Disgusted. Completely, utterly disgusted. By 25? On your home floor? Without D-Ho? And...(I can barely stand to type this)...to...(good God almighty)...J.J. REDDICK?!?
We suck. All right? We suck, dude. I don’t even want to talk about this team anymore. F the Sixers. (Give me a month and I’ll cool down. But for now, and for the immediate future, F the Sixers.)
All right, onto something else...
As my wand went a-wandering this morning, it started to piece together a little theory. Check it out:
What if “Billie Jean” was never intended to be a song about a girl who wronged a dude? What if Michael — having come off success found ridiculously early as the cute little frontman of the Jackson 5, followed by the huge breakout solo hit he had with Off the Wall — was starting to feel the pressure?
Joe knew how special his boy was. This one was no Tito, was no Marlon, Jackie or Jermaine. No. THIS KID was his meal ticket. So he and Young Michael’s producer began conspiring behind the scenes, figuring ways to leverage his charm and talent for their own purposes. They were going to make him a super-duper-star...even if Michael had no idea what that would mean, had no idea what kind of nuclear impact it would have on his life.
So now Michael is in the studio recording tracks for the would-be Thriller album. And between takes, in a private moment, he turns to his producer and begins to spill his guts; he speaks of his nervousness being at such a pivotal point in his career, and of his reluctance to have his star rise any higher. He’s already had his childhood virtually stolen from him, has already spent more than a decade with zero privacy. And now he’s just not sure if —
“Shh, shh,” Quincy tells him. “Everything’s gonna be all right, Michael. Listen —” And off he went, telling him just how it’s gonna be all right.
Michael wakes up that night in a cold sweat, a song in his head. He scrambles to find a paper and pencil, and scratches out these lyrics:
He told me his name was Quincy D,
As he caused a scene.
I said, “Don’t mind, but what do you mean,
‘I am the one’?”
(Gonna dance, on the floor, in the round)
He said I am the one.
(Gonna dance, on the floor, in the round)
And there it was. A story of a manipulated entertainer, forced to sing and dance despite his relunctance, despite his unexplored and unresolved existential crisis.
Who knows what happened after that. Who made the change. (Michael himself, before ever showing it to anyone? Or did he trust Quincy “Delight” Jones with the song, despite its content, only to have his hand forced later?) But maybe, just maybe, this song was Michael’s subconscious wish to free himself from his dubious producer — and by extension, from his father — and jump off of the path he’d been put on.
Ironically, this would become the very song that ignited the rocket-like launch of his soul-crushing super-duper-stardom.
Just a theory.
-G
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2 comments:
I'm not sure about your theory, but the question you tackle is one I've been pondering for a good 15 years: what the hell is Billie Jean about?
Is he telling a story that he made up? It couldn't be about a friend he knows cus he didn't have any friends. It couldn't have been about him, cus the dude is clearly still a virgin (at least with women). Yet, it's basically a "the shit ain't mine" story. Isn't that kinda gangsta for the King of Pop? It's a less literal version of Golddigger or a bunch of songs you'd hear today on Power 99. The lyrics I'm always drawn to are the chorus:
Billie Jean is not my lover
She's just a girl who says that I am the one
But the kid is not my son
The first line: is Billie Jean not your lover because Mike ain't into chicks? Is she not your lover cus he doesn't have girls he loves, just ones he's crushin'?
Is she really a girl? I kinda took Mike literally on this one cus it's hard to imagine him with a full grown woman.
And from there it's a classic, "this ho's lyin' on me y'all" theme. He might a came out moonwalking, but that don't mean nothin'. There's a lot of potentially conflicting messages in that little refrain.
And don't even get me started on the video. How many ways can one interpret the symbolism involved there? Walking down the street alone, stepping making the sidewalk squares light up with each step. The mysterious white girl behind the pole. It's too much to process.
The video is vexing.
As for the blocks that light up, I think that was just a cool effect some art director came up with; no symbolism intended. (Remember also the shot of Mike's white socks glowing on the back cover of Off the Wall. The AD might've seen that and just taken it to the next level.)
But what was with the private dick following him around? What was that supposed to represent? And yeah, the girl behind the pole. Was she Billie Jean? If so, again, where did the P.I. come from? Did she hire him? And if so, to do what? See if he was cheating on her? Why, to give her lie some credibility?
But back to your original point: How did Mike come up with this song? (This was his, remember; this wasn't a Rod Temperton jawn.) We know he ain't into chicks. We're pretty sure, rather, that he's into ten-year-old boys. So how does a song like THIS come out of you?
Unless it started as a different song altogether...
-G
P.S. We need Tito to come out with a tell-all book on what his childhood home was REALLY like. I'd buy that f**ker on presale three years before it was even coming out.
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