Michael Jackson's "Billie Jean"

I said don't mind but what do you mean I am the one? The snaps. Daku dance on the floor and the round. Why is it in the round? The internet and other people are convinced that this is a euphemism for sex on the floor in the round. What? Yeah. In the round, me and my only person who knockin' boots. Yeah, I mean like, you know, squeaky clean Michael Jackson can't say that, but it would tie into the song a little bit better than just say like, hey, do you want to dance as opposed to like, you know. She is accusing of paternity here. Sure. And that is a requirement for that too. That's what I've been told. Okay. Now, my wife and I, we've only danced and I've told these are my kids. The lecture today is artist and he's no introduction. He's literally the king of pop. That's right, Diallo. Today we are talking about the song that cemented this gentleman, not only as a musical powerhouse, but as a defining performance icon. I mean, we are talking about the fourth biggest selling single of all time. Of all time. All time. The top three, by the way, just in case you didn't know. All I want for Christmas is you, number one, candle in the wind. And don't stop believing in his number. Don't, please stop by. Listen, I know you may have heard this song a million times. You will never hear it the same after we give it the one song treatment. That's why we're so excited that today we're talking one song. And that song is Billie Jean by Michael Jackson. That kick and that stare, man. Iconics. I'm after writer, director, and sometimes DJ Diallo Riddle. And I producer DJ, songwriter, and musicologist luxury, AK, the guy who whispers, interpolation. And this is one song. The show where we break down the stems and stories behind iconic songs across genres, tell you why they deserve one more listen. You will hear these songs like you've never heard them before. And you can watch one song on YouTube and Spotify while you're there. Please like and subscribe. We always say that we want people to hear these songs like they've never heard them before. I think we said it at the beginning of superstition. Yep. But it's TV wonder. I'm sure there are people out there like, do I really need to hear Billie Jean anymore? But I'm serious. There's a reason why you hear a little extra kicking out voice today because we have so much to explore about this song. I've heard this song maybe more than any song we've ever done on this show. I have never heard even going through the stems, not even for the first time myself. There's so much that I was rediscovering. Yes. So many sounds that I maybe noticed perfectly as you hear the song over the years. And like, what is that? Finally, we can decipher what some of these little moments are. Sure. And a lot of them are really surprising. And you discovered stuff in the stems that we've never heard before. Truly never heard before because it happens after the fade out. That's right. So there's so much fun stuff to get to. You will hear this song. Yes. You will hear Billie Jean like it's the first time after this episode. But, luxury, do you remember the first time you heard Billie Jean? Oh, absolutely. It would have been on MTV watching that iconic video, which we'll be talking about later in the episode. But it made a huge impression on me just as it did planet Earth. Yeah. And introduced me to the song in kind of that iconic 80s way where you're hearing it and seeing it, which was a brand new idea at the time. Yeah. But somebody else is marrying images to the song for you. I mean, we take it for granted now, but that was revelry in the moment that it was happening. What's interesting, we've kind of gone back to that. There's so many songs that I like today that I've never thought, oh, what if there's a music video for that? Right. In the 80s and even in the 90s, there was an image-making machine that came out with the image for you to associate with the song. 100%. And that was relatively new. And boy, was it impactful? It really, really worked. What about you, Diallo? When was the first time you heard Billie Jean? Let me start by saying. Thriller was one of the first albums that I own right alongside a hard day's night by the Beatles and the best of the Muppets. I had my little animal drum set. I just, those were my three, you know, album. Wait, what are some Muppet songs that I should know? Oh, gosh, come on. See this for Cookie the Disco version. You know, he sounds like a, sounds like Shaft. Um, no, I see this for Cookie. It's like, who is the man who's eating all the desserts he can? Cookie. It's Cookie. I think that's a lot of things. Cookie Monster is basically Isaac Hayes. I thought Blue Isaac Hayes was black growing up. I was like, he's got colored fur. He's definitely wearing a leather vest with no shirt on him. What are you thought about? He is like an R&B singer from the early stage, like Philly International. He was. He was. He was. You put Gabel and Huff in a studio with Cookie. You get it magic. But Thriller was one of the first records I listened to in the basement. Uh, I used to practice the drums by Paris Bays, and you know, it's, I still remember the first time I heard it. I still remember where I was the first time me and my family would sit down and watch video hits one. The H1 because they were playing black music videos. And I don't think it was called the H1, you're right. It was video hits. Right. And I remembered they played that clip. We're talking a lot about this clip a lot. Let's go on and let's show a clip from that iconic music video for Billie Jean, Michael Jackson. We're for you. So for those of you not watching us on YouTube, uh, not to the video, Michael, a very young Michael is dancing on these squares that light up. It's weird because you know, he and Quincy met on the Wiz, which is an interpretation of the Wiz of the Vaz. And I'm looking at it now. Right. It looks like he's sort of like a silver brick road, at least to this city, this very emerald city. It looks like New York. I remember as a kid thinking like, what city is that? But it's like dirty. Is it not like garbagey and dirty? No, yeah, it's like, I'm not sure. I'm not sure what city that's supposed to be, but they need better, you know, garbage being. It feels like Michael Jackson's vision of what a city looks like because he's never actually been to one. Hey, I think there should be tableweeds of trash. Just pulling across my pants. No, it's a great music video. We're going to use the word iconic so many times that you should probably just play a drinking game as long as you're not driving where you just take us up every time we use the word iconic. But what can you tell us about this amazing video? So the video is directed by Steve Barron, who had previously directed human leagues, don't you want me, baby, which was apparently the source of interest. It's why they wanted to hire him for a lot of Jackson's video because they loved that video so much. And then he went on later to direct Ahas equally iconic take on me video. I did not know that what I'm on and Billy. That is the, that video makes me cry. It's so emotional at the end with this guy thing against the wall trying to get out becoming human again. It's so it really. I think we've all been that person banging it's the wall at some point in our lives. It's so point. Wow, Steve really set the standard for amazing music videos. I don't think that video has been topped in terms of emotional like resonance for me. It also has to be said that when Billy Jean first dropped MTV didn't