Man in the Music

by Joseph Vogel

  Jackson was asked about the lyrics in his primetime ABC interview with Diane Sawyer as well, and responded similarly. He was in no way anti-Semitic, he asserted. He simply didn’t realize the lyrics would be read as prejudiced in an anti-prejudice track. But that didn’t stop the condemnation of the song. One day after the Weinraub article ran, a Los Angeles Times headline blared: JEWISH LEADERS CALL JACKSON LYRICS ANTI-SEMITIC. In the article, Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles, described the lyrics as “deeply disturbing” and potentially harmful to young people. Over the ensuing days, enormous public pressure was put on Jackson to remove the song from the album or change the lyrics. By this time, two million copies of the album had already been shipped. Jackson reached out to a number of Jewish friends to ask for support, but few were willing to step forward.

  After his initial statement failed to quell the backlash, Jackson promised to include stickers on all subsequent copies with a disclaimer apology, which read: “There has been a lot of controversy about my song, ‘They Don’t Care About Us.’ My intention was for this song to say ‘No’ to racism, anti-Semitism and stereotyping. Unfortunately, my choice of words may have unintentionally hurt the very people I wanted to stand in solidarity with. I just want you all to know how strongly I am committed to tolerance, peace and love, and I apologize to anyone who might have been hurt. Respectfully, Michael Jackson.”

  This gesture, however, failed to calm the storm. In his review of HIStory, The New York Times’s Jon Pareles went so far as to claim that “[Jackson] gives the lie to his entire catalogue of brotherhood anthems with a burst of anti-Semitism.” Finally, on June 23, Jackson pledged to remove the lyrics in question, which was done with percussive scratching effects. Some, however, particularly in the African American community, saw the entire controversy as manufactured—and a clear double standard. How many artists, after all, black and white, used the N-word in their work without nearly the backlash? Explained filmmaker Spike Lee in a 1999 interview: “Michael Jackson is a much greater artist than Quentin Tarantino. Quentin Tarantino will never be the artist that Michael Jackson has been over the past thirty years. And Michael was brought to his knees because of ‘Jew me, sue me, kick me, kike me’ in his song ‘They Don’t Care About Us.’ He had to pull the record from the stores, redo the lyrics, and then make an apology to the Simon Wiesenthal Center. Now how is it that Michael Jackson has to do all that because of ‘Jew me, sue me, kick me, kike me’? Even if we want to leave out [the rest of] Tarantino’s body of work and just focus on Pulp Fiction, where he used the N-word thirty-eight times. Why is it that Tarantino is an artist and Michael Jackson is anti-Semitic?”

  Lost in the controversy, unfortunately, was the power of the song. Jackson wrote it during the Dangerous sessions, inspired in part by the Rodney King beating in 1991. The lyrics, of course, became more personalized after his own dehumanizing interactions with the Santa Barbara County Police Department in 1993.

  Decades later, the track still retains an invigorating force. The song begins, tellingly, with other voices: a black woman leading children in a playground resistance chant (“All I wanna say is that they don’t really care about us”). From the outset, it makes clear that the song is not merely about him, but about a collective “us.”

  The chant dissolves into a turbulent sound effect—as if being sucked into a vortex—before giving way to a crisp beat. That militant beat—dry like cracking wood—repeats on a loop as a police scanner is heard in the background. “[In the early stages the song] was basically a click track,” recalled assistant engineer Rob Hoffman, “…with Michael and Brad [Buxer] adding new percussion elements every day, and Andrew [Scheps] and I building sample libraries for it every night. Sticks, claps, snares, hits. [The] basic groove was started on the MPC….Brad [Buxer]’s 909 is the main kick. Some of the crazy FX sweeps and sounds were added at the very end by Chuck Wild.”

  Nearly a minute into the song, Jackson finally arrives, delivering clipped, staccato rhymes over the beat. Like a playground chant, the lines have a singsong quality, but are delivered with an aggressive bite. The lyrics, meanwhile, are simple but direct, intended to approximate the sting of slurs.

