did our act and, even though we reserved our energy and never
went all out at rehearsal, all the people there were clapping and coming
around and watching us. Then I did my "Billie Jean" rehearsal. I just walked
through it because as yet I had nothing planned. I hadn't had time because I
was so busy rehearsing the group.

The next day I called my management office and said, "Please order me a
spy's hat, like a cool fedora - something that a secret agent would wear." I
wanted something sinister and special, a real slouchy kind of hat. I still
didn't have a very good idea of what I was going to do with "Billie Jean."

During the Thriller sessions, I had found a black jacket, and I said, "You
know, someday I'm going to wear this to perform. It was so perfect and so
show business that I wore it on Motown 25 .

But the night before the taping, I still had no idea what I was going to do
with my solo number. So I went down to the kitchen of our house and played
"Billie Jean." Loud. I was in there by myself, the night before the show,
and I pretty much stood there and let the song tell me what to do. I kind of
let the dance create itself. I really let it talk to me; I heard the beat
come in, and I took this spy's hat and started to pose and step, letting the
"Billie Jean" rhythm create the movements. I felt almost compelled to let it
create itself. I couldn't help it. And that - being able to "step back" and
let the dance come through - was a lot of fun.

I had also been practising certain steps and movements, although most of the
performance was actually spontaneous. I had been practising the Moonwalk for
some time, and it dawned on me in our kitchen that I would finally do the
Moonwalk in public on Motown 25.

Now the Moonwalk was already out on the street by this time, but I enhanced
it a little when I did it. It was born as a break-dance step, a "popping"
type of thing that blacks kids had created dancing on the street corners in
the ghetto. Black people are truly innovative dancers; they create many of
the new dances, pure and simple. So I said, "This is my chance to do it,"
and I did it. These three kids taught it to me. They gave me the basics -
and I had been doing it a lot in private. I had practised it together with
certain other steps. All I was really sure of was that on the bridge to
"Billie Jean" I was going to walk backward and forward at the same time,
like walking on the moon.

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One the day of the taping, Motown was running behind schedule. Late. So I
went off and rehearsed by myself. By then I had my spy hat. My brothers
wanted to know what the hat was for, but I told them they'd have to wait and
see. But I did ask Nelson Hayes for a favour. "Nelson - after I do the set
with my brothers and the lights go down, sneak the hat out to me in the
dark. I'll be in the corner, next to the wings, talking to the audience, but
you sneak that hat back there and put it in my hand in the dark."

So after my brothers and I finished performing, I walked over to the side of
the stage and said, "You're beautiful! I'd like to say those were the good
old days; those were magic moments with all my brothers, including Jermaine.
But what I really like" - and Nelson is sneaking the hat into my hand - "are
the newer songs." I turned around and grabbed the hat and went into "Billie
Jean," into that heavy rhythm; I could tell that people in the audience were
really enjoying my performance. My brothers told me they were crowding the
wings watching me with their mouths open, and my parents and sisters were
out there in the audience. But I just remember opening my eyes at the end of
the thing and seeing this sea of people standing up, applauding. And I felt
so many conflicting emotions. I knew I had done my best and felt good, so
good. But at the same time I felt disappointed in myself. I had planned to
do one really long spin and to stop on my toes, suspended for a moment, but
I didn't stay on my toes as long as I wanted. I did the spin and I landed on
one toe. I wanted to just stay there, just freeze there, but it didn't work
quite as I'd planned.

When I got backstage, the people back there were congratulating me. I was
still disappointed about the spin. I had been concentrating so hard and I'm
such a perfectionist. At the same time I knew this was one of the happiest
moments of my life. I knew that for the first time my brothers had really
gotten a chance to watch me and see what I was doing, how I was evolving.
After the performance, each of them hugged and kissed me backstage. They had
never done that before, and I felt happy for all of us. It was so wonderful
when they kissed me like that. I loved it! I mean, we hug all the time. My
whole family embraces a lot, except for my father. He's the only one who
doesn't. Whenever the rest of us see each other, we embrace, but when they
all kissed me that night, I felt as if I had been blessed by them.

The performance was still gnawing at me, and I wasn't satisfied until a
little boy came up to me backstage. He was about ten years old and was
wearing a tuxedo. He looked up at me with stars in his eyes, frozen where he
stood, and said, "Man, who ever taught you to dance like that?" I kind of
laughed and said, "Practice, I guess." And this boy was looking at me,
awestruck. I walked away, and for the first time that evening I felt really
good about what I had accomplished that night. I said to myself, I must have
done really well because children are honest. When that kid said what he
did, I really felt that I had done a good job. I was so moved by the whole
experience that I went right home and wrote down everything which had
happened that night. My entry ended with my encounter with the child.

The day after the Motown 25 show, Fred Astaire called me on the telephone.
He said - these are his exact words - "You're a hell of a mover. Man, you
really put them on their asses last night." That's what Fred Astaire said to
me. I thanked him. Then he said, "You're an angry dancer. I'm the same way.
I used to do the same thing with my cane."

I had met him once or twice in the past, but this was the first time he had
ever called me. He went on to say, "I watched the special last night; I
taped it and I watched it again this morning. You're a hell of a mover."