want to play it. MTV didn't want to play for those of you don't know. MTV had mainly a rock vibe at the time, but like don't get me wrong. Like black artists wanted to be on MTV. They wouldn't play a lot of black artists famously. I think the only one that they were playing in a heavy rotation were the kids from musical youth with past the Dutchy amazing song past the Dutchy of the list. I probably the first reggae 12-inch I ever remember have it. Remember Michael Jackson was already a solo superstar. His last album off the wall was at the time the best selling album by a black artist and the best selling R&B album of all time. So eventually CBS records president Walter Yetnikoff. He calls MTV and he says if you don't put Billy Jean in rotation we're pulling all of our artists and that thread has some weight at the time. The other CBS records artists are huge on MTV. We're talking Cindy Loper and Journey and Billy Joel. These are people that MTV is regularly playing. Yeah, it's true to his credit. Yetnikoff kind of a notorious industry figure. In this case sort of did the right thing and did right by his artist and changed the course of music history and the making. Absolutely. At the time MTV was really just focused on white artists. That's called like it is. Rock artists they thought they were essentially the biggest most powerful radio station. Just happened to be a video radio station, but it was national. It sold units and they weren't sort of staying in their lane until they got called out for it. And Walter used some of those old school mob tactics. Essentially, hey, you're going to put them on and eventually MTV for pretty much. Yeah. So you mentioned off the wall another incredible Michael Jackson record, the previous one that had done gangbusters numbers and almost say ghost busters numbers. Ray Parker Jr fans, you all hear me. And by the way, I'm going to try to use Michael Jackson language as much as possible. Doggunnet on this episode musically off the wall was still very much an R&B and disco record. But for Thriller, they broke out of that box, which we should say is the black music box. It was a very conscious effort to crossover into pop into rock into other areas outside of the funk and R&B lane that they had been previously. You know, we said on a previous episode, this helps make everything that happens after the so clear Michael Jackson after leaving the Jackson's was consumed with this idea of being the biggest star of all time. And that wasn't just music star. That was movies. That was everything. He said he was going to be like Gene Kelly. He was going to be like Elvis. He just he had like a bunch of people who was like, I'm going to be the best dancer. I'm going to be the best singer. I'm going to be the best actor. You know, he had just done the way. You know, he had a vision board up at that ranch and you know, yeah, with all these people's photos on them. He knew he had a very clear vision. He thought the Quincy was the person who was going to help get in there. What can he tell us about when they were pulling together the album that would become Thriller? So according to the story, they had something like 700 demos that they were pulling from to find the songs for the right. This is classic A&R artists are up to 400. You got to find what the songs are. So they took contributions from all over famously. It's the same Toto team that we talked about in the thriller episode. Go back and listen to that sister companion to this particular episode. We get into a lot of detail about all of these players because there are a lot of the same performers on this song. I gotta say, how do you even keep track of so many songs? So French eats. I don't know. Well, Michael Jackson, like myself, is a Virgo. So I kind of understand. I think we share a birthday, actually. Wait, you're going to like the Duke of Pop. His birthday is August, we're both Virgos. It makes a lot of sense to me. It's me. It's MJ. It's Beyonce. Like we all, we share a kind of mindset that the rest of you can't possibly understand. Organization is important. If you got to set that goal and then you can achieve that goal of world domination. These guys, those two happen to get a little farther along than I did personally, but that's basically we are all up one mind. We're just working at our issues in real time here at the pod. But out of that 700 demos, they settled on an initial nine tracks. But Quincy and Michael still felt like the record wasn't balanced enough in terms of genre. So they took out four of those existing tracks and replaced them with the lady in my life, PYT, human nature and beat it. That's right. And one of the songs they were placed, this was going to be the ninth song on the record. And I love this story because it's Glenn Ballard who went on to co-write you out of no with Alanis Morissette and hold on Wilson Phillips. He put together a song called Nightline. I've got the demo. This was going to be the ninth song until Billie Jean replaced it. Here it is. What have been on the album? Let's hear it. I think they made the right call. I don't know. You like this one better than the girl is mine? I mean, we're going to talk about that. I will say that this does remind me of Starlight, which was the original version of Thrillard. And I feel like they just knew somewhere in the mix they had to put like a double eye in there. Like Starlight. Yeah, it makes you do certain things with your mouth. It's fun to sing. Starlight. But I don't know about Nightline. Yeah, I don't know about Nightline. I kind of like that song, but listen, it didn't make the cut for this record, but he ended up cutting it with the pointer sisters. And I spent up least there's a version by Ellen Foley. He's calling on the nightline. He's calling on the nightline. You may know from being on Nightcourt. And she was also meetloaf's co-vocalist on Paradise by the Dashboard Light. Oh my gosh. But last but not least, she was Mick Jones' girlfriend and she is the girl about whom he wrote, should I stay or should I go? I did not know that. Crazy rabbit hole there. So if you're ever playing seven degrees, there's an MJ clash connection that you never knew about. That's right. And Glenn Ballard finally did get a cut with Michael Jackson because he later wrote Man in the Mirror, which was not a small hit. Not a small hit. Not a small hit. So he got dropped from Thriller, but he got picked up for Man in the Mirror. Well, so I have a question for you, Lexory. What's one song? And you sort of hinted at this, but what's one song that you would cut from Thriller and one? You know, over the year, I kind of love the fact that we've done a hundred and fifteen episodes. So this has actually come up kind of annually. We kind of played. So if you go back hundred episodes, you asked me that and my answer. You didn't like so much. You were really, you convinced me, I should say. I thought that you didn't like it. But my answer was, I think at the time, Lady in my life. Yes. And then you're like, no, you don't understand Lady in my life. And I listened to you. For those who don't know, and here's a little bit of a true slow jam on Thriller. Thriller is not full of slow jams. Here is the Lady in my life. We're allowed to have disagreements, discresancies. And I think my new choice would be, as I just alluded to, I don't think we really need the girl's mind. I don't think we need it. So to those who don't know, the girl's mind is actually the first single off of this album. It does pretty good. Yeah, but it's the most forgettable