R.I.P.

[Note: This is part of a draft of a post from last year, the 25th anniversary of the release of Thriller. It never got finished, and I never came back to it. Edited somewhat to make it more apropos for today.]

Here is a moment filled with considerable pathos for me, Michael Jackson's performance of "Billie Jean" at Motown 25: Yesterday, Today, Forever. Remember this, those of you Of A Certain Age?



It's a risky thing to convey accurately in this space the effect that seeing this performance had on me in the spring of 1983--"risky" because the language I'd have to use would seem either absurdly hyperbolic or downright weird. So I'll settle for something the guitarist Johnny Lang said in an interview: he said that seeing this performance was the most memorable performance he'd ever seen, and that when his father told him, "He's not really singing, you know," Lang replied, "I don't care."

That about sums it up for me, too. Before that moment, I frankly didn't like Michael Jackson very much--he had basically broken up with his brothers to pursue a solo career and so what the hell was wrong with him, wanting to sing one of the "new songs" right after his Jackson 5 medley with his brothers; after he had finished, I was asking what the hell was wrong with me for thinking that. The New York Times said, "There's Michael Jackson, and there's everyone else," and I just nodded, dumbfounded.

There are some memories you don't want tainted by subsequent events: you want them clear and pure and unfiltered and undimmed. For me, the year of Thriller's release is a memory like that. In 1983, I don't know how deep the cave would have had to have been for someone not to have heard or seen something about this album; yet for me, I felt as though I'd been made privy to some great secret.