It was the greatest compliment I had ever received in my life, and the only
one I had ever wanted to believe. For Fred Astaire to tell me that meant
more to me than anything. Later my performance was nominated for an Emmy
Award in a musical category, but I lost to Leontyne Price. It didn't matter.
Fred Astaire had told me things I would never forget - that was my reward.
Later he invited me to his house, and there were more compliments from him
until I really blushed. He went over my "Billie Jean" performance, step by
step. The great choreographer Hermes Pan, who had choreographed Fred's
dances in the movies, came over, and I showed them how to Moonwalk and
demonstrated some other steps that really interested them.

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Not long after that Gene Kelly came by my house to visit and also said he
liked my dancing. It was a fantastic experience, that show, because I felt I
had been inducted into an informal fraternity of dancers, and I felt so
honoured because these were the people I most admired in the world.

Right after Motown 25 my family read a lot of stuff in the press about my
being "the new Sinatra" and as "exciting as Elvis" - that kind of thing. It
was very nice to hear, but I knew the press could be so fickle. One week
they love you, and the next week they act like you're rubbish. Later I gave
the glittery black jacket I wore on Motown 25 to Sammy Davis as a present.
He said he was going to do a takeoff of me on stage, and I said, "Here, you
want to wear this when you do it?" He was so happy. I love Sammy. He's such
a fine man and a real showman. One of the best. I had been wearing a single
glove for years before Thriller . I felt that one glove was cool. Wearing
two gloves seemed so ordinary, but a single glove was different and was
definitely a look. But I've long believed that thinking too much about your
look is one of the biggest mistakes you can make, because an artist should
let his style evolve naturally, spontaneously. You can't think about these
things; you have to feel your way into them.

I actually had been wearing the glove for a long time, but it hadn't gotten
a lot of attention until all of a sudden it hit with Thriller in 1983. I was
wearing it on some of the old tours back in the 1970s, and I wore one glove
during the Off the Wall tour and on the cover of the live album that came
out afterward.

It's so show business that one glove. I love wearing it. Once, by
coincidence, I wore a black glove to the American Music Awards ceremony,
which happened to fall on Martin Luther King, Jr.'s birthday. Funny how
things happen sometimes.

I admit that I love starting trends, but I never thought wearing white socks
was going to catch on. Not too long ago it was considered extremely square
to wear white socks. It was cool in the 1950s, but in the ¦60s and ¦70s you
wouldn't be caught dead in white socks. It was too square to even consider -
for most people.

But I never stopped wearing them. Ever. My brothers would call me a dip, but
I didn't care. My brother Jermaine would get upset and call my mother,
"Mother, Michael's wearing his white socks again. Can't you do something?
Talk to him." He would complain bitterly. They'd all tell me I was a
goofball. But I still wore my white socks, and now it's cool again. Those
white socks must have caught on just to spite Jermaine. I get tickled when I
think about it. After Thriller came out, it even became okay to wear your
pants high around your ankles again.

My attitude is if fashion says it's forbidden, I'm going to do it.

When I'm at home, I don't like to dress up. I wear anything that's handy. I
used to spend days in my pyjamas. I like flannel shirts, old sweaters and
slacks, simple clothes.

When I go out, I dress up in sharper, brighter, more tailored clothes, but
around the house and in the studio anything goes. I don't wear much
jewellery - usually none - because it gets in my way. Occasionally people
give me gifts of jewellery and I treasure them for the sentiment, but
usually I just put them away somewhere. Some of it has been stolen. Jackie
Gleason gave me a beautiful ring. He took it off his finger and gave it to
me. It was stolen and I miss it, but it doesn't really bother me because the
gesture meant more than anything else, and that can't be taken from me. The
ring was just a material thing.

What really makes me happy, what I love is performing and creating. I really
don't care about all the material trappings. I love to put my soul into
something and have people accept it and like it. That's a wonderful feeling.

I appreciate art for that reason. I'm a great admirer of Michelangelo and of
how he poured his soul into his work. He knew in his heart that one day he
would die, but that the work he did would live on. You can tell he painted
the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel with all his soul. At one point he even
destroyed it and did it over because he wanted it to be perfect. He said,
"If the wine is sour, pour it out."

I can look at a painting and lose myself. It pulls you in, all the pathos
and drama. It communicates with you. You can sense what the artist was
feeling. I feel the same way about photography. A poignant or strong
photograph can speak volumes.

As I said earlier, there were many changes in my life in the aftermath of
Motown 25 . We were told that forty-seven million people watched that show,
and apparently many of them went out and bought Thriller . By the fall of
1983 the album had sold eight million copies, eclipsing, by far, CBS's
expectations for the successor to Off the Wall . At that point Frank Dileo
said he'd like to see us produce another video or short film.

It was clear to us that the next single and video should be "Thriller," a
long track that had plenty of material for a brilliant director to play
with. As soon as the decision was made, I knew who I wanted to have direct
it. The year before I had seen a horror film called An American Werewolf in
London , and I knew that the man who made it, John Landis, would be perfect
for "Thriller," since our concept for the video featured the same kind of
transformations that happened to his character.

So we contacted John Landis and asked him to direct. He agreed and submitted
his budget, and we went to work. The technical details of this film were so
awesome that I soon got a call from John Branca, my attorney and one of my
closest and most valued advisers. John had been working with me ever since
the Off the Wall days; in fact he even helped me out by donning many hats
and functioning in several capacities when I had no manager after Thriller
was released. He's one of those extremely talented, capable men who can do
anything. Anyway, John was in a panic because it had become obvious to him
that the original budget for the "Thriller" video was going to double. I was
paying for this project myself, so the money for the budget overruns was
coming out of my pocket.