out of the whole thing. Nobody's like, hey, put on Thriller, put on the girl's mind. Like that almost never happens. Doggone girl is mine. That's where that word comes from. What dog on girl is mine? What the hell? They should have taken, we talked about this. They should have taken because, you know, Mike recorded, say, say, say, say, that's the one. An amazing song. That is the Michael's album. That's the Michael Paul collab that kills it every time. Imagine if Thriller replaced the girl's mind with say, say, say, say, it'd be pretty much a perfect album. That's a much better record. And I don't know what song I would take off. That would make Thriller better. It could actually have more success. Michael Jackson. It's 50 million. No to self. I bet you some of our younger listeners don't even know about the girl's mind. Here is a clip of Paul McCartney, Michael Jackson. First single off of Thriller, the girl is mine. And here is the far superior, I think. We agree on this. Boogie song. It's kind of like a Boogie 80s funk song. Here's say, say, say. Oh, I said fun bottom down. I want fun with you. Baby, baby, do the game. It's so good. It's like an explosion of falsetto. I'm just looking at the data. The girl's mind is the third least streamed song on the record. I mean, it's just didn't pass the test of time. And by the way, I love the lady's mind. It also got a second life when hip hop started. Oh, and the lady in my life is the least streamed. I know, but you know what? I think that especially for R&B and hip hop fans, the lady in my life is not only beloved, but it did get sampled quite a bit in the 90s on some great songs. The one I think of the most is from our French on Stagman and Boys to Men, featured on the yellow cool J song, Hey, Love. So today we're talking Billie Jean, which I think most people know is basically a song about an obsessive delusional fan who's claiming Michael Jackson's the father of her child. It's one of those songs where you know every word, but if you actually stop to think about what you're singing and what he's saying, it's kind of wild how dark this is for a pop song, for a Quincy Jones song. Because the Jones wasn't over like, you know, deep like dark songs like this. And definitely not MJ at this period is career. Yeah, I think that darkness was part of now you're saying it. You're making me think about when I first heard it. That's part of what resonated for me because pop radio at the time. I mean, sure, you've got an eclectic range of songs in the 80s. Great, great time to be grown up and listening to music. Great time. But something about these lyrics cut through to my like nine year old brain because there was so much mystery to them. What is he talking about? It sounds really dark. It sounds really adult. It sounds like kind of issues that I don't fully understand yet because I'm still a child. I can't know that they're coming soon. But you know, I don't want to be so it's not for me personally. It's hard for me to think about this song without thinking about driving. Yeah, that was not surprised to learn that Michael Jackson claims that he came up with this baseline and just this general sound in his head while driving down into a boulevard one time. Like I think there's something that sounds like a revved up Maasarati in this Miami Vice world. And that baseline that do do do do do do do do do. It's got one of the infinite baseline kind of feelings. Yeah, it could really it never resolves. It's always going in a cycle. Lyrically it never resolves. Lyrically it's never like and then she went away. You know, that's fine. Everything's fine. We said it out of court. That doesn't happen in this song. Michael talks about the origins of the song coming from his real life experience as a kid in the Jackson Phi with his older brothers. And apparently they had these situations happen to them. But he's also talked about it multiple times across multiple interviews and books. Yeah. And so there's a little bit. I think you'll our story that baby the answer. It seems like the character in the story, Billie Jean is a composite. Right. Different other people. And I'm going to be team Quincy Jones here. There's no way with this song came out that people didn't think that he wasn't talking about Billie Jean. Oh, yeah. Strange. Strange choice of names there. She was very famous to the talk. Only other Billie Jean in people's consciousness. It's like the weekend had a song called I didn't sleep with you, Miley. And it's like, well, there's really only one. It's very specific. There were Miley's in the world. That's like a little. That's the one. Yeah. For those that don't know Billie Jean Keane is like one of the most famous female athletes. She was hugely important to women's tennis. She spelled her name Billie Jean like LLE. Right. You know, it's very specific spelling. Yeah. It's very specific spelling. Yeah. And she's iconic as you mentioned tennis player. She had this legendary like feminist icon because she played this very sexist tennis player called Bobby Ray. And it was called the Battle of the Sexes. Right. And she. And she. Exactly. Which kind of resonates today. That same stupid argument is going through our culture even now. But she beat him. And she beat him cold. She beat him hard. Yeah. To much satisfaction. Yeah. All right. We're going to take a quick break. But when we get back, we're going to tell you who wrote this song. Who Michael might have borrowed the baseline from? And yes, we've got his isolated vocals. You don't want to miss that. Also, no matter how many times you've heard Billie Jean, we've got some stuff that you've never heard because it came after the fade out. That's right. And you've never heard this part of the session. Stick around. Welcome back to one song. So last year we didn't have a song on the song. Really go back and listen to it if you want. Today we're going to be talking about a lot of the same people producer, Quincy Jones, and engineer Bruce Wadeon. That's right, Deyola. But this time we won't be talking about songwriter Rod Temperidge and who was an unsung hero of Thriller because he did not participate in this song at all. There you go. It was Michael himself who wrote the song and actually demoed it up on his own 16 track. And we have a demo. I love this. I love the fact that we have this artifact. Let's check it out. He changed that from says to claim. I mean, yeah, you got to give Michael credit. That's almost the damn name. That's a fully formed song. It is a fully formed song. Now just to be clear, you had an idea in his head. I believe he programmed the Lindrum LN1 because he owned one. And he brought in his session musicians. I think it's Greg Phillin Gaines and another unsung hero we're talking about who played Bill Wofler, who played the keyboard. Wofler who I absolutely love. He writes a lot of songs. I think he did a lot of work with Stevie Wonder in the 70s. That's right. The secret life of plants. And sound shaping too. That's a big part of the story. When we isolate the stems in just a moment for the keyboards, we'll be talking about it. But it's not just the parts. It's also the exact sounds that he's dialing. It's the part of the song and his contribution to it. Yeah. I think Wofler is a really talented songwriter. He wrote one song in particular called Wake Up that I think the song is great as it is. But I can only imagine if Michael Jackson or Stevie Wonder has a single record. It's on an album called Wolf. And this is a little record. And here's a little snippet of Wake