by Joseph Vogel
The song had come to Jackson back in June 1988, while in Vienna, during his Bad World Tour. “I was in…a hotel,” the artist recalled in a 1995 interview, “and I was feeling so much pain and so much suffering for the plight of the planet Earth….And that’s what inspired it….It just suddenly dropped into my lap when I was on tour in Austria.”
Jackson was so excited about the song he recorded a piano demo with Bill Bottrell at Westlake Studio in a two-week window between the European and US legs of his tour. That demo—dated September 20, 1988—contains the verses and the chorus cries. Like Jackson, Bottrell could hear its potential. The melody was simple, but elegant, and the cries seemed to tap into something primal and universal.
During the Bad era, Bottrell and Jackson had often talked about social and environmental issues. One day, Jackson insisted that Bottrell watch a VHS of the 1985 film The Emerald Forest, which was about a Brazilian tribe (and their home in the Amazon) under siege by corporate colonizers. According to Bottrell, the artist was deeply concerned about the shortsighted harm humans were causing and the resulting ecological devastation.
When Jackson returned from his Bad World Tour in early 1989, “Planet Earth,” as it was then called, was among the handful of priority songs Jackson and Bottrell worked on. “It became quite the obsession for both of us,” noted Bottrell. As Jackson began to envision it, “Planet Earth” would be a three-part suite, similar to “Will You Be There,” consisting of an instrumental intro, then the song, and then a spoken poem.
Unlike the classical prelude to “Will You Be There,” however, Jackson wanted something more ambient and natural. He explained his vision to composer George Del Barrio—“an ominous sound, the beginning of Earth as might have sounded when it was created and life began.” According to recording engineer Matt Forger, the original three-minute prelude was “very modern, very avant-garde. He wanted to change the rules of a pop song, to stretch and experiment. It was a completely different sound for Michael. The whole concept was very ambitious.” That intro was ultimately trimmed and the spoken poem scrapped (though it has since been released independently as “Planet Earth”).
Jackson and Bottrell continued to build the song, part by part. Guy Pratt (who was playing with Pink Floyd at the time) was brought in to lay down the bass. That deep, powerful sound was achieved by using an octave divider so that the bass was playing two octaves at once. “That’s what gave it that grandiosity,” explained Bottrell. Then British drummer Steve Ferrone was brought in to play drums. “It’s this very heroic rock rhythm,” Bottrell pointed out. “And the drums just explode. Michael kept saying, ‘Make it big! Make it big!’ ” To capture that sound, Jackson initially wanted to use a drum machine, but the artist was so impressed by Ferrone’s live performance he changed his mind. “The real drums just move the air off those speakers,” said Ferrone. “He went from just sitting there listening, to dancing around the room. And that’s what they used.”
Meanwhile, Toto band members Steve Porcaro and David Paich assisted with synth programming, including the track’s lush synth pads, and the Andraé Crouch Choir was invited to sing for the climactic call-and-response. “We gave them a tape to rehearse a few days before with Michael’s lead vocal,” Bottrell explained. “And they came in with the most wonderful arrangement.”
By 1991, the song was mostly complete, apart from a few vocal overdubs. Given how important the track seemed to Jackson, Bottrell assumed it would be the centerpiece of the Dangerous album. Jackson, however, held it back in the final weeks. As much as he loved the song, he didn’t feel it was quite ready.
The track was pulled out of the vault for HIStory in 1994. “It crossed formats,” recalled Matt Forger. “It started on twenty-four-track, switched to digital [due to changes in the industry]. The detail and work that went into it was staggering.” A few significant tweaks were made, including session guitarist Michael Thompson’s bluesy interjections in the verses and Bill Ross’s orchestral enhancements (overseen by producer David Foster).