But at this point John came up with a great idea. He suggested we make a
separate video, financed by somebody else, about the making of the
"Thriller" video. It seemed odd that no one had ever done this before. We
felt sure it would be an interesting documentary, and at the same time it
would help pay for our doubled project. It didn't take John long to put this
deal together. He got MTV and the Showtime cable network to put up the cash,
and Vestron released the video after "Thriller" aired.

The success of The Making of Thriller was a bit of a shock to all of us. In
its cassette form it sold about a million copies by itself. Even now, it
holds the record as the best-selling music video of all time.

The "Thriller" film was ready in late 1983. We released it in February and
it made its debut on MTV. Epic released "Thriller" as a single and sales of
the album went crazy. According to statistics, the "Thriller" film and the
release of the single resulted in fourteen million additional album and tape
sales within a six-month period. At one point in 1984, we were selling a
million records a week.

I'm still stunned by this response. By the time we finally closed down the
Thriller campaign a year later, the album was at the thirty-two million
mark. Today sales are at forty million. A dream come true.

During this period I changed my management as well. My contract with Weisner
and DeMann had expired in early 1983. My father was no longer representing
me and I was looking at various people. One day I was at the Beverly Hills
Hotel, visiting Frank Dileo, and I asked him if he had any interest in
leaving Epic and managing my career.

Frank asked me to think about it some more and if I was certain to call him
back on Friday.

Needless to say, I called him back.

The success of Thriller really hit me in 1984, when the album received a
gratifying number of nominations for the American Music Awards and the
Grammy Awards. I remember feeling an overwhelming rush of jubilation. I was
whooping with joy and dancing around the house, screaming. When the album
was certified as the best-selling album of all time, I couldn't believe it.
Quincy Jones was yelling, "Bust open the champagne!" We were all in a state.
Man! What a feeling! To work so hard on something, to give so much and to
succeed! Everyone involved with Thriller was floating on air. It was
wonderful.

I imagined that I felt like a long-distance runner must feel when breaking
the tape at the finish line. I would think of an athlete, running as hard
and as fast as he can. Finally he gets close to the finish line and his
chest hits that ribbon and the crowd is soaring with him. And I'm not even
into sports!

But I identify with that person because I know how hard he's trained and I
know how much that moment means to him. Perhaps a whole life has been
devoted to this endeavour, this one moment. And then he wins. That's the
realisation of a dream. That's powerful stuff. I can share that feeling
because I know.

featscar

One of the side effects of the Thriller period was to make me weary of
constantly being in the public eye. Because of this, I resolved to lead a
quieter, more private life. I was still quite shy about my appearance. You
must remember that I had been a child star and when you grow up under that
kind of scrutiny people don't want you to change, to get older and look
different. When I first became well known, I had a lot of baby fat and a
very round, chubby face. That roundness stayed with me until several years
ago when I changed my diet and stopped eating beef, chicken, pork, and fish,
as well as certain fattening foods. I just wanted to look better, live
better, and be healthier. Gradually, as I lost weight, my face took on its
present shape and the press started accusing me of surgically altering my
appearance, beyond the nose job I freely admitted I had, like many
performers and film stars. They would take an old picture from adolescence
of high school, and compare it to a current photograph. In the old picture
my face would be round and pudgy. I'd have an Afro, and the picture would be
badly lit. The new picture would show a much older, more mature face. I've
got a different hairstyle and a different nose. Also, the photographer's
lighting is excellent in the recent photographs. It's really not fair to
make such comparisons. They have said I had bone surgery done on my face. It
seems strange to me that people would jump to that conclusion and I thought
it was very unfair.

Judy Garland and Jean Harlow and many others have had their noses done. My
problem is that as a child star people got used to seeing me look one way.

I'd like to set the record straight right now. I have never had my cheeks
altered or my eyes altered. I have not had my lips thinned, nor have I had
dermabrasion or a skin peel. All of these charges are ridiculous. If they
were true, I would say so, but they aren't. I have had my nose altered twice
and I recently added a cleft to my chin, but that is it. Period. I don't
care what anyone else says - it's my face and I know.

I'm a vegetarian now and I'm so much thinner. I've been on a strict diet for
years . I feel better than I ever have, healthier and more energetic. I
don't understand why the press is so interested in speculating about my
appearance anyway. What does my face have to do with my music or my dancing?

The other day a man asked me if I was happy. And I answered, "I don't think
I'm ever totally happy." I'm one of the hardest people to satisfy, but at
the same time, I'm aware of how much I have to be thankful for and I am
truly appreciative that I have my health and the love of my family and
friends.

I'm also easily embarrassed. The night I won eight American Music Awards, I
accepted them wearing my shades on the network broadcast. Katharine Hepburn
called me up and congratulated me, but she gave me a hard time because of
the sunglasses. "Your fans want to see your eyes," she scolded me. "You're
cheating them." The following month, February 1984, at the Grammy show,
Thriller had walked off with seven Grammy Awards and looked like it was
going to win as eighth. All evening I had been going up to the podium and
collecting awards with my sunglasses on. Finally, when Thriller won for Best
Album, I went up to accept it, took off my glasses, and stared into the
camera. "Katherine Hepburn," I said, "this is for you." I knew she was
watching and she was.

You have to have some fun.

featscar

Chapter Six - All You Need Is Love
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I had planned to spend most of 1984 working on some movie ideas I had, but
those plans got sidetracked. First, in January, I was burned on the set of a
Pepsi commercial I was shooting with my brothers.