Up. All right. Let's get into the stems. Let's start with the drums. Play by famously Indugo Chancellor. That's to beat my friends. And what's crazy is I know what song this is. You know what song it is. How many songs could you just hear? A kick in a snare. Just the first kick in snare was all I needed. And it's got like an elaborate array of drums. It's really just the kick. It's just the snare and the cymbal, right? So there's playing the high hat. And what is about to come in after that first couple of bars is this sound. Cabassa which I think might come from the Lindrum. So when you add that in, I'll do it before and after. So here's without the cabassa and then I'll add the cabassa. That's in the right speaker when you listen to the song. So the cabassa adds this. So we have this grounding which is just foundational kick and snare groove. And it's one of the greatest kicks and snares I've ever recorded. We'll talk about another unsung hero of this episode and the recording of it in just a moment. But that cabassa starts to add what the rest of the layers are going to add, which is one piece at a time, a little bit of syncopation, a little bit of accent. I'm so glad you bring this up because if you remember on our episode about the roots, the next movement, they said that they had a little bit of cabassa in there because it was the bad boy records philosophy that you needed a little bit of that to make the girls move their hips. Make the back to make the spine go crazy. A little bit of syncopation that makes a big difference. And it prevents it from being ironically just like the kick that you hear at the beginning of Balce Rock's Gate, famously sampled by dad punk for Da Funk, which is a more stripped down version of this. And I'm glad you said that because one thing about this kick and snare with my producer ears on, like something one reason why I have among, I'm not the only one, I'm one of many who have sampled that isolated kick and snare because that break is right there for you to use. And as a producer, you can just grab the kick and grab the snare and use it for your own productions, maybe lera add another things to it. But one reason for though, it's so distinct. It's so distinct. The sound is so distinct in part because of Bruce Swidian who you mentioned earlier. He's on this entire record. He's one of the unsung heroes of all things Michael Jackson. But specifically, he built a plywood drum riser. I actually did it for rock with you. It was used on off the wall. Totally. I can see there's similarities. But part of how he got that sound was because it's this eight foot square plywood platform that's 10 inches off the ground, which means that when you play the drums, there isn't bleed in the low frequencies. This is super in the weed stuff. No, no, no, go there, man. But it's like, let's get in the weed. A huge part of the contribution to why it is so distinct sounding because the drummer is on a almost foot tall. Wouldn't stand. And he also isolated the high hat. He did something with the kick drum where he took the front head off and put a cinder block in. And then there was a furniture blanket. There's all of these very specific sort of engineering science decisions that Bruce Swidian came up with like invented to make the beat sound like it did. And of course, there's Chancellor himself who's performing it spot on perfectly playing to play. And one of my things I'll say he's playing to the demo. So he's locked into the Ellen ones rhythmic perfection robotic perfection. So you have this combination of factors that make this beat so iconic. And look, it's nothing fancy, but it's just what this song needed. And I was talking with friend of the show Patrice Russian. And I love what she said about Indougu style. And he said, quote, Indougu deserves props for his steady, contributive musicality. Not many people played for Frank Sinatra, Miles Davis, Santana, George Duke, and Michael Jackson. He did. His playing was tasteful and unselfish in finding the right thing to play. That's why he could make music with anybody. Okay, so before we get to the base, we got to talk about this bass line. It really does make the song to hear Michael tell it. And for listening to the demo, you would think the bass line was all him. But Quincy Jones says Michael stole it for the song state of independence. Quincy said quote, no, no lie, man. He was as mega-belly as they come. That's my Chris Jones. That's right. So the song state of independence was actually written by John Anderson from Yes, the Prague rock group. When he did a collaborative record with Van Gellis or Van Gellis, I understand it's pronounced by actual Greek people. The guy who did this after for Blade Runner. Blade Runner, chariot of fire. That's right. So in 1981, they recorded this song for the record Friends of Mr. Cairo. See if it sounds familiar. That's how familiar. You know, it's interesting. What's so interesting to me is that of course, we're about to reveal to you if you haven't already noticed the similarities that are so striking that to call them similarities is to insult the word same. Because this is sameness, not similarities. But I've definitely noticed how tempo can make such a huge difference. We talked about evocation combinations. Because once you slow it down or speed it up a certain amount, the similarity starts, I think get a race. I think our brains can't really process that. I also want to jump in on this because nowadays when you speed something up or slow something down, there's that button you can push in most of our, you know, applications like time and double time. They keep the key of the music the same. But when you used to slow it down, it used to change the key. Right. Right. This and tempo were locked together. Exactly. So state of independence that you just played it is both faster but also higher. Like it's lighter. And I bet you if you were to slow it down, it would sound more like Billie Jean. Lucky for you. You're saying we have the technology. But there's one more step in the process you already mentioned it. In 1982, Donna Summer covered this song again written by John Anderson from Yes and Van Galas. And who produced it? It was produced by Mr. Quincy Jones. Oh, a lot of the same players were in the room as on the Thriller record in Dugu, Greg Phil and Gaines, who we'll be mentioning in a moment on keyboards. And Lewis Johnson on bass as well. And the background vocals were the idea was let's bring all of our celebrity friends in the room and do a big background vocal singing, sing along. Yeah. An idea that he would later bring into we are. Right. But in this case, it was Stevie Wonder, Lionel Richie, Christopher Cross, Kenny Loggins, Dion Warwick, Diane Cannon, the actress for some reason was there. I think you could blow. And Michael Jackson. What? So Michael Jackson. I can be in that freaking green room. That would be a fun green room. Michael McDonald was also there. Here's what that. Oh, you can't also Michael McDonald, bro. Michael McDonald should have been the first name he said. I erred. I apologize for my er. Oh, and also Michael McDonald. The er of my ways. And it sounded like this. That's just sweet freedom. And here's the here's the cover. It's identical. It's a cover though. That's unexpected. So here is the Donna Summer version. I'm going to pitch it down five half steps. So we're going to go from the key of B to the key of F sharp. And now let's take that. And we're going to slow it down. And now layering it with Billie Jean. Indistinguishable because