by Joseph Vogel
When Jackson isn’t grunting and gasping, he is climbing up into a high falsetto. Perhaps the song’s best highlight, however, comes in the funky bridge, which first isolates the beat amid industrial-sounding synth washes, then features Jackson beatboxing with remarkable intricacy before he actually begins to rap. That’s right: listen at the 3:06 mark to the King of Pop trying his hand at rapping for the first time on record.
Once again, “Can’t Let Her Get Away” represents Jackson taking risks. It wasn’t intended to be a hit; it was intended to explore and experiment with a different sound and style. The song concludes the album’s New Jack Swing chamber—at least until the title track brings the album full circle.
7. “HEAL THE WORLD”
Written by Michael Jackson
Produced by Michael Jackson and Bruce Swedien
Unlike “We Are the World,” which was widely acclaimed for both its musical merit and its humanitarian mission, “Heal the World” was met with widespread cynicism, particularly in the United States. The New York Times called it “sticky-sweet” and “banal,” while All Music Guide referred to it as “middle-class soft.” This response, however, seemed to reflect more about the changing cultural milieu (and the heightened hostility toward the artist) than about the song itself. The early ’90s was the era of grunge and hip-hop. You weren’t going to hear Nirvana singing or Tupac rapping about healing the world.
In fairness, it was a bit jarring to hear “Heal the World” right after the opening suite of collaborations with Teddy Riley. “When you’ve come through the first six songs,” wrote Susan Fast, “battered and bruised (in a good way) by the force of those grooves, that noise, the angst, suspiciousness, intense sexual energy of Jackson’s voice, and the worldly complications of the lyrics, there are two likely responses to the opening keyboard strains of ‘Heal the World’: relief or disbelief.”
For most critics, it was clearly the latter. Jackson certainly would have anticipated this. He was, after all, the same artist savvy enough to generate the prior six songs. He knew the anthem wouldn’t be perceived as hip or edgy. But he did believe it could reach across borders of language, race, culture, and country; that it could offer hope to children growing up in a world of violence and pessimism; that it could endure the trends and backlash of the moment. “ ‘Heal the World’ is one of my favorite songs of anything I have ever recorded,” the artist asserted in a 1996 interview, “because it is a public awareness song. It is something that I think will live in the hearts of people for a long time.”
Jackson began working on the song in 1989. He had the melody and arrangement mostly worked out before coming to the studio. When he arrived at Westlake, he asked Brad Buxer, who had only been brought in weeks before as a tech, to come with him behind the control room where there was a grand piano. Jackson asked Buxer to play while he sang. “Michael then started singing a melody and I started coming up with chords for that melody,” recalled Buxer, “a process that in one form or another we would do for the next twenty years together. Once we had a verse that he liked, we put together the chorus. The entire song took about an hour and a half to complete.”
Jackson wanted the song to have a simple message and melody. But he also wanted it to have “lift.” To get the size and impact of the song right, Jackson took the song through an elaborate production process, eventually reaching out to members of Toto, including David Paich, Marty Paich, and Steve Porcaro, to help with the orchestral arrangement and synth programming. “We worked on it perhaps longer than any other song I remember,” recalled recording engineer Brad Sundberg. “It was finessed and massaged to a point of microscopic detail. Bruce mixed it and remixed it and remixed it—countless times.” Yet when Buxer heard the final version, the foundation of the song was, in essence, the same. “This is when I learned that when Michael falls in love with a demo, the finished record remains true to the original demo.”
Jackson tasked Matt Forger with recording the “playground girl” in the introduction. Forger remembers interviewing hundreds of kids, asking them questions about their hopes for the world. “I called up every parent that I know. Finally, I interviewed the daughter of a friend of my wife’s. I started asking her these questions about the earth, and she says this line, ‘We have to think of our children, and our children’s children….’ It was totally sincere. Without any pretense or coaching.” Forger brought it to Jackson, and suggested he would edit out some of the stammering. “Michael said, ‘No, no, leave it in.’ He loved that kind of spontaneity and innocence and that’s what he wanted to capture.”