The reason for the fire was stupidity, pure and simple. We were shooting at
night and I was supposed to come down a staircase with magnesium flash bombs
going off on either side of me and just behind me. It seemed so simple. I
was to walk down the stairs and these bombs would blow up behind me. We did
several takes that were wonderfully timed. The lightning effects from the
bombs were great. Only later did I find out that these bombs were only two
feet away from either side of my head, which was a total disregard of the
safety regulations. I was supposed to stand in the middle of a magnesium
explosion, two feet on either side.

Then Bob Giraldi, the director, came to me and said, "Michael, you're going
down too early. We want to see you up there, up on the stairs. When the
lights come on, we want to reveal that you're there, so wait ."

So I waited, the bombs went off on either side of my head, and the sparks
set my hair on fire. I was dancing down this ramp and turning around,
spinning, not knowing I was on fire. Suddenly I felt my hands reflexively
going to my head in an attempt to smother the flames. I fell down and just
tried to shake the flames out. Jermaine turned around and saw me on the
ground, just after the explosions had gone off, and he thought I had been
shot by someone in the crowd - because we were shooting in front of a big
audience. That's what it looked like to him.

Miko Brando, who works for me, was the first person to reach me. After that,
it was chaos. It was crazy. No film could properly capture the drama of what
went on that night. The crowd was screaming. Someone shouted, "Get some
ice!" There were frantic running sounds. People were yelling, "Oh no!" The
emergency truck came up and before they put in I saw the Pepsi executives
huddled together in a corner, looking terrified. I remember the medical
people putting me on a cot and the guys from Pepsi were so scared they
couldn't even bring themselves to check on me.

Meanwhile, I was kind of detached, despite the terrible pain. I was watching
all the drama unfold. Later they told me I was in shock, but I remember
enjoying the ride to the hospital because I never thought I'd ride in an
ambulance with the sirens wailing. It was one of those things I had always
wanted to do when I was growing up. When we got there, they told me there
were news crews outside, so I asked for my glove. There's a famous shot of
me waving from the stretcher with my glove on.

Later one on the doctors told me that it was a miracle I was alive. One of
the firemen had mentioned that in most cases your clothes catch on fire, in
which case your whole face can be disfigured or you can die. That's it. I
had third-degree burns on the back of my head that almost went through to my
skull, so I had a lot of problems with it, but I was very lucky.

What we now know is that the incident created a lot of publicity for the
commercial. They sold more Pepsi than ever before. And they came back to me
later and offered me the biggest commercial endorsement fee in history. It
was so unprecedented that it went into The Guinness Book of World Records.
Pepsi and I worked together on another commercial, called "The Kid," and I
gave them problems by limiting the shots of me because I felt the shots they
were asking for didn't work well. Later, when the commercial was a success,
they told me I had been right.

I still remember how scared those Pepsi executives looked the night of the
fire. They thought that my getting burned would leave a bad taste in the
mouth of every every kid in America who drank Pepsi. They knew I could have
sued them and I could have, but I was real nice about it. Real nice. They
gave me $1,500,000 which I immediately donated to the Michael Jackson Burn
Center. I wanted to do something because I was so moved by the other burn
patients I met while I was in the hospital.

Then there was the Victory tour. I did fifty-five shows with my brothers
over the course of five months.

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I didn't want to go on the Victory tour and I fought against it. I felt the
wisest thing for me would be not to do the tour, but my brothers wanted to
do it and I did it for them. So I told myself that since I was committed to
doing this, I might as well put my soul into it.

When it came down to the actual tour, I was outvoted on a number of issues,
but you don't think when you're onstage, you just deliver. My goal for the
Victory tour was to give each performance everything I could. I hoped people
might come to see me who didn't even like me. I hoped they might hear about
the show and want to see what's going on. I wanted incredible word-of-mouth
response to the show so a wide range of people would come and see us. Word
of mouth is the best publicity. Nothing beats it. If someone I trust comes
to me and tells me something is great, I'm sold.

I felt very powerful in those days of Victory. I felt on top of the world. I
felt determined. That tour was like: "We're a mountain. We've come to share
our music with you. We have something we want to tell you." At the beginning
of the show, we rose out of the stage and came down these stairs. The
opening was dramatic and bright and captured the whole feeling of the show.
When the lights came on and they saw us, the roof would come off the place.

It was a nice feeling, playing with my brothers again. It gave us a chance
to relive our days as the Jackson 5 and the Jacksons. We were all together
again. Jermaine had come back and we were riding a wave of popularity. It
was the biggest tour any group had ever done, in huge outdoor stadiums. But
I was disappointed with the tour from the beginning. I had wanted to move
the world like it had never been moved. I wanted to present something that
would make people say, "Wow! That's wonderful!" The response we got was
wonderful and the fans were great, but I became unhappy with our show. I
didn't have the time or the opportunity to perfect it the way I wanted to. I
was disappointed in the staging of "Billie Jean." I wanted it to be so much
more than it was. I didn't like the lighting and I never got my steps quite
the way I wanted them. It killed me to have to accept these things and
settle for doing it the way I did.

There've been times right before a show when certain things were bothering
me - business or personal problems. I would think, "I don't know how to go
through with this. I don't know how I'm going to get through the show. I
can't perform like this."