  In the bridge verses, Jackson stretches his lines out more as the strings provide an ominous backdrop. “Tell me what has become of my rights,” he sings. “Am I invisible because you ignore me? / Your proclamation promised me free liberty / I’m tired of being the victim of shame / They’re throwing me in a class with a bad name / I can’t believe this is the land from which I came.” In such lines—some of the most provocative in Jackson’s catalog—the artist indicts America’s hypocrisy and identifies with those who have been unjustly targeted, abandoned, or mistreated. Gradually gaining force and adding witness, meanwhile, is the humming choir (performed by the Los Angeles Children’s Choir and conducted by Annette Sanders). In an earlier iteration of the song, that choir was featured much more prominently. While that version is impressive in its own right, Jackson ultimately decided to keep the track stripped back to capture its raw energy.

  At the three-minute mark, a fierce guitar solo (originally played by Yes guitarist Trevor Rabin before being overdubbed by Rob Hoffman) soars over swirling synth effects, handclaps, and the persistent drum loop. “The bridge section consisted of over three hundred tracks,” Rob Hoffman pointed out. “We had tons of programmers and guitar players come in and everyone filled up their own twenty-four-track tape with overdubs….Eddie [DeLena] and Michael edited and comped it down to a manageable number of tracks for Bruce [Swedien] to mix.”

  “They Don’t Care About Us” was released as the album’s third single in the spring of 1996. While it became a Top 10 hit in eighteen countries, it stalled at #30 in the United States, where radio stations largely refused to play it and Sony was reluctant to promote it. This was not “Heal the World” or even “Black or White.” The message now was less utopian, more defiant and angry. “They Don’t Care About Us” was a sonic fist on behalf of the voiceless. For Jackson, regardless of airplay or promotion, this was their anthem.

  3. “STRANGER IN MOSCOW”

  Written by Michael Jackson

  Produced by Michael Jackson

  There’s something about the chords in “Stranger in Moscow.” They have an almost hypnotic effect.

  Most music fans aren’t familiar with “Stranger in Moscow,” which is unfortunate because it is, without question, one of Jackson’s best songs. Poetic and evocative, it is about many things—loneliness, despair, alienation, disillusionment with the American Dream. Cultural critic Armond White calls it Jackson’s “finest track since ‘Billie Jean’…a tale of out-of-step but soul-deep anguish.” Music critic Tom Molloy describes it as an “ethereal and stirring description of a man wounded by a ‘swift and sudden fall from grace’ walking in the shadow of the Kremlin.”

  Jackson wrote the song during a stop in Moscow on his Dangerous World Tour. It was September 1993, just weeks after allegations against the artist had gone public. “It fell into my lap,” Jackson recalled, “because that’s how I was feeling at the time. Just alone in my hotel and it was raining and I just started writing it.”

  After the artist penned some lyrics and hummed out a melody, he called up his keyboardist (and music director for the tour) Brad Buxer. It was ten thirty in the morning. Buxer came up right away, assuming Jackson wanted to flesh out some tunes for a Sega Genesis game they had been working on. But Jackson said, “No, no, I want to just work.” So Buxer went to the piano and began playing.

  Similar to the making of “Give in to Me” with Bill Bottrell, “Stranger in Moscow” came together organically and intuitively. “I played him a verse and he loved it,” Buxer noted. “Then he said, ‘Play something else,’ and I just went to these chords. It’s a simple progression, but there’s this weird modulation….If you take the root and fifth o
f a triad…you can bend the air a little bit and make some psychological things happen. You get a powerful, but almost invisible modulation that affects the psyche simply by altering one note.” Buxer played another section, a step down, but the same progression. Jackson, meanwhile, beatboxed the rhythm, came up with the melodies in the verses and chorus, and felt his way into the lyrics.

  Both Jackson and Buxer knew they had tapped into something special. “Just like with poetry,” explained Buxer, “if you have too many lines, or one extra stanza, it can ruin the whole thing—music is the same thing. It’s minimalism. I learned that from Stevie Wonder. Use as few notes as possible to find as much psychological information as you can.”

