Man in the Music

by Joseph Vogel

  From the near-tribal beatboxing, the song gradually builds up the layers of sound: Greg Phillinganes’s creeping keyboard bass, David Williams’s killer rhythm guitar, John Robinson’s intense drumming, and Jerry Hey’s blazing array of horns. Everything’s working. Watching the song performed live was like watching the sophisticated interplay of jazz with the ecstatic spirit of a revival.

  The whole thing is guided by Jackson’s vocal, the chorus harmonies accented by a range of James Brown–esque grunts, gasps, and exclamations. It is as if he is bursting out of the cracks of the song. The energy is irrepressible. Billboard calls it a “rhythmic monster….When Talking Heads cut Remain in Light the following year, they may well have had this record in mind.”

  Because of the pace of the song, the lyrics almost seem incidental. Of course, we hear the chorus line about working day and night, but the verses offer more details. He wants a release (“It’s aching, make it feel alright”). He worries about infidelity (“You must be seein’ some other guy instead of me”). And he wonders what he may be missing in life by working so hard (“Of thinkin’ of what my life’s supposed to be”). The song, then, is a kind of reassessment of his life in which he yearns not only for a break from the grind, but for real human connection.

  While the song was not released as a single, Jackson frequently incorporated it into his lineups on tour.

  4. “GET ON THE FLOOR”

  Written and composed by Michael Jackson and Louis Johnson

  Produced by Quincy Jones; Coproduced by Michael Jackson

  We’re back in the shimmering disco club for this hidden gem, which has to rank as one of the most euphoric songs Jackson ever recorded.

  That punchy bass line in the opening seconds comes courtesy of Louis “Thunder Thumbs” Johnson. Quincy Jones described Johnson as “one of the greatest bass players to ever pick up the instrument.” Along with his brother George, he formed the popular R&B-funk group known as the Brothers Johnson, which released a number of albums in the mid- to late 1970s and had three R&B #1 hits, including “Strawberry Letter 23.”

  According to Louis Johnson, Jackson first heard that bass line blaring from Johnson’s car in a parking lot outside the studio and fell in love with it. It was a demo Johnson intended to develop and include on the forthcoming Brothers Johnson album, Light Up the Night (1980). He decided to give it to Jackson instead (in exchange, Jackson contributed a song, “This Had to Be,” to the Brothers Johnson LP).

  By the next day, Jackson had already begun tweaking and fleshing out Johnson’s demo, complete with a melody, vocal, partial lyrics, and some instrumental parts (Johnson and Jackson are credited as cowriters on the track). Back in the studio, they went to work on the song and it came to life. “Louis Johnson gave me a smooth enough bottom to ride in the verses and let me come back stronger and stronger with each chorus,” recalled Jackson.

  The final product was a celebration of music and dance. Surrounded by effervescent strings, big brass, and Johnson’s irresistible hook, Jackson’s voice soars with unbridled abandon. “Not a lot of people give ‘Get on the Floor’ any credit,” wrote music critic Andre Grindle. “But the fact is it’s one of the toughest slices of hard disco-funk of 1979: the rhythms, the bass, and of course [Jackson’s] hot ’n’ heavy breathing at the song’s breakdown is just raw sweat, energy and drive.”

  That breakdown, beginning at about the 2:50 mark, is indeed one of the highlights of the song. There’s a kind of primal, percussive buildup that eventually evolves into a recurring chant (“Get up, won’t you g’on down”). The release is near ecstatic. Jackson finishes out the song by playfully changing voices, experimenting with inflections, laughing, and letting out his now-signature ooooohs and heeees, reveling in his newfound freedom.

  5. “OFF THE WALL”

  Written and composed by Rod Temperton

  Produced by Quincy Jones

  Rod Temperton tailor-made the title track for Michael Jackson. He wanted a song that captured the artist’s eccentric energy. He also wanted to highlight Jackson’s strengths as a vocalist. “When I listened to the records [Jackson had already recorded],” said Temperton, “the one thing I noticed straight away about Michael’s timbre was that he always sat on top of the beat and really pushed it along and gave it an electric energy. So I figured that for the main song I would write for him I would try to write a strong [metro]nome which had a lot of short lyrics in it, allowing him to drive that beat along. The other thing that I noticed about Michael, which was a paradox, was that he had very strong harmonies so I decided that I would work with a lot of those harmony bits for the songs.”