Tellingly, the song also ends with the voice of a child, as Jackson’s repetition of the line “Heal the world we live in / Save it for our children” gradually blends with that of a young girl’s. Eventually, Jackson’s voice fades out and she carries the song, symbolically, to its conclusion.
The song became the vehicle and namesake for Jackson’s Heal the World Foundation, an organization created in 1992 and dedicated to addressing poverty, world hunger, violence, and disease around the globe. It specifically supported causes related to children, including donating winter relief supplies to the children of Sarajevo; preparing and sending “shoebox gifts” to impoverished children in Bosnia; airlifting doses of urgently needed children’s vaccines to the Republic of Georgia; teaming with Toys ‘R’ Us and AmeriCares to deliver thousands of dollars in toys, food, and supplies to two children’s hospitals in Budapest; and paying for a liver transplant for a young boy from Hungary.
At Jackson’s 2009 memorial service in Los Angeles, “Heal the World” was the final number. As the artist envisioned, it was sung not only by the thousands of people in attendance, but also by millions more watching around the world. Perhaps most poignant, however, was the sight of his own children, center stage, earnestly singing the utopian dreams of their father.
8. “BLACK OR WHITE”
Written by Michael Jackson
Produced by Michael Jackson and Bill Bottrell
“Black or White” was a massive hit, even by Jackson’s standards. Not only did it soar up the charts in the United States faster than any single since the Beatles’ 1969 single “Get Back,” but it reached #1 in nineteen other countries, including the UK, France, Mexico, Israel, and Zimbabwe. Globally, it was the most popular song in Jackson’s entire catalog. It is a fitting achievement for a song about overcoming racial barriers.
The song’s iconic guitar riff, often mistakenly attributed to Guns N’ Roses guitarist Slash, originated with Jackson. “As soon as we got to Westlake [Studio in 1989], the first thing that Michael hummed to me was ‘Black or White,’ ” recalled producer Bill Bottrell. Jackson didn’t specify what kind of guitar Bottrell should use for the riff, so the producer, hearing in it a kind of classic Rolling Stones vibe, selected a 1940s Gibson to “put down this big, slamming, old sort of rock & roll…guitar part.”
Jackson loved it. After that, Bottrell simply added a drum machine loop, before Jackson recorded his first vocal. It sounded amazing from the first take. “The guy’s an absolute natural,” said Bottrell. “I mean, we’re talking about Michael Jackson—and for me the best thing about ‘Black or White’ was that his scratch vocal remained untouched throughout the next year [of work on Dangerous] and ended up being used on the finished song….I thought [that] vocal was brilliant, and that the loose, imperfectly layered backgrounds were perfectly charming.”
All this work was completed in one day. Jackson then stepped away, as he often did, to allow Bottrell to flesh it out a bit more. At this point, it still had some big gaps. One of those gaps was eventually filled with a surging, metal-like bridge featuring renowned session guitarist Tim Pierce. According to Bottrell, the metal part was Jackson’s idea. Bottrell suggested Pierce, whom he had worked with before. Jackson came up with some pointed lyrics (including the Ku Klux Klan–targeted line, “I ain’t scared o
f no sheets”) for this bridge, which he delivered in a fiery vocal attack over the guitar runs.
Jackson also came up with those fast sequencer notes that lead in and out of the bridges, which were programmed by Michael Boddicker. (These begin the “single” version of the song, which eliminates the long, unnecessary intro.) Meanwhile, Jackson had Bryan Loren and Brad Buxer help out with the drums and percussion. Loren also laid down the Moog bass part. The artist liked the way the song was developing—the drums were swinging, the riff sounded amazing, and the vocals were raw and vibrant.