But once I get to the side of the stage, something happens. The rhythm
starts and the lights hit me and the problems disappear. This has happened
so many times. The thrill of performing just takes me over. It's like God
saying, "Yes, you can. Yes, you can. Just wait. Wait till you hear this.
Wait till you see this." And the backbeat gets in my backbone and it
vibrates and it just takes me. Sometimes I almost lose control and the
musicians say, "What is he doing?" and they start following me. You change
the whole schedule of a piece. You stop and you just take over from scratch
and do a whole other thing. The song takes you in another direction.

There was a part of the show on the Victory tour where I was doing this
scatting theme and the audience was repeating what I said. I'd say, "Da, de,
da, de" and they'd say, "Da, de, da, de." There've been times when I've done
that and they would start stomping. And when the whole audience is doing
that, it sounds like an earthquake. Oh! It's a great feeling to be able to
do that with all those people - whole stadiums - and they're all doing the
same thing you're doing. It's the greatest feeling in the world. You look
out in the audience and see toddlers and teens and grandparents and people
in their twenties and thirties. Everybody is swaying, their hands are up,
and they're all singing. You ask that the house lights come on and you see
their faces and you say, "Hold hands" and they hold hands and you say,
"Stand up" or "Clap" and they do. They're enjoying themselves and they'll
whatever you tell them. They love it and it's so beautiful - all the races
of people are together doing this. At times like that I say, "Look around
you. Look at yourselves. Look. Look around you. Look at what you have done."
Oh, it's so beautiful. Very powerful. Those are great moments.

The Victory tour was my first chance to be exposed to the Michael Jackson
fans since Thriller had come out two years earlier. There were some strange
reactions. I'd bump into people in hallways and they'd go, "Naw, that can't
be him. He wouldn't be here." I was baffled and I'd ask myself, "Why
wouldn't I? I'm on earth somewhere . I've got to be somewhere at any given
time. Why not here?" Some fans imagine you to be almost an illusion, this
thing that doesn't exist. When they see you, they feel it's a miracle or
something. I've had fans ask me if I use the bathroom. I mean, it gets
embarrassing. They just lose touch with the fact that you're like them
because they get so excited. But I can understand it because I'd feel the
same way if, for instance, I could have met Walt Disney or Charlie Chaplin.

Kansas City opened the tour. It was Victory's first night. We were walking
by the hotel pool in the evening and Frank Dileo lost his balance and fell
in. People saw this and started to get excited. Some of us were kind of
embarrassed, but I was laughing. He wasn't hurt and he looked so surprised.
We jumped over a low wall and found ourselves on the street without any
security. People didn't seem to be able to believe that we were just walking
around on the street like that. They gave us a wide berth.

featscar

Later when we returned to the hotel, Bill Bray, who has headed my security
team since I was a child, just shook his head and laughed as we recounted
our adventures.

Bill is very careful and immensely professional in his job, but he doesn't
worry about things after the fact. He travels with me everywhere and
occasionally he's my only companion on short trips. I can't imagine life
without Bi he's warm and funny and absolutely in love with life. He's a
great man.

When the tour was in Washington, D.C., I was out on our hotel balcony with
Frank, who has a great sense of humour and enjoys playing pranks himself. We
were teasing one another and I started pulling $100 bills from his pockets
and throwing them to people who were walking down below. This almost caused
a riot. He was trying to stop me, but we were both laughing. It reminded me
of the pranks my brothers and I used to pull on tour. Frank sent our
security people downstairs to try and find any undiscovered money in the
bushes.

In Jacksonville, the local police almost killed us in a traffic accident
during the four-block drive from the hotel to the stadium. Later, in another
part of Florida, when the old tour boredom set in that I described earlier,
I played a little trick on Frank. I asked him to come up to my suite and
when he came in I offered him some watermelon, which was lying on a table
across the room. Frank went over to pick up a piece and tripped over my boa
constrictor, Muscles, who was on the road with me. Muscles is harmless, but
Frank hates snakes and proceeded to scream and yell. I started chasing him
around the room with the boa. Frank got the upper hand, however. He
panicked, ran from the room, and grabbed the security guard's gun. He was
going to shoot Muscles, but the guard calmed him down. Later he said all he
could think of was: "I've got to get that snake." I've found that a lot of
tough men are afraid of snakes.

We were locked in hotels all over America, just like in the old days. Me and
Jermaine or me and Randy would get up to our old tricks, taking buckets of
water and pouring them off hotel balconies onto people eating in the atriums
far below. We were up so high the water was just mist by the time it reached
them. It was just like the old days, bored in the hotels, locked away from
fans for our own protection, unable to go anywhere without massive security.

But there were a lot of days that were fun too. We had a lot of time off on
that tour and we got to take five little vacations to Disney World. Once,
when we were staying in the hotel there, an amazing thing happened. I'll
never forget it. I was on a balcony where we could see a big area. There
were all these people. It was so crowded that people were bumping into each
other. Someone in that crowd recognised me and started screaming my name.
Thousands of people began chanting, "Michael! Michael!" and it was echoing
all over the park. The chanting continued until finally it was so loud that
if I hadn't acknowledged it, it would have been rude. As soon as I did,
everybody started screaming. I said, "Oh, this is so beautiful. I've got it
so good." All the work I'd put in on Thriller , my crying and believing in
my dreams and working on those songs and falling asleep near the microphone
stand because I was so tired, all of it was repaid by this display of
affection.

I've seen times where I'd walk into a theatre to see a play and everybody
would just start applauding. Just because they're glad that I happen to be
there. At moments like that, I feel so honoured and so happy. It makes all
the work seem worthwhile.