But the biggest difference was in the final call-and-response ad-libs. On the original track, Jackson sang them in a kind of plaintive falsetto that Bill Bottrell described as “very Marvin Gaye-ish.” But Jackson wanted them to be more urgent, more gritty and aggressive. To achieve that, he decided to sing in full voice, but waited until the final week of recording as he expected “to kill his voice” in the process. In those final days, assistant engineer Rob Hoffman remembers some quiet moments with the singer: “We talked about John Lennon one night as [Jackson] was gearing up to sing the last vocal of the record—the huge ad-libs at the end of ‘Earth Song.’ I told him the story of John singing ‘Twist and Shout’ while being sick, and though most people think he was screaming for effect, it was actually his voice giving out. He loved it, and then went in to sing his heart out.”
Jackson sang that night with the lights out. The small crew of engineers in the control room remember getting goose bumps as they listened to the impassioned voice roaring out of the darkness.
While it took seven years to complete, the final result on “Earth Song” was worth it. Just as Jackson envisioned, it had a beginning, middle, and end. It told a story. The crisis point in the song comes at about the three-minute mark. “I used to dream,” he sings. “I used to glance beyond the stars / But now I don’t know where we are / Although I know we’ve drifted far.” The drums and bass kick back in, the chorus cries continue, and the song begins to build energy like a storm. And then comes the climactic finale. Jackson’s call-and-response with the Andraé Crouch Choir at the 4:10 mark may be the most breathtaking moment in the artist’s entire catalog. The sheer passion and power is simply unparalleled. It was as if he were channeling from the lungs of the Earth. As the artist explained, “I think Earth feels the pain, and she has wounds…and that’s what inspired it.”
With each line Jackson shouts on the Earth’s behalf, the choir responds emphatically (What about us?). The “us” here, as in “They Don’t Care About Us,” seems to refer to all those people who have been ignored, oppressed, mistreated; but also all the animals that have been harmed or killed, all the trees that have been cut down, all the oceans that have been poisoned, all the air that has been polluted. He is witnessing for it all.
“Earth Song” was mocked and maligned by most critics in the 1990s. Yet it has held up well over time. “I’m still very proud of it,” Bill Bottrell asserted. “There is nothing else like it in terms of size and structure….It has the broadest scope, the most unusual blend of elements….It expresses such deeply felt, powerful emotions.”
Jackson planned for “Earth Song” to be the climactic moment of his 2009 This Is It concert series in London. He saw its message as more urgent than ever, and wanted to “open up people’s consciousness.” It was the final song he rehearsed before he died.
6. “D.S.”
Written by Michael Jackson
Produced by Michael Jackson
Jackson is back on the attack in “D.S.”—a thinly veiled reference to Tom Sneddon, the Santa Barbara County district attorney who had led a costly investigation against Jackson (and would go on to lead a second one in 2003). The title (and written lyrics) were changed from “T.S.” and “Tom Sneddon” to “D.S.” and “Dom Sheldon” after Jackson’s attorney John Branca recommended the change in case Sneddon decided to take legal action against him. Yet, in the recording, Jackson seems to clearly say “Tom Sneddon.”
Beginning with the sound of a baby crying, the track is Jackson at his most acerbic. “They wanna get my ass dead or alive,” he sings, “You know he really tried to take me down by surprise.” Sneddon did indeed try to take the pop star down—and was almost successful. In 2003, Sneddon was widely criticized for smiling, joking, and personalizing his vendetta against the artist at a press conference announcing Jackson’s indictment (a press conference that fell on th
e same day as the artist’s album release for Number Ones). Jackson, and those close to him, believed that the conservative DA was prejudiced against the eccentric African American superstar—and had gone out of his way not to simply investigate, but to humiliate the artist.
On “D.S.,” Jackson uses his most potent weapon—music—to fire back. By turns taunting and vengeful, Jackson blasts Sneddon for four straight minutes, linking him to racism (“You think he brother with the KKK?”), institutional corruption, and parochial conservatism. As in the 1996 musical film, Michael Jackson’s Ghosts, Sneddon is, in essence, represented as the anti-artist: a cold, clinical authority figure, bent on ridding the world of “freaks” (those who don’t fit his definition of “normal”).