But one last part was missing: the gap for the rap solo. Bill Bottrell had long assumed that Jackson would bring in someone like LL Cool J or Heavy D for the part. At one point the producer even asked Bryan Loren to do it. With no one chosen for the part, Bottrell decided to try it himself. He penned down some lyrics and recorded a few attempts. “For my part,” he joked, “I didn’t think much of white rap…[but] I played it for Michael the next day and he went ‘Ohhh, I love it, Bill, I love it. That should be the one.’ I kept saying ‘No, we’ve got to get a real rapper,’ but as soon as he heard my performance he was committed to it and wouldn’t consider using anybody else.”
The rap was credited in the liner notes as L.T.B., which many assumed was some cool emerging rapper. Rather, it was an inside joke: LTB stood for Leave It to Beaver, a reference to the very white, suburban TV show from the 1950s. Ironically, while that rap was rather tame compared to N.W.A. or Public Enemy, it was nonetheless censored by many radio stations in 1991. According to Bill Bottrell, they didn’t feel it was appropriate for traditional pop/rock radio.
It is often forgotten that the song itself, while bright and catchy, is one of only a handful of political songs over the past thirty or so years to become a #1 hit. While some mistakenly understood the chorus to mean race didn’t matter, it is actually saying that the race of his lover shouldn’t matter—a big difference. In the verses, he also preempts passive triumphalism, singing, “Don’t tell me you agree with me / When I saw you kicking dirt in my eye.”
“Black or White” was also revolutionary for fusing three genres that had generally occupied different lanes: rock, pop, and hip-hop. At the dawn of the ’90s, this was Jackson’s crossover anthem—depending on how you looked at it, it was either a strategic attempt to appeal to every musical, cultural, and racial demographic, or his vision for a more integrated, borderless sound and society. Most likely it was a combination of both.
9. “WHO IS IT”
Written by Michael Jackson
Produced by Michael Jackson and Bill Bottrell
“Who Is It” often goes overlooked by those less familiar with Jackson’s work. In the United States it wasn’t even released as a single until the spring of 1993, after Jackson beatboxed part of the song during his highly watched interview with Oprah Winfrey. It was one of the first times Jackson had publicly explained his creative process. “The process is creating a vocal rhythm to a click track—which is a sound, a timed beat,” Jackson explained. “And you’re doing these mouth sounds to that beat. These sounds can be looped according to how you sample it in the computer again and again. This is your foundation for the entire track—everything plays off this. It’s the rhythm….Every song I’ve written since I was very little I’ve done that way. I still do it that way.”
Jackson’s a cappella performance elicited such interest that Sony decided to issue the song as the album’s seventh single, instead of the planned “Give in to Me.” It peaked at #14 on the Billboard Hot 100 (#6 on the R&B chart) in May 1993 (Janet’s “That’s the Way Love Goes” held the #1 spot that month). “Who Is It,” then, wasn’t a smash hit for Jackson; but it was one of the album’s most compelling songs—and one of the most personal tracks in his career.
“Michael wrote the song 100 percent,” recalled Bill Bottrell. “I just remember him coming to me and singing it, singing me the bass line, and the mood he wanted. And it sort of grew from there.” Jackson’s percussive beatboxing, which usually served as a preliminary guide, actually stayed in the final mix. You can hear it in the intro and outro, alongside the drum track. For the drums Bottrell decided to just use a loop from Bryan Loren’s Linn drum machine, “because by then it sounded kind of retro and hip-hop.”
The bass, meanwhile, was doubled to get that thick, heavy sound (Bottrell played a synth bass, while Louis Johnson—who also played the bass on “Billie Jean”—played guitar). “He really wanted the bass line right,” recalled Bottrell. The impact is visceral—played through a decent set of speakers, it literally shakes the listener. And it repeats relentlessly throughout the track, locking one into the song’s dark, subterranean mood.
Jackson wanted David Paich of Toto to play keyboard and synths. The artist explained what he wanted and Paich delivered with a warm, majestic keyboard floor and moody strings. Bottrell then brought in George Del Barrio to do the whole orchestral arrangement. That arrangement, including the striking cello flourishes, adds to the song’s atmospheric drama. So too do the haunting soprano vocals, performed by Linda Harmon (and doubled by Jackson). Susan Fast notes that the opening phrase is modeled after a medieval chant, situating the music “in the realm of the Christian sacred.” After the driving bass hits, those ethereal notes reappear throughout the track, giving it a haunting feel as Jackson delivers his confession.