it is the same. The same notes. The same rhythm. As Quincy himself said, the notes don't lie. Michael is as Machiavellian as they come. So what's the guitar doing on this song? Because just sitting right here right now thinking about it, I can't tell you what the guitar part even is. I'm sure you'll play it. I'll be like, oh, yes, that. So the guitar only comes in on the choruses. So you first hear it on chorus one and it plays this part. I'll give you some context with the bass line. Yeah, I might be Catholic. It's just there when it goes to the floor. And by the way, this is David Williams. And the part he played on the demo. And then when it came time to re record it for the final version, they just couldn't quite capture the magic from the demo. So this guitar part, again, according to Anthony Mernelli, is from the original demo. Okay. So this is one of those pieces that carried all the way through to the final. It's about to happen. Here it comes. Wow. It's just one note. No way. It's on the bass. Yep. It's one note. Yeah. It's building its tension because it's just one note done, done, done. It's insistent kind of like a psycho stabbing. I was going to use the paranoia before the same page. There's something that's going to happen. There's something that's threatening a little bit of a psycho. It's kind of slicing through like. Wow. It's crazy. This is very so deep in the mix. And also this is a song that got mixed up to like 90 times before they went back to the second mix because they were like, oh, you know what? We can't we can't recapture what was there. It's almost like sometimes it happens in my profession. You'll do a draft and a revision or revision. And then at some point you're like, you know, you're like, you know, you're like, you know, we do a draft and a revision and a revision. And then at some point you're like, wow, we've gotten so far away from what made us laugh in the first draft and then you go back to like the second or third draft of it. There's a second part that he plays in the second chorus. That's it. We know that we love that part. Yeah, we love that. That's got more. It's more melodic. It's more of a riff. And it stands out more because everything else is like he's just going, yeah. And you can kind of sing along to it, whereas the first one you can't go, done, done, done, done. Remember that part of Michael Dexan's all right. I'm going to be down to get down to get down to get down to get down. But I will say because we're famous for this on the show. If you just had the drums, that band to get down to get down. You can actually make this a French touch song. All right, here we go. Does that not kind of sound like stardust caches? Dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun. Geniuses hit us up. We will make that remix with you. I know I'm going to enjoy this next little part. We're talking about the synths. There are actually four different layers of the iconic intro synth part. So I'll play them for you one by one and build it all up. It starts with this. This is the CS80. And here's the second one. More of a brass sound. Here's the third one. And there's one more. It's Michael Jackson himself. I'll just play Michael so you can hear just his part. He is singing that interval. So it's two takes. He's layering his own stack. And it sounds like this. Then I'll bring back the synths. And then when we get to this part, it's a little bit imperfect and human. Why do we call that imperfect? I call it imperfect because I want to make sure on this show that we point out in these iconic songs that we have a lack of auto tune. We have hitting the notes close enough. And by the way, in the mix, it gives it a little bit of wobble. I used to hear the notes were not quite hitting the note because to me, they sound good. You might have a more trained ear than mine. So listen to the first two. You can hear him getting it slightly wrong the first time, the harmony. And correcting himself on the second one. It's very subtle. Do you hear how those are different? It's a bit. Who? Who? He goes up a half step. Uh-huh. It's so subtle. But those are not the same. I hear it. You're right. I hear that. And it's like he didn't get it the first one, but he got the second one. And then the rest of them, he found it and he stays there. But they didn't go back and redo the first one because it wasn't the kind of clam or mistake that caused a problem if anything in the mix layered with three other synths or other synths on top. It's weird as I heard the difference, but then I thought that it was intentional. Yeah. And you thought it was not intentional. I wouldn't call that intentional. No, that that sounds to my ear. I'm not micr-jack. Uh-huh. But to my ear, I've been in the vocal booth millions of times and I've failed to get it and then gotten it. And that's what it sounds like. And then you go back and you might redo or copy and paste. Yeah. The good one over the bad one. I was going to say I think that the level of nuance and subtlety between those is pretty such that you would probably not have it in there if you just did it once and then just, you know, ran it across your screen. Yeah. Cut and paste the whole way across. But with tape, the change wouldn't be there with tape in the mix and time, you know, not really to burn. That's right. With deadlines approaching for delivering a final record. Yeah. They just decided. You hear now, don't know. Oh, I don't know. And then the rest of them, he stays up on the, I'll play it again. Do. It's very small and subtle. Again, human. The only difference I think was that I thought that was all intentional. Yeah. So I was listening for a mistake, so to speak. Yeah. And I think you heard the difference in thought, not intentional. And by the way, you're probably right. And by the way, maybe we need a better word than mistake. Uh-huh. Because what this is is a thing that happens in recording that you decide is contributing something that's worth keeping. Yeah. It's kind of like a not judgmental category. It's not good or bad. It's just like that happens. Difference. It's different. Across this repetitive section, because this goes through the whole song. It gives it a little variety, maybe that had something subtle. Who's to say? But I didn't know that there were synthesizers underneath. I thought it was just him going, whoo, whoo. Like, I thought that was all him. And now I know that there's. I think I thought the opposite. I think I was surprised. You know, I was. Yeah. I know. That was all voice. Yeah. The story behind the sound you're hearing. This is really important. We mentioned both Anthony Maranelli and Bill Wolfer, a part of their contribution to the song, is not simply coming up with finding the right parts. The right notes to play. But he also, apparently, the story behind why he's even on the song is that he was the Jackson's touring keyboard player. And one time at rehearsal, Michael had heard him dial in a specific sound on his Yamaha CS80 synthesizer. It's a giant keyboard. Very expensive keyboard. And dialing in a sounds a big deal. Because in this era, you know, these specialists that know how to get in. There are some machines have presets, but a lot of them don't have presets. You don't just buy the machine. Right. And that authoriac sounds necessarily that you want to use. You've got to find it. So he finds this patch. Michael Jackson remembers this sound. And then months go by and he calls him in and says, I'm working on this new song that I'm working on. Billy Jean is not my lover. I guess