  The lyrics, meanwhile, also written with Jackson in mind, emphasize escaping the nine-to-five routine and living with originality and passion (“Living crazy / That’s the only way”). “Off the Wall” also foreshadowed some of the playful theatrics of “Thriller,” with its eerie opening, including what sounds like cackling ghouls. The song, in essence, is a celebration of difference, of marching to the beat of your own drum.

  As the closer for side A, the song also successfully shifts the tempo. Side A mostly contains up-tempo, dance songs; “Off the Wall” slows things down a bit, setting the stage for the ballads and mid-tempo material that dominate side B.

  There are many details to appreciate in the song, including the sleek synth work of jazz legend George Duke, who had previously worked with the likes of Miles Davis and P-Funk. “Every note and hit,” music critic Jason Heller pointed out, “is installed with a surgeon’s touch without sounding remotely sterile, and Duke’s synths are subliminally folded into the mix like sugar.”

  Just as Temperton hoped, the arrangement allows Jackson, who bends and contorts words in the verses before unleashing superb harmonies in the chorus, to shine. “At one point,” notes music critic Timothy Pernell, “you can hear Michael’s baritone, tenor and falsetto clash into each other during the bridge (‘Do what you wanna do / There ain’t no rules it’s up to you’).”

  “Off the Wall” was the third single released from the album. In the spring of 1980, it also became the third to make the Top 10.

  6. “GIRLFRIEND”

  Written and composed by Paul McCartney

  Produced by Quincy Jones

  “Girlfriend” was a gift from Paul McCartney, though a great deal of folklore surrounds how it made its way onto Off the Wall. Did McCartney write the song with Jackson in mind and offer it to him at a party before including it on his 1978 Wings album London Town? Did Quincy Jones later stumble upon the track at random and suggest it to Michael, unaware of Jackson and McCartney’s earlier interaction? Was it inspired by Jackson’s crush on ABBA singer Agnetha Fältskog?

  Jackson first mentioned the song in a 1977 interview. “I love Paul McCartney,” he said at the time. “I’ve been to two of Paul’s parties, and we get together and talk. He wrote a song for me, and I never got a chance to record it. Him and his wife [Linda McCartney] were telling me about it. It’s called ‘Girlfriend.’ They were singing it to me, and they say they want to do it, too….I remember him singing it. I’ll never forget the melody. I can forget all kinds of things, but I never forget a melody.”

  While the song wasn’t nearly as ambitious as the other material on the album, Jackson was smitten by it. It is undeniably a catchy tune, even if its lyrics are on the sappy side. In many ways, the song is a throwback to some of the more innocent, sentimental ballads Jackson sang at Motown. In this teasing confession of a love triangle, Jackson’s vocal is playful and pure. McCartney had long been criticized for writing such “silly love songs” since parting ways with the Beatles. Jackson, however, was genuinely flattered to be offered a song by a legend whose music he deeply admired. It marked the first of several more collaborations with Paul McCartney in the ensuing years, before the relationship deteriorated after Jackson purchased the Beatles
catalog in 1985.

  7. “SHE’S OUT OF MY LIFE”

  Written and composed by Tom Bahler

  Produced by Quincy Jones

  “She’s Out of My Life” is a landmark Jackson track. On an album dominated by upbeat, feel-good dance songs, it was something else entirely—not just a ballad, but a deep, soul-baring ballad about regret.

  The song was written by veteran songwriter Tom Bahler in 1977. While many have speculated that the song was inspired by Karen Carpenter (whom Bahler dated around this time), Bahler said it was actually about a relationship prior to Carpenter. Long before Off the Wall was under way, Jones reached out to Bahler to see what he was working on. Bahler shared “She’s Out of My Life.” Jones loved it and asked what Bahler planned to do with it. Bahler said he planned to give it to Frank Sinatra. For any songwriter, having your song recorded by Sinatra seemed like a slam dunk. Jones, however, managed to convince Bahler to give it to him instead, promising he’d find an even better fit for it.