Jackson developed “D.S.” primarily with Brad Buxer and Chuck Wild. Against a driving guitar riff and funky beat, he delivers his throaty assault. The song, which samples Yes’s hit song “Owner of a Lonely Heart,” is simple and sparse, though some cool synth effects are sprinkled throughout. Even Slash’s guitar solo is scaled down and short. One of the main goals of the song seems to be how many times Jackson can repeat the refrain “Tom Sneddon is a cold man.”
When asked about the song, Sneddon replied, “I have not, shall we say, done him the honor of listening to it.” Though the district attorney knew it ended with a gunshot.
7. “MONEY”
Written by Michael Jackson
Produced by Michael Jackson
On the heels of “D.S.,” it is easy to view “Money” as an extension of Jackson’s litany of personal grievances. And on one level, it is. Jackson believed the allegations against him were driven by greed and plans to extort him, and the song drives home this point.
Yet “Money” effectively broadens the critique. Just as “D.S.” is about Tom Sneddon and institutional corruption, “Money” is about Evan Chandler and larger systemic greed and abuse. In “Money,” Jackson calls it “the devil’s game.” No one is immune to it. He asks his listeners: “Are you infected with the same disease?” He also calls out the hypocrisy of those who cling to religion, but act against its values. “So you go to church,” he sings, “Read the holy word / In the scheme of life it’s all absurd.” Money, as he puts it, is their real God.
Interestingly, Jackson switches perspectives throughout the song so that he also embodies those he is indicting. The chorus, for example, comes from the point of view of the individual who has sold out: “Anything, anything, anything for money / I’d lie for you, die for you, even sell my soul to the devil”. Musically, the track begins with a simple, shuffling drum loop and three contrasting bass lines, as Jackson speak-raps the verses. According to Brad Buxer, Jackson came up with every aspect of the song, from the lyrics, to the instrumental parts, to the arrangement.
Jackson was trying to figure out who to get to play the track’s funk guitar part when assistant engineer Rob Hoffman recommended the legendary Nile Rodgers. “That was one of the really fun parts about working with MJ,” recalled Hoffman. “You could call anyone and get them down there….Michael was excited for that because they had toured together in the ’70s. Of course Nile played some of the funkiest shit ever.” Rodgers later credited Jackson for helping to resurrect his musical career. “He was a good friend at the time and it’s thanks to him that I got back into the music industry.”
As “Money” evolves, it unfolds into an intricate collage of colliding rhythms, harmonies, and counter-harmonies (“Money makes the world go ’round”). “You want it,” Jackson finally declares, “You earn it with dignity.”
At about the 3:23 mark, barely audible beneath the harmonies, Jackson begins to call out a list of iconic business titans: Vanderbilt, Morgan, Trump, Rockefeller, Carnegie, and Getty. While these figures have often been praised as entrepreneurial giants and philanthropists, they have also been criticized for the practices that brought them such wealth. In fact, concerns about the concentrated power, influence, and illegal practices of Rockefeller, Morgan, and Carnegie helped inspire the “muckraking” movement that launched the Progressive era in the early 1900s.
“Money” was originally intended to be released as the third or fourth single from HIStory. After “You Are Not Alone” hit #1 in the summer of 1995, however, no singles were released in the United States over the next six months, at which point Jackson finally solicited the release of “They Don’t Care About Us.”
8. “COME TOGETHER”
Written by John Lennon and Paul McCartney
Produced by Michael Jackson and Bill Bottrell
Jackson’s high-octane cover of the Beatles’ classic “Come Together” originally appeared in the ninety-two-minute musical fantasia Moonwalker in 1988. Jackson performs the song in a sort of underground, private concert as the children featured in the film (including John Lennon’s son Sean) are ushered in (by Jackson’s real-life manager Frank DiLeo) and look on in amazement. That performance, featuring Jackson decked out in a yellow shirt and black leather pants, strutting and stomping with abandon, perfectly showcases the song’s raw, visceral energy.