that's the only lyric he had. And he has Bill Wolfer to find that sound that he had done that one time. It like sound check. Yeah. It like whatever Minneapolis, who the hell knows where it was. You said. So Bill is like, I don't know what song he's talking about. So he finds he takes time, you know, whatever hour is find something close. And he's like, is this it? Is this is is is is it? And he finally lands on what we just heard. What can you tell us about the pre-chorus in the pre-chorus? We have a visit from our old friend from the Steely Dan episode. That's right. Tom Scott just here with his lyric on. And he is playing get another example of an iconic part that you may have noticed, but wasn't sure what it was. It's Tom Scott on the lyric on. And he's playing this. That's the people always told me. Yeah. Yeah. I'll give you some whirlie underneath it and add some other layers. You know context. I'll bring in some vocals. And mother always told me. A big gap of cool. You know. A big chevro was a duel. I couldn't live. I come to do the. Hey. I'm not. Great. He's attention to the song. Wait, I think we've got to hit the main here a little bit. What are those keyboards that are on the part before Tom jumps in there? So that's a whirlie. I believe that that is another unsung hero of all things Michael Jackson, which is Greg villain gains his long music director. I believe live and he's on almost every song on thriller. And most of his records, in fact, just a wonderful keyboard player, incredibly talented musician, famously taken off of writing credits or don't stop to get enough. He wrote the entire bridge. Dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun. Early versions of the seven and she sees his name in the publishing and they took it off. Who did? Quasim. I think it was Michael who decided, yeah, I don't want to give him 10% anymore. Talk about Machiavellian. Speaking of tension, there's some great strings in the song. And I feel like that they definitely make it feel cinematic. Almost unresolved in a good way. What's going on with the strings on Billie Jean? So the strings consist of violins, violas and celli. That's right. I said it, celli. You're going to lay in the celli. And I'll play them for you individually and then build the layer. Here are the violins. The violas. Which is a harmonized line. And then underneath all of that is the one note, celli, just doing the octave. And together they sound like this. We're going to come. Jell-on, Jell-on, Jell-on, Jell-on, Jell-on, Jell-on, Jell-on, Jell-on. Ooh, leave that going. Smile. Smooth as silk. But also like tortured. It's like a tortured string moment. It feels like film noir. And it still bugs me to this day. Like on every episode with some kind of music. It feels like film noir. And it still bugs me to this day. Like on every episode with strings. I don't think I've ever named a string player. They're never credited. We get string arrangement by Jerry Hay, Jeremy Lubbick. But those are performers whose names are lost to time. No one wrote them down. Maybe the people who played on them have like social media out there somewhere. We're like, I've never got credit for this. Yes. But it's also a problem. There's one time where we are begging you to reach out to the comments and say, Hey, you left out the spack toy. We'd love to know your names. And super importantly, there is this moment when the keyboards do the, what I call the scary part. You know what? I'll show them isolated. And then I'll give you the context. I wrote down the word scary. It's so beautiful. And it's in dialogue with the Lyra cons. Let me put those back together. And this is important to kind of call out because Quincy Jones. I'm going to say, I'm going to say, I'm going to say, I'm going to say, I'm going to say, I'm going to say, I'm going to say, I'm going to say, I'm going to say, I'm going to say, I'm going to say, I'm going to say, I'm going to say, I'm going to say, I'm going to say, I'm going to say, I'm going to say, I'm going to say, I'm going to say, I'm going to say, I'm going to say, I'm going to say, I'm going to say, I'm going to say, I'm going to say, I'm going to say, I'm going to say, I'm going to say, I'm going to say, And he has this genius for deciding what instrument to play what part in dialogue with something else Maybe further along in the song we need to add a new idea. So by the second chorus we have a lot going on I'll play them for you now So just to point out in that section there's kind of five different things that come and go in dialogue interlocking We have the LyraCon we have the string section with cell I and Avila and Violins there's two or three different synths in there kind of coming and going like a Jupiter or a Cs80 And that's just like eight seconds of music and that's just because we're in the middle of the second chorus Which is two minutes long and just all the way to the end and that's how you break it up and And and create this sort of audio interest when our backbone is this unchanging baseline and drumbeat And same well, we've come to a part where I'm sure a lot of you have been waiting for We're gonna listen to some isolated Michael Jackson vocals and I think let's just start with verse number one The snaps In the round And let's play the falsetto for that one line. We just started About how many parts do you think that he would put in there like well I've seen some things on some of these songs it looks like eight or nine parts This is not this is the opposite of Thriller go back and check out our Thriller episode if you want big jazzy stacks In this one we have not only is that not double track to my ears at least I believe that that is single track. I also have come to understand that to be a single take So he had built the song in his head He had done the demo. He knew it so well legendarily. He'd been driving around Listening to it or maybe driven around and someone a motorist passing by pointed out that his car was on fire So he definitely had Put this song into a place when he hit the microphone for the for the take for the real deal He knew the song inside it out. He knew exactly what he wanted to do I believe the whole thing is one take. I'm only hearing for moments like I just played with the falsetto Moments where they're layered in the verses, but a single take I think I don't think it's double track You know, let's talk about this lyric because this has been bugging me since I was a kid okay Lerick is uh, I am the one who will dance on the floor in the round. Why is it in the rounds now when I In the round, you know my actor right brain kicks it is like oh this Actually But the internet and other people are convinced that this is a euphemism for sex on the floor in the round What yeah in the round means I'm not the only person who knockin boots Yeah, I mean like you know squeaky clean Michael Jackson can't say that But it would tie into the song a little bit better than just say like hey, do you want to dance as opposed to like you know She is accusing him of a paternity here sure and that is a requirement for that to that's what I've been told Okay, now my wife and I we've only danced Told these are my kids, but I hear I mean listen the round I've never thought of that explanation it would make sense In the round, but what I mean I was always like is he saying the word room weird like yeah, I think when I was a kid I didn't know what I was That's what I thought it was but your explanation makes more sense this maybe one of those times where we'll continue to