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The Victory tour was originally going to be called "The Final Curtain"
because we all realised it was going to be the last tour we did together.
But we decided not to put the emphasis on that.

I enjoyed the tour. I knew it would be a long road; in the end, it was
probably too long. The best part of it for me was seeing the children in the
audience. Every night there would be a number of them who had gotten all
dressed up. They were so excited. I was truly inspired by the kids on that
tour, kids of all ethnic groups and ages. It's been my dream since I was a
child to somehow unite people of the world through love and music. I still
get goose bumps when I hear the Beatles sing "All You Need Is Love." I've
always wished that song could be an anthem for the world.

I loved the shows we did in Miami and all the time we spent there. Colorado
was great too. We got to spend some time relaxing up at the Caribou Ranch.
And New York was really something, as it always is. Emmanuel Lewis came to
the show, as did Yoko, Sean Lennon, Brooke, a lot of good friends. Thinking
back, the offstage moments stand out for me as much as the concerts
themselves. I found I could lose myself in some of those shows. I remember
swinging my jackets around and slinging them into the audience. The wardrobe
people would get annoyed at me and I'd say honestly, "I'm sorry but I can't
help it. I can't control myself. Something takes over and I know I shouldn't
do it, but you just can't control it. There's a spirit of joy and communion
that gets inside you and you want to just let it all out."

We were on the Victory tour when we learned that my sister Janet had gotten
married. Everybody was afraid to tell me because I am so close to Janet. I
was shocked. I feel very protective of her. Quincy Jones's little daughter
was the one to break the news to me.

I've always enjoyed a wonderfully close relationship with all three of my
beautiful sisters. LaToya is really a wonderful person. She's very easy to
be around, but she can be funny, too. You go in her room and you can't sit
on the couch, you can't sit on the bed, you can't walk on the carpet. This
is the truth. She will run you out of her room. She wants everything to be
perfect in there. I say, "You have to walk on the carpet sometimes," but she
doesn't want prints on it. If you cough at the table, she covers her plate.
If you sneeze, forget it. That's how she is. Mother says she used to be that
way herself.

Janet, on the other hand, was always a tomboy. She has been my best friend
in the family for the longest time. That's why it killed me to see her go
off and get married. We did everything together. We shared the same
interests, the same sense of humour. When we were younger, we'd get up on
"free" mornings and write out a whole schedule for the day. Usually it would
read something like this: GET UP, FEED THE ANIMALS, HAVE BREAKFAST, WATCH
SOME CARTOONS, GO TO THE MOVIES, GO TO A RESTAURANT, GO TO ANOTHER
MOVIE, GO
HOME AND GO SWIMMING. That was our idea of a great day. In the evening, we'd
look back at the list and think about all the fun we'd had.

It was great being with Janet because we didn't have to worry that one of us
wouldn't like something. We liked the same things. We'd sometimes read to
each other. She was like my twin.

LaToya are I are very different, on the other hand. She won't even feed the
animals; the smell alone drives her away. And forget going to the movies.
She doesn't understand what I see in Star Wars or Close Encounters or Jaws .
Our tastes in films are miles apart.

When Janet was around and I wasn't working on something, we'd be
inseparable. But I knew we'd eventually develop separate interests and
attachments. It was inevitable.

Her marriage didn't last long, unfortunately, but now she's happy again. I
do think that marriage can be a wonderful thing if it's right for the two
people involved. I believe in love - very much so - how can you not believe
after you've experienced it? I believe in relationships. One day I know I'll
find the right woman and get married myself. I often look forward to having
children; in fact, it would be nice to have a big family, since I come from
such a large one myself. In my fantasy about having a large family, I
imagine myself with thirteen children.

Right now, my work still takes up most of my time and most of my emotional
life. I work all the time. I love creating and coming up with new projects.
As for the future, Que sera, sera . Time will tell. It would be hard for me
to be that dependent on somebody else, but I can imagine it if I try.
There's so much I want to do and so much work to be done.

I can't help but pick up on some of the criticism levelled at me at times.
Journalists seem willing to say anything to sell a paper. They say I've had
my eyes widened, that I want to look more white. More white? What kind of
statement is that? I didn't invent plastic surgery. It's been around for a
long time. A lot of very fine, very nice people have had plastic surgery. No
one writes about their surgery and levies such criticism at them. It's not
fair. Most of what they print is a fabrication. It's enough to make you want
to ask, "What happened to truth? Did it go out of style?"

In the end, the most important thing is to be true to yourself and those you
love and work hard. I mean, work like there's no tomorrow. Train. Strive. I
mean, really train and cultivate your talent to the highest degree. Be the
best at what you do. Get to know more about your field than anybody alive.
Use the tools of your trade, if it's books or a floor to dance on or a body
of water to swim in. Whatever it is, it's yours. That's what I've always
tried to remember. I thought about it a lot on the Victory tour.

In the end, I felt I touched a lot of people on the Victory tour. Not
exactly in the way I wanted to, but I felt that would happen later, when I
was off on my own, performing and making movies. I donated all my
performance money to charity, including funds for the burn centre that
helped me after the fire on the Pepsi set. We donated more than four million
dollars that year. For me, that was what the Victory tour was all about -
giving back.

After my experience with the Victory tour, I started making my career
decisions with more care than ever. I had learned a lesson on an earlier
tour, which I remembered vividly during the difficulties with Victory.