  According to Bahler, Jones held on to the track for two years before offering it to Michael Jackson. The artist had long demonstrated an uncanny ability to communicate emotions beyond his years at Motown (including songs like “Who’s Lovin’ You,” “I’ll Be There,” and “Ben”). Still, his connection to “She’s Out of My Life” surprised everyone, including himself. “It’s a very mature emotion,” said Jones. “You can feel the pain in it.”

  The song begins with a melancholy orchestral prelude. Then Jackson’s voice arrives, stripped down, with a palpable frisson. In the midst of a celebratory dance album, the impact is striking. Jackson had never sounded this vulnerable, this bare. “I don’t know whether to laugh or cry,” he sings, “I don’t know whether to live or die.”

  In its 1979 review, Rolling Stone praised the song for revealing new dimensions to Jackson as a singer. “He takes huge emotional risks and wins every time.” The song, more than anything else, forced skeptical critics to recognize Off the Wall as more than a shallow disco album.

  While recording, the words and music had such a strong effect on Jackson that he famously couldn’t finish without crying. “I had been letting so much build up inside me,” he recalled in Moonwalk. “I was twenty-one, and I was so rich in some experiences while being poor in moments of true joy….I remember burying my face in my hands, and hearing only the hum of the machinery as my sobs echoed in the room.”

  Jones and Bruce Swedien, who were in the studio with Jackson, were surprised he felt the song so deeply. “He cried at the end of every take,” Jones recalled. “We recorded about eight or eleven takes, and every one, at the end, he’s crying. So finally I said, hey, it’s supposed to be—leave it on there.” They eventually stuck with the first recording.

  Up to this point, Jackson’s only real public relationship had been with young Oscar-winning actress Tatum O’Neal, and it is possible that his strong emotional reaction to the song was partially with her in mind. In his words, she was his “first love,” but the relationship didn’t last. (In an interview with Vibe magazine, O’Neal later acknowledged that she believed “She’s Out of My Life” was about them. “He asked me to go to the premiere of The Wiz with him, and my agent at the time said it wasn’t a good idea….He never talked to me after that. I think he thought I just canceled, but it wasn’t me at all. I was a child doing what I was told. I want you to print that, because I don’t think he ever knew that. I lost touch with him because of it, so I don’t really know him anymore. But I love him; he’s one of the nicest, most innocent people I’ve ever met.”)

  Yet for Jackson, the song’s emotional resonance seemed to go beyond one particular relationship. At this time, in his own words, he was “one of the loneliest people in the world.” Because he grew up in a fishbowl of fame, the only people he really knew were his family and the people he worked with professionally. True intimacy was something he longed for, but simply didn’t know how to achieve. He kept his emotions “locked deep inside,” as the song’s lyrics put it. As Jackson would later reflect, the track is “about knowing that the barriers that have separated me from others are temptingly low and seemingly easy to jump over and yet they remain standing while what I really desire disappears from my sight.”

  “She’s Out of My Life” became the fourth single from Off the Wall to reach the Top 10. “[It] became a Jackson signature, similar to the way ‘My Way’ served Frank Sinatra,” wrote music critic Nelson George. “The vulnerability, verging on fragility, that would become embedded in Michael’s persona found, perhaps, its richest expression in this wistful ballad.”

  8. “I CAN’T HELP IT”

  Written and composed by Stevie Wonder and Susaye Greene

  Produced by Quincy Jones

  The stars aligned for “I Can’t Help It”: Stevie Wonder, Quincy Jones, and Michael Jackson are all here at the top of their games. It makes you wonder what a whole album might have sounded like with these three legends’ unique mix of abilities. As it stands, we have this song. Many music lovers point to it as not only one of their favorites on the album, but in Jackson’s entire catalog. It has been covered by numerous artists, from John Legend to Esperanza Spalding.