debate What the lyrics actually mean and it makes sense because this is a song that was clearly as we heard the demo in his head Before the lyrics were in his head. I'm gonna keep going The Those snaps too. It's so cool that they left those in Questlove said anytime you listen to Michael Jackson especially when you are lucky enough to have the stems You will notice that he's got really loud snaps and really loud hand claps. Yeah, that's He had big hands and that's not the only way he's indicating rhythm all of the breaths and all of the like stutters It's all rhythmic. It's sort of like James Brown asks with melody And I'm so glad you breathe this up because I feel like this is the beginning of really that style of singing for Michael And I think that if we ever do another Michael episode We should probably go into like you know, remember the time or smooth criminal when the Like that because like even more and more right part of his signature But he's not there yet like at this point. He's just like it's still got that staccato hit yeah But it's not full on you know, what it's gonna become but some high percentage of sound we're hearing coming from Michael Jackson Isn't like melodic lyrical right phonemes, you know We're hearing an awful lot of just rhythmic stuff going on which is a huge part of his sound Something else we'll hear for the first time on this song. I believe or one of the first times We hear the he he he which you know, obviously becomes sort of a signature thing It comes up in the pre-chorus. Can we hear a little bit of the pre-chorus? And mother always told me a big gavaku you love a big java was a dude I just need to call attention to those o's because they're really strange And they're kind of all over the place a cool choice Yeah, it's it's building the tension and it should be pointed out by the way that this whole the song is in basically F sharp Minor perhaps story in mode But in this moment we have a borrowed note We here's where we are in the song. We're in the pre-chorus. We're taking a break from that one four of it I'll start the whole time the rest of the song the entire chorus, but we have these two pre-chorus is They go to six they give us a break from Change a pace from the one four And then at the very end it goes to the five which is that big tension moment right? It's the dominant In the tombs we were hearing the dumb dumb dumb dumb dumb dumb dumb dumb and he hits one note that's not in the mode The scale that we're supposed to begin. It's the That's in E it's technically an E sharp which any piano player can tell you or any musician can tell you is not an Existant note There's no such thing as E goes directly to F It's a half-step in between the Joe Black key, but that is technically a borrowed note from another chord I'll play it for you again and point it out and that contributes hugely to why this moment is so special and it jumps out of the song Because this note isn't anywhere else in the song It's the word lie Trevor was a Jew I could have live become the Jewel So that just gives us this massive moment of tension Yeah, and then we come back to the regular kind of riff the one four in the chorus like I said it's cinematic The whole thing is like this is that point where it's like Yeah, I think into the chorus. You're breathless. Yeah. Yeah, I'm totally breathless. Let's hear the chorus my man The jet is not my son And now I'll play the isolated harmony and then I'll layer them It's interesting. There's only harmony in the first part of that chorus And then when it repeats there is no harmony I never noticed that before it's an interesting choice But what are some of the wonderful stuff that you hear in these stems that we've never heard because the song faded out Yeah, the song fades out, but we've got another two minutes or so of content We're not gonna play all of it, but here are some of the fun moments after the phase That sounds like stuff you'd later use in battle Yeah, that's that no No, I listen to that again. I never noticed that You're like he's like I can use that no you can't This is it got cut out of this song. Yeah for another song. Oh, he said you know Any and like Annie we're gonna be okay. Annie are you okay? Yeah, exactly. There's a little more She is just a Here I'll put that in the mix Oh So it's kind of a calling response is angry Yeah, maybe he's not even sure if she's just a girl anymore because she might be maybe taking him Yeah, filling in all these gaps. It's this is that a rangeman orchestration brain yet again All right, Luxury now that we've heard the song tell us how this blitz break down. This should be interesting 100% Michael Joe Jackson really. Oh, yeah, he got Quincy off the song He is 100% the songwriter of Billie Jean by Michael Jackson a song by Michael Jackson performed by Michael Jackson One of four songs on the record that he wrote that he gets soul songwriting credit for along with the girl Is mine beat it and want to be starting something. Oh, wow. Yeah, I'm starting something amazing It's not as easy to forget how many bangers are on this album We can't talk about Billie Jean without getting into that historic Motown 25 or four is Motown 25 was this huge NBC special In 1983 celebrating 25 years of the label with performances by legends like smoky Robinson Stevie Wonder and Marvin Gaye Michael was asked to perform with the Jackson five and agreed to do it under the condition that he could perform Billie Jean Let's watch this clip but one of the things I love the most is that it begins with one of the most subtle. Yeah, our Dissus It's simply history check this out. I love those songs Those romantic moments with all my brothers included your main But you know those were good songs. I I like those songs a lot, but especially I like The new songs for those who who aren't watching All of the other jacks is walk away. They're waving and then Michael delivers that infamous line You know like I like the old times I like the old songs, but I especially I like the new songs and the audience goes crazy I play a little bit of him doing the moonwalk at Motown 25 When people try to imitate Michael Jackson this is the version that they're usually channeling the fedora the sequin jacket The single white glove the moonwalk all of it. It's how to think about how many artists and fans have tried to recreate This exact performance, but in some ways Michael was himself trying to recreate a specific performance There are a couple of things that get brought up at this time. I'm gonna bring up one of them Watch this clip above faulty in the movie the little prince. This is Snake in the grass To take a trip to a star The quickest transportation yet known to man is none other than us Making the grass. I mean, we're sitting here watching the studio You really owe to yourself to watch that clip alone on youtube during our show because you will see So many little things that I thought little tiny moves basically invented But he's even dressed like what Michael is dressed like. Oh, absolutely. Yeah, it's insane Do it's the word inspired does not do justice to the level of influence that this particular scene and this particular dance had on on Specifically the Motown 25 Performance and like so the rest of his career Yeah, and it wasn't the only one because the other part of that performance that was so legendary Is it was the public introduction the larger public introduction of the famous moonwalk. Yeah, which many people had never seen before But Michael had himself seen When Jeffrey Daniel from Shalimar had done