We did a tour years ago with this guy who ripped us off, but he taught me
something. He said, "Listen, all these people work for you . You don't work
for them . You are paying them." He kept telling me that. Finally I began to
understand what he meant. It was an entirely new concept for me because at
Motown everything was done for us. Other people made our decisions. I've
been mentally scarred by that experience. "You've got to wear this. You've
got to do these songs. You are going here. You are going to do this
interview and that TV show." That's how it went. We couldn't say anything.
When he told me I was in control, I finally woke up. I realised he was
right.

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Despite everything, I owe that guy a debt of gratitude.

Captain Eo came about because the Disney Studios wanted me to come up with a
new ride for the parks. They said they didn't care what I did, as long as it
was something creative. I had this big meeting with them, and during the
course of the afternoon I told them that Walt Disney was a hero of mine and
that I was very interested in Disney's history and philosophy. I wanted to
do something with that Mr. Disney himself would have approved. I had read a
number of books about Walt Disney and his creative empire, and it was very
important to me to do things as he would have. In the end, they asked me to
do a movie and I agreed. I told them I would like to work with George Lucas
and Steven Spielberg. It turned out Steven was busy, so George brought
Francis Ford Coppola and that was the Captain Eo team.

I flew up to San Francisco a couple of times to visit George at his place,
Skywalker Ranch, and gradually we came up with a scenario for a short film
that would incorporate every recent advance in 3-D technology. Caption Eo
would look and feel like the audience was in a spaceship, along for the
ride.

Captain Eo is about transformation and the way music can help to change the
world. George came up with the name Captain Eo. (Eo is Greek for "dawn.")
The story is about a young guy who goes on a mission to this miserable
planet run by an evil queen. He is entrusted with the responsibility of
bringing the inhabitants light and beauty. It's a great celebration of good
over evil.

Working on Captain Eo reinforced all the positive feelings I've had about
working in film and made me realise more than ever that movies are where my
future path probably lies. I love the movies and have since I was real
little. For two hours you can be transported to another place. Films can
take you anywhere. That's what I like. I can sit down and say, "Okay,
nothing else exists right now. Take me to a place that's wonderful and make
me forget about my pressures and my worries and day-to-day schedule."

I also love to be in front of a 35 mm camera. I used to hear my brothers
say, "I'll be glad when this shoot is over," and I couldn't understand why
they weren't enjoying it. I would be watching, trying to learn, seeing what
the director was trying to get, what the light man was doing. I wanted to
know where the light was coming from and why the director was doing a scene
so many times. I enjoyed hearing about the changes being made in the script.
It's all part of what I consider my ongoing education in films. Pioneering
new ideas is so exciting to me and the movie industry seems to be suffering
right now from a dearth of ideas; so many people are doing the same things.
The big studios remind me of the way Motown was acting when we were having
disagreements with them: They want easy answers, they want their people to
do formula stuff - sure bets - only the public gets bored, of course. So
many of them are doing the same old corny stuff. George Lucas and Steven
Spielberg are exceptions.

I'm going to try to make some changes. I'm going to try to change things
around someday. Marlon Brando has become a very close and trusted friend of
mine. I can't tell you how much he's taught me. We sit and talk for hours.
He has told me a great deal about the movies. He is such a wonderful actor
and he has worked with so many giants in the industry - from other actors to
cameramen. He has a respect for the artistic value of filmmaking that leaves
me in awe. He's like a father to me.

So these days movies are my number one dream, but I have a lot of other
dreams too.

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In early 1985 we cut "We Are the World" at an all-night all-star recording
session that was held after the ceremony for the American Music Awards. I
wrote the song with Lionel Richie after seeing the appalling news footage of
starving people in Ethiopia and the Sudan.

Around that time, I used to ask my sister Janet to follow me into a room
with interesting acoustics, like a closet of the bathroom, and I'd sing to
her, just a note, a rhythm of a note. It wouldn't be a lyric or anything;
I'd just hum from the bottom of my throat. I'd say, "Janet, what do you see?
What do you see when you hear this sound?" And this time she said, "Dying
children in Africa."

"You're right. That's what I was dictating from my soul."

And she said, "You're talking about Africa. You're talking about dying
children." That's where "We Are the World" came from. We'd go in a dark room
and I'd sing notes to her. To my mind, that's what singers should be able to
do. We should be able to perform and be effective, even if it's in a dark
room. We've lost a lot because of TV. You should be able to move people
without all that advanced technology, without pictures, using only sound.

I've been performing for as long as I can remember. I know a lot of secrets,
a lot of things like that.

I think that "We Are the World" is a very spiritual song, but spiritual in a
special sense. I was proud to be a part of that song and to be one of the
musicians there that night. We were united by our desire to make a
difference. It made the world a better place for us and it made a difference
to the starving people we wanted to help.

We collected some Grammy Awards and began to hear easy-listening versions of
"We Are the World" in elevators along with "Billie Jean." Since first
writing it, I had thought that song should be sung by children. When I
finally heard children singing it on producer George Duke's version, I
almost cried. It's the best version I've heard.

After "We Are the World," I again decided to retreat from public view. For
two and a half years I devoted most of my time to recording the follow-up to
Thriller , the album that came to be titled Bad .

Why did it take so long to make Bad? The answer is that Quincy and I decided
that this album should be as close to perfect as humanly possible. A
perfectionist has to take his time; he shapes and he moulds and he sculpts
that thing until it's perfect. He can't let it go before he's satisfied; he
can't.