That version is almost identical to the one that appears on HIStory. Jackson originally recorded the song in October 1986 with Bill Bottrell, just over a year after the artist had purchased the Beatles catalog in 1985. He had been thinking about potential cover songs within the catalog—Bottrell remembers driving around Los Angeles with Jackson, listening to Beatles tunes and trying to determine which would work best. They eventually decided on “Come Together” (the runner-up was the McCartney-penned “You Know My Name”). While Jackson’s relationship with McCartney had begun to fade by this time, he remained very close to the Lennon family. “It turns out that he’s the nicest person in the world,” said Sean Lennon in 1988, after working with the artist during the filming of Moonwalker. Yoko Ono, meanwhile, praised Jackson as both an artist and a person. When the pop star died in 2009, she wrote on Twitter: “We will always remember you and love you for what you were to us.”
“Come Together” didn’t take long to record. “I just went in and in one take started singing it,” Jackson noted. “We kept it raw and kinda funky. It was just spontaneous, but I knew I wanted to do something with it.” It was so raw, in fact, that even Bottrell thought it might be a little “undercooked.” Bottrell tinkered with the track a bit while Jackson was on his Bad World Tour, but Jackson (uncharacteristically) didn’t want much changed.
The original plan was to use the song for the Days of Thunder soundtrack. That film, starring Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman, featured a blockbuster lineup of artists, including Guns N’ Roses. The plan, however, fell apart due to a power struggle between CBS/Epic head Walter Yetnikoff and Hollywood mogul David Geffen (whose Geffen Records was overseeing and distributing the album). Jackson subsequently intended to include it on the proposed 1990 greatest-hits collection, Decade.
When that collection failed to materialize, “Come Together” became an orphan. Jackson never felt it fit with the material on Dangerous. He eventually released it as a B-side on the single “Remember the Time.” But he believed the Beatles cover deserved a bigger audience.
That’s how it ended up on HIStory nearly seven years after it was recorded. When Bottrell found out that Jackson had included it on the album, he was surprised. It didn’t sound like it had been touched since the last time he’d worked on it all those years earlier. But he was pleased that Jackson still gave him production credit.
While the song is a bit of an odd fit on HIStory, it was a smart pick from the vast Beatles catalog. The Beatles were famous for borrowing from black R&B. Jackson clearly picks up on those elements in his translation of “Come Together,” injecting it with a heavy dose of rhythmic tension and funk. Where the Beatles song is cool and spaced out, Jackson’s is hot and coiled. The famous guitar riff, remade with a synthesizer, has an elastic spring to it, while Jackson’s gravelly textur
ed vocal is charged with electricity.
The song is also appropriate because of how much Jackson identified with John Lennon—a fellow eccentric whose genius often rested in his unorthodoxy. “Come Together” illustrated this well. “It pitches a stream of self-confessed ‘gobbledygook’ at the violent antagonisms of an unenlightened world,” wrote Beatles critic Ian MacDonald, “implying that the language deployed in such confrontations is a trap and a potential prison.” The song, that is, tries to move beyond words and to let the music, sound, rhythm, and feel do the talking.
That resonated for Jackson, who not only often ad-libbed lyrics in demos to allow the music to dictate the song, but also loved playing with the sounds of language. He loved to twist and contort words; you can hear him doing just that on “Come Together.”
Of course, the main phrase listeners really hear and understand in the song is the title—“Come Together”—and this was, in essence, the overriding message of Jackson’s entire catalog. Music, for both Jackson and Lennon, was about bringing people together and making them feel free. It was, as Ian MacDonald reads “Come Together,” “a call to unchain the imagination and, by setting language free, loosen the rigidities of political and emotional entrenchment.”
While its full public unveiling was delayed for years, the song offers a nice symbolic link between two generation-defining music icons.
9. “YOU ARE NOT ALONE”