Brad Buxer, who watched a couple of sessions as the song came together, remembered the song evolving very organically and intuitively. “There was almost no thought process.” Bottrell felt the final version was raw and minimalist, but indicative of Jackson’s evolution as an artist.
The song is about betrayal. “I gave her passion,” he sings. “My very soul / I gave her promises / And secrets so untold.” Yet the primary emotion Jackson conveys is loneliness. His desperate cry, “I can’t take it ’cause I’m lonely!” is one of the most piercing moments in his entire catalog. Jackson hadn’t written a song like this before. “Who Is It” is sometimes compared to “Billie Jean,” but it is more introspective. It’s more confessional. And it’s definitely not a dance track.
The song takes the listener deep inside Jackson’s psyche, where we find the artist racked with anguish. “I am the dead, I am the damned,” he sings. “I am the agony inside this dying head.” Lyrics like these would (much later) draw comparisons to artists like Kurt Cobain or Chris Cornell. The emotions in the song are raw, honest, palpable. In fact, Jackson uses nonverbal vocalizations throughout the track—cries, gasps—to communicate his pain.
The track runs long. At about the 3:30 mark, an instrumental interlude begins, featuring a mournful alto flute solo, which recalls the famous solo from “California Dreaming.” Jackson wanted a long “trance ending” as the outro. Since Quincy Jones wasn’t there to cut it down, he got what he wanted. The chorus repeats over and over again like a chant, as Jackson ad-libs over the top. Bottrell thought it was incredible and, like Jackson, hated the shortened, “single” versions that cut it out. “The long ending was all part of the mood of the thing,” he said. At 6:35, it was the second-longest track on the album.
While not a commercial hit, “Who Is It” is an artistic masterpiece and one of Jackson’s most powerful expressions of despair. Fittingly, the last word of the song is “lonely,” after which the bass is isolated and begins to fade. The only other sound is Jackson’s rhythmic beatboxing.
10. “GIVE IN TO ME”
Written by Michael Jackson and Bill Bottrell
Produced by Michael Jackson and Bill Bottrell
The dark, confessional mood continues in “Give in to Me.” This song is about as close as Jackson came to grunge. The murky, Mellotron opening and slow-strumming guitar has shades of Nirvana, as does the soft/loud dynamic in the verse and chorus. It certainly wasn’t the dance rock of “Beat It” or the theatrical metal of “Dirty Diana.” “Give in to Me” was a new sou
nd and style for the artist, which suited him surprisingly well.
Jackson developed the song with Bill Bottrell in 1990. “[‘Give in to Me’] was like a revelation,” recalled Bottrell. “Michael walked through the room and I happened to have a guitar in my hand and I played the main riff to it and he said, ‘Billy, that’s a great song.’ Then he hummed me the melody.” In a two-hour tape preserved by recording engineer Brad Sundberg, the song unfolds piece by piece in a remarkably organic process. The two of them sit down on a pair of stools and begin shooting the breeze. They talk about the Beatles song “Get It” (which Jackson begins to sing). They talk about the evolution of studio technology.
Then they begin jamming: Bottrell on guitar, Jackson humming and improvising lyrics. The main riff emerges, as does the melody of the verses. Gradually, the chorus and other parts of the song fall into place. Occasionally, they stop and Jackson gives instructions. He extemporizes counter-melodies and harmonies. By the end of the two-hour session, they had created out of thin air the bulk of what would arguably become Jackson’s best rock track. “A lot of magic is created out of the moment like that,” said Jackson on the tape. “It really is.”
In retrospect, Bottrell wishes they could have kept the early, stripped-down version of the song. “I should have left it alone,” he said. “It was absolutely stunning.” That demo is indeed gorgeous, especially the melancholy falsetto cries in the outro. Still, the song that evolved was stunning itself, retaining much of its original essence, including Jackson’s raw vocals.