If it's not right, you throw it away and do it over. You work that thing
till it's just right. When it's as perfect as you can make it, you put it

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out there. Really, you've got to get it to where it's just right; that's the
secret. That's the difference between a number thirty record and a number
one record that stays number one for weeks. It's got to be good. If it is,
it stays up there and the whole world wonders when it's going to come down.

I have a hard time explaining how Quincy Jones and I work together on making
an album. What I do is, I write the songs and do the music and then Quincy
brings out the best in me. That's the only way I can explain it. Quincy will
listen and make changes. He'll say, "Michael, you should put a change in
there," and I'll write a change. And he'll guide me on and help me create
and help me invent and work on new sounds, new kinds of music.

And we fight. During the Bad sessions we disagreed on some things. If we
struggle at all, it's about new stuff, the latest technology. I'll say,
"Quincy, you know, music changes all the time." I want the latest drum
sounds that people are doing. I want to go beyond the latest thing. And then
we go ahead and make the best record that we can.

We don't ever try to pander to the fans. We just try to play on the quality
of the song. People will not buy junk. They'll only buy what they like. If
you take all the trouble to get in your car, go to the record store, and put
your money on the counter, you've got to really like what you're going to
buy. You don't say, "I'll put a country song on here for the country market,
a rock song for that market," and so on. I feel close to all different
styles of music. I love some rock songs and some country songs and some pop
and all the old rock ´n' roll records.

We did go after a rock type of song with "Beat It." We got Eddie Van Halen
to play guitar because we knew he'd do the best job. Albums should be for
all races, all tastes in music.

In the end, many songs kind of create themselves. You just say, "This is it.
This is how it's going to be." Of course, not every song is going to have a
great dance tempo. It's like "Rock with You" isn't a great dance tempo. It
was meant for the old dance the Rock. But it's not a "Don't Stop" or
"Working Day and Night" rhythm or a "Startin' Something" type of thing -
something you can play with on the dance floor and get sweaty, working out
to.

We worked on Bad for a long time. Years. In the end, it was worth it because
we were satisfied with what we had achieved, but it was difficult too. There
was a lot of tension because we felt we were competing with ourselves. It's
very hard to create something when you feel like you're in competition with
yourself because no matter how you look at it, people are always going to
compare Bad to Thriller . You can always say, "Aw, forget Thriller ," but no
one ever will.

I think I have a slight advantage in all of this because I always do my best
work under pressure.

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"Bad" is a song about the street. It's about this kid from a bad
neighbourhood who gets to go away to a private school. He comes back to the
old neighbourhood when he's on a break from school and the kids from the
neighbourhood start giving him trouble. He sings, "I'm bad, you're bad,
who's bad, who's the best?" He's saying when you're strong and good, then
you're bad.

"Man in the Mirror" is a great message. I love that song. If John Lennon was
alive, he could really relate to that song because it says that if you want
to make the world a better place, you have to work on yourself and change
first. It's the same thing Kennedy was talking about when he said, "Ask not
what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country." If
you want to make the world a better place, take a look at yourself and make
a change. Start with the man in the mirror. Start with yourself. Don't be
looking at all the other things. Start with you.

That's the truth. That's what Martin Luther King meant and Gandhi too.
That's what I believe.

Several people have asked me if I had anybody in mind when I wrote "Can't
Stop Loving You." And I say that I didn't, really. I was thinking of
somebody while I was singing it, but not while I was writing it.

I wrote all the songs on Bad except for two, "Man in the Mirror," which
Sie Garrett wrote with George Ballard, and "Just Good Friends," which is
by these two writers who wrote "What's Love Got to Do with It" for Tina
Turner. We needed a duet for me and Stevie Wonder to sing and they had this
song; I don't even think they intended for it to be a duet. They wrote it
for me, but I knew it would be perfect for me and Stevie to sing together.

"Another Part of Me" was one of the earliest songs written for Bad and made
its public debut at the end of Captain Eo when the captain says good-bye.
"Speed Demon" is a machine song. "The Way You Make Me Feel" and "Smooth
Criminal" are simply the grooves I was in at the time. That's how I would
put it.

"Leave Me Alone" is a track that appears only on the compact disc of Bad . I
worked hard on the song, stacking vocals on top of each other like layers of
clouds. I'm sending a simple message here: "Leave me alone." The song is
about a relationship between a guy and a girl. But what I'm really saying to
people who are bothering me is: "Leave me alone ."

The pressure of success does funny things to people. A lot of people become
successful very quickly and it's an instant occurrence in their lives. Some
of these people, whose success might be a one-shot thing, don't know how to
handle what happens to them.

I look at fame from a different perspective, since I've been in this
business for so long now. I've learned that the way to survive as your own
person is to shun personal publicity and keep a low profile as much as
possible. I guess it's good in some ways and bad in others.

The hardest part is having no privacy. I remember when we were filming
"Thriller," Jackie Onassis and Shaye Areheart came to California to discuss
this book. There were photographers in the trees, everywhere. It was not
possible for us to do anything without it being noticed and reported.

The price of fame can be a heavy one. Is the price you pay worth it?
Consider that you really have no privacy. You can't really do anything
unless special arrangements are made. The media prints whatever you say.
They report whatever you do. They know what you buy, which movies you see,
you name it. If I go to a public library, they print the titles of the books
I check out. In Florida once, they printed my whole schedule in the paper;
everything I did from ten in the morning until six at night. "After he did
this, he did that, and after he did that, he went there, then he went door
to door, and then he . . ."