  When Jackson returned from touring, “Stranger in Moscow” was the first song he wanted to work on. In New York City, Buxer had already been tinkering with the song in the studio, adding drums, strings, and orchestration. He remembers Jackson being thrilled when he heard the new mix. The artist further developed the song with Toto members Steve Porcaro and David Paich, enhancing the keyboard bedding and adding rhythm guitar, a new bass, and a keyboard sax. Meanwhile, he continued to find ways to polish and embellish the track. “I was the tape op for the recording of the background vocals on ‘Stranger in Moscow,’ ” said assistant engineer Rob Hoffman. “Scared the hell out me. Michael was dropping in and out on syllables, rearranging the notes and timing as he put it down. No Pro Tools at the time, just [two-inch] tape, and my punches.”

  It was Jackson’s idea to start the track with rainfall—it had been raining that day in Moscow. For the first twenty seconds of the track, that’s all you hear. Then the beat arrives, heavy and rhythmic. It was built on Jackson’s beatboxing, which remains in the final mix. Then the melancholy, strumming guitar and atmospheric strings appear. There is a distant, muffled cry. The intro takes its time, establishing the mood.

  And then those beautiful chords hit. Jackson’s voice floats over them like a mist: “I was wanderin’ in the rain / Mask of life, feelin’ insane.” His vocal conveys fragility, betrayal, loneliness, longing. He almost sounds like a ghost. The structure of the verse gives it a kind of echo effect, further heightening the sense of isolation.

  The lyrics are among the most striking and poetic in Jackson’s career. “The word pictures he paints with the verses are so vivid,” observed music critic Jonathan Conda, “narrating a life of pain against mental images and feelings of Cold War Russia.” Brad Buxer was amazed when he heard them, but he understood where they came from. “[They] were perfect. The pain that guy was going through was incredible….I wouldn’t be able to get out of bed if I was going through something like that. He would cry sometimes. It tore him up….But at the same time he’s a very strong man. So while he’s battling all these mental demons, he was still working and touring.”

  The chorus refrain—“How does it feel?”—poses one of the most common and elemental questions in music. It is the question at the core of Bob Dylan’s seminal track “Like a Rolling Stone.” In “Stranger in Moscow,” the question seems to be both introspective (an artist trying to grapple with his own internal state) and a callout to listeners (asking, as it were, if they understand the anguish). The question, however, goes unanswered.

  In the bridge, there is a gorgeous piano solo amid symphonic strings. A brief sax lick rises before a young girl cries out, “Michael!” About four minutes into the song, the restraint finally gives way and the pain is released. “We’re talking danger!” he shouts. “We’re talking danger, baby! Like a stranger in Moscow / I’m living lonely! I’m living lonely, baby!”

  As the song fades into an elegant instrumental outro, a distant KGB interrogator can be heard speaking in Russian. In English, the words translate: “Why have you come from the West? Confess! To steal the great achievements of the people, the accomplishments of the workers.”

  For Michael Jackson, icon of the Western world, the song presents a fascinating paradox: born a black boy to a poor family in Gary, Indiana, he became the most famous pop star in the world—a symbol of the American Dream. But now, only ten years removed from Thriller-mania, he was an outcast, a vagabond, more accepted in places like Prague, Warsaw, and Moscow than in his home country. Yet even in these faraway places, he doesn’t belong—he is trapped in a hotel where “Stalin’s tomb won’t let [him] be.” He is, in essence, a nowhere man, an alien, a stranger in Moscow.

  4. “THIS TIME AROUND”

  Written by Michael Jackson, Dallas Austin, Bruce Swedien, and René Moore

  Produced by Michael Jackson, Dallas Austin, Bruce Swedien, and René Moore

  It’s a shame Michael Jackson didn’t have a chance to do more songs with producer Dallas Austin. The sinuous, urban sound of “This Time Around” hints at the potential that such a partnership might have fulfilled. Austin brought Jackson several grooves to consider in 1995, but “This Time Around” was the only one that materialized into a song.