it on top of the pops earlier that same year He called it the backslide that was one of his signature moves Michael was apparently watching and hired Daniel to teach him to move and gave him a lot of props over the years hired and for many other things including to teach him his routine from smooth criminal which Jeffrey Daniel is credited as the choreographer for Michael as an artist got lots of influence and inspiration from many sources And by the way, there are clips because I can hear the comments revving up right now. There are clips of Everybody from Lewis Jordan to some other Famous black interteriors from like the fifties doing something that very much looks like the moonwalk The dance goes back at least as far back to 1932 when cab caliway did the buzz And here's bill Bailey doing the backslide in 1955 So So these dances have origins that go back probably before that these are just early recordings on video So D'Ala what would you say the legacy of billy jean is look? I mean, it's hard to understate the legacy of billy jean It gave us in some ways it gave us Michael It gave us mtv It broke down cultural barriers color barriers And I'll just go ahead and say it one thing that doesn't get discussed much is the fact that it was actually Michael reworking billy jean for Pepsi And that commercial campaign the The fire the fire the jinn race the one where his haircon in fire that's the one where his haircon of fire And that's the first time that you really hear To hear his biographer say that's his first real exposure to pain killers as a first exposure to plastic reconstructive surgery and stuff So it's weird that the song that ushered him in would also sort of lead directly to some of the some of the things that ended up making you know Famicage for him. I I'm struck by the idea that like you can become so famous that it's like Horrible and kind of like a detriment it definitely allowed him to you know dive fully into art And never have to worry about money again But now that we know sort of like the whole story You know, it does help launch some of the more tragic aspects of his life and that and that's a little bit of Bummer of its legacy, but I will say I feel like for real. This is one of the most perfect pop songs of all time Yeah, not to be duplicated not to be replicated You know billy jean is it's not just iconic. It sort of set the bar I think for what a pop song can be and when you name with the top four pop songs of all time work There's no question in my mind of all four of those. There's only really one I want to continue listening. I would I would completely agree and listen also what's interesting thinking about the legacy is how it transcends Our personal experiences with the song are so specific you know We talked about like watching the video and being whatever age we were But what's interesting to me is watching my son grow up There's a handful of artists that he's found not necessarily because I'm playing record for him He found Devo He found Weird Al and he found Michael Jackson. Yeah, and he found Billie Jean and that was his favorite for like a year each of those was like for a year the favorite And it's just something that touches it's so Deep and resonates so deeply with the human psyche the sounds of this song the the way he sings There's an achingness to his vocal which is so human and so raw and it also Harkens back to what I said earlier about I didn't understand fully what he was singing about But I knew there was something emotional and human that I was really connecting to and I think that's the case Clearly globally I think it transcends race, creed, religion, age, real, serial number Yeah, I think it's one of those few artists that's gonna be here pretty much as long as there are humans with years Listening and it's shocking to know that he left us only you know at age 50. I know that's chocolate. That's incredible He would be pushing 70 if he were so alive can I say real quick? Yeah, it's funny because we're both dads Yeah, my son had his Michael Jackson face and he actually wrote a Michael Jackson song he did called your scared of me Which I definitely have on video. All right, and maybe one day we'll make that song bad dangerous. You're scared of me Yeah, I was funny that he figured out that from a good guy scared me. Just get me I think Michael's here to stay All right, luxury is time for one more song. This is the segment where we share a deep cut or hidden gem with you The one song nation and with each other. I'd y'all let's start with you. What is your one more song this week? Bam well, maybe because I'm feeling 80s, you know boogie for the lack of a better term I'm comfortable with the term boogie. I think the boogie goes back to the 20s It just means a place for you to dance But ever since the 70s it was adopted as like this you know term for like sort of late 70s fungan to the early 80s A lot of songs would apply some of the songs we talked about today One of my favorite is by a Nigerian artist named Steve Monite. I think I pronounced it that right Steve Monite and this song is uh, yeah, you guessed it It's only you and I wanted to have this be my one more song today. Here's a snippet Maybe I mean, I think you know whenever I hear this song I always for splits I have to think. Oh, what song is this because I think team and palace done a cover of it and Frank Ocean didn't cover of it, but this song always comes back around that's Only you. All right, luxury. What is your one more song this week? Well, listen This one just popped in my head because I played it on my radio show KCRW every Friday night from 10 to midnight right after Henry Rollins This is the cure doing a version of their song jumping someone else's chain But it's called desperate journalist in ongoing meaningful review situation Robert Smith from the cure wrote this after Paul Marley wrote a scathing review of an early cure Single so he wrote a song that changed all the lyrics um to the scathing reviews lyrics Words salad So I love it. This is that's a curious song called everything's coming to a grinding hall But he replaced all the lyrics with the words from the scathing review of the cure I read by Paul Marley of the enemy that back story is awesome As always if you have an idea for one more song you can find us on Instagram and tiktok You can find me on instagram at diallo diallel And on tiktok at diallo ripple you can find me on instagram at luxxru And on tiktok at luxrxhax And you can follow our podcast on instagram and tiktok at at one song podcast for exclusive content You can also watch full episodes of one song on youtube and Spotify just search for one song podcast And we'd love it if you like and subscribe Also be sure to check out the one song Spotify playlist for all the songs we discuss in our episodes You can find the link in our episode description And if you made it this far you're officially part of the one song nation Show us some love give us five stars leave a review and send this episode to a fellow music fan It really helps keep this show going. All right luxury help me in this thing I'm producer DJ songwriter musicologist and every Friday night from tenam in night case here at wdj luxury And I'm actor writer director and sometimes pj diallo ripple and this is one song we'll see you next time This episode is produced by Melissa Dwayne as our video editor is Casey Simonson mixing by Michael Hartman and engineering by Eric Kicks This show is executive produced by Kevin Hart Mike Stein Brian Smiley Eric Eddings Eric Woel and Leslie Guam