  The song was written by Stevie Wonder and Susaye Greene (a former member of the Supremes). Wonder came up with the chords during the Songs in the Key of Life sessions, which Michael often sat in on and observed. After further developing the track with Greene, Wonder decided the song would be perfect for Michael Jackson. When the Off the Wall sessions were under way, Wonder sent the tape (via his sister Renee Hardaway) to Jackson and was thrilled, soon after, not only to learn that the song would be included on the album, but also to hear what Jackson and the A-Team had done with it.

  While the foundation remained mostly the same, the track underwent a major overhaul. According to Greg Phillinganes, the demo Wonder sent was “a lot more Latin influenced…and it was based more off of an acoustic piano…more like ‘A Night in Tunisia’ kind of thing.” Since Phillinganes had previously worked with Stevie, Jones tasked him with tailoring the arrangement for Jackson. His first attempt, however, which included percussion by Sheila E., failed. Jones wanted the song to be slower and sexier.

  So Phillinganes went back to work. “Quincy set up the parameters. He set up the new foundation for us to play off of, and then when I got that, I was all over it then. I did the bass, the synth bass, the sexy synth bass and the beautiful Rhodes [piano] and I remember there was this synthesizer called the Oberheim OB-8.” Since the OB-8 was polyphonic, said Phillinganes, “you could play several notes at a time. You could set it to where each note had its own portamento….You had this beautiful creamy wall of sound and that’s what you’re hearing on top of the Rhodes.”

  “I Can’t Help It” offered Jackson a new style as a vocalist. Already he had shown he could do R&B, disco, funk, soul, even a Broadway ballad. But the lush jazz vibe of “I Can’t Help It” broke new ground. From its bubbling, ambient opening, the song moves with the fluidity of a dream. R&B singer-songwriter Pharrell Williams describes the chords as “very nocturnal,” conjuring a kind of “mystical world.” Singer Alicia Keys praises it as putting you in “an immediate zone—that yearning and that desire in [Michael’s] voice.”

  The song is about a mysterious lover who has enchanted the singer. “Looking in my mirror,” he narrates, “Took me by surprise / I can’t help but see you / Running often through my mind.” Listen to how Jackson allows the endings of words to take off, mimicking the fleeting feel of her memory. Likewise, the sensual, ethereal lyrics float on the melody, rendering the weightlessness of being in love. The track beautifully showcases Jackson’s entire vocal repertoire, from the syncopated scatting to the gorgeous harmonies.

  Finally, toward the end of the song, the lyrical descriptions dissolve into wordless exultations, signifying the ecstasy of intimacy that simply can’t be expressed
in language. This is Jackson at his most sublime. With deep cuts like this, it is easy to understand why Off the Wall is held in such high regard.

  9. “IT’S THE FALLING IN LOVE”

  Written and composed by Carole Bayer Sager and David Foster

  Produced by Quincy Jones

  “It’s the Falling in Love,” like “Girlfriend,” originally appeared on another record—in this case, Carole Bayer Sager’s second album,…Too (1978). Bayer Sager had cowritten the song with legendary songwriter and producer David Foster. Jackson and Jones both felt it could be a good fit for Off the Wall, so they arranged a dinner with Bayer Sager and made the request. Bayer Sager said yes, and Jackson, in return, offered to help her out with a song she was working on called “Just Friends,” which was featured on her next album, Sometimes Late at Night (1981). For that song, “Michael…came back with a totally different arrangement with a whole new feel that even Burt [Bacharach] said was better than what he had done,” recalled Bayer Sager. Jackson eventually dueted with Bayer Sager on the ballad.

  For “It’s the Falling in Love,” Quincy Jones reached out to jazz singer Patti Austin to duet with Jackson. Austin was a talented vocalist whom Jones admired and mentored. After she appeared on Off the Wall, Jones produced her 1981 album, Every Home Should Have One, which featured the hit “Baby, Come to Me,” with James Ingram (written by Rod Temperton). Austin remembered her time with Jackson in the studio as enjoyable and inspiring. He could be very silly and loved to laugh, she recalled, but when it came time to work he “was always on fire, always a perfectionist, always tremendously professional.”