  Trained at Motown Records in the late ’80s and then LaFace Records in the early ’90s, Austin developed a reputation as a rising star, producing influential albums by Boyz II Men, Arrested Development, TLC, and Monica. By the mid-’90s, the Atlanta-based producer was a big shot in the industry. In 1994, he even helped produce Madonna’s Bedtime Stories.

  Austin remembers hitting it off immediately with Jackson. “Michael was the biggest kid in the world,” he recalled, “a real prankster. When we were working [one day], he shot off a tear-gas gun in the studio. He screamed, ‘Everybody get out!’ We all ran outside, scared as hell, and we saw Michael driving a black van down Ventura Boulevard, laughing his butt off.”

  Yet he also saw a more serious side to the artist. One day, he saw Jackson drawing a self-portrait that ended up in the album’s liner notes. “That’s when I was like, ‘Man, do you paint and draw?’ and he just started showing us all these paintings and drawings that he had like at his house. The stuff was amazing.”

  “This Time Around” represented a new variation on the hip-hop–R&B fusion Jackson had established on Dangerous. It still had the whip-crack New Jack beat and wide strings, but now the slinky bass and funky rhythm guitar were the focal points. The artist’s vocal, meanwhile, had an added bite. “This time around,” he sings, “I’m taking no shit.”

  The lyrics convey a mix of paranoia and simmering anger. The production, accordingly, was quite different than a lot of Austin’s other work: heavier, darker, tougher. This was due in part to Jackson’s lyrics and in part to the work of hip-hop icon Notorious B.I.G. In 1995, the Brooklyn rapper was just coming off his landmark album, Ready to Die (1994). The record, executive-produced by Sean “Puffy” Combs, showcased Biggie’s mastery of flow and storytelling, establishing him as one of the most respected hip-hop artists of the decade.

  Not many people would have expected the large, intimidating rapper to collaborate with Michael Jackson. But when the King of Pop, who was impressed with him, sent an invite via Puff Daddy, he accepted. “He was quite an imposing figure when he walked in,” noted assistant recording engineer John Van Nest of the session. “I had no idea what to expect from him in terms of attitude, but he seemed nice when he walked in….But almost immediately, he blurted out, ‘Yo, Dallas, can I meet Mike?’ To which Dallas replied that he thought so. Biggie went on to talk about how much this opportunity meant to him, as Michael was his hero.”

  Biggie recorded his rap in just two takes, before waiting for Michael to come listen. “[When] Michael came in, Biggie nearly broke out in tears,” recalled Van Nest. “Biggie was tripping up on his words, bowing down and telling Michael how much his music had meant to him in his life. Michael was, as always, very humble and kept smiling while Biggie just went on and on how much he loved Michael.”

  After the pair had talked for a while, Dallas Austin played Biggie’s rap, which he had just recorded, for Jackson. “We popped it up on the big speakers and let
her go,” Van Nest said. “Michael loved it. ‘Oh, let’s hear it again,’ [he said], and we listened again. Michael just loved it and thanked Biggie for coming all the way from Philadelphia. Biggie asked rather sheepishly whether he could get a photo, and Michael agreed. A shot was taken, we listened again, and Michael thanked Biggie. Michael said good-bye and stepped out, leaving Biggie standing there looking completely stunned.”

  Just a couple years later, in 1997, Biggie was killed at the age of twenty-four. While his career was short, he would be remembered as one of the most formidable, talented, and influential rappers of all time.

  5. “EARTH SONG”

  Written by Michael Jackson

  Produced by Michael Jackson and David Foster; Coproduced by Bill Bottrell

  If Michael Jackson had been asked to pick his single most important song, there is a good chance he would have picked “Earth Song.” The six-and-a-half-minute epic is his ultimate plea on behalf of the planet. While it was not released as a single in the United States, it reached #1 in more than fifteen countries, becoming the most successful environmental anthem ever recorded. Yet “Earth Song” was more than just a jingle for a cause; it was an ambitious work of art, rooted in the lamentations of the Bible, the struggle of the spirituals, and the apocalyptic urgency of visionary poets and painters. Sonically, it was like nothing else on the radio, combining rock, gospel, and the blues with the scope and arc of a mini-opera.