Michael Jackson's "Billie Jean"

♪ I said don't mind but what do you mean I am the one? ♪ - In the snaps? ♪ Daku with 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, am I 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 saying like, "Hey, do you want to dance," as opposed to like, you know, she is accusing him of paternity, he is. - 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. (popping) - Question, today's 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 if he's finding performance icon. I mean, we are talking about the fourth, biggest selling single of all time. - Of all time. - Of 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. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) - I'm actor writer, director, and sometimes DJ Diallo Riddle. - And I produce her 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 a superstition by Stevie 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 'cause 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, but I have never heard even going through the stems, not even for the first time myself. There's so much that I was rediscovering. - So many sounds that I maybe noticed peripherally as you hear the song over the years. You're 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 fadeout. - 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. 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?" 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, and I just, those were my three albums. - What are some Muppet songs that I should. - Oh, gosh, come on. See this for Cookie the Disco version. You know, it sounds like, it sounds like Shaft. No, I-- - See this for Cookie. - It's like, who is the man? Who's eating all of the desserts he can? Cookie! - It's Cookie. (upbeat music) - That's a lot of stuff. - Cookie Monster is basically Isaac Hayes. - I thought Blue Lester was black growing up. I was like, he's got colored fur. - He's definitely wearing a leather vest with no shirt underneath. - What do you think about it? He is like an R&B singer from the early stage, like Philly International. - He was. - He was. - And he was. - You put Gabel and Huff in a studio with Cookie, you get magic. But Thriller was one of the first records I listened to in the basement. I used to practice the drums by Paris Bass Man. And, you know, 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. - The H1, because they were playing black music videos all day. - And I don't think it was called the H1, yet. You're right. It was video hits. - Video hits, right? And I remember 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. ♪ I don't know what to do ♪ ♪ Don't go around ♪ ♪ Big and young girl's hearts ♪ ♪ Don't wait for you ♪ ♪ I put your demons still right by me ♪ ♪ 'Cause I smell the sweet of you ♪ - Big perfume. - So, for those of you not watching us on YouTube. - Fools. - That's in 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 looking at it now. - All right. - It looks like he's sort of like on a silver brick road, at least to this city, this very emerald city, as he said, it looks like New York. I remember as a kid thinking like, what city is that? - But it's like dirty. - Isn't it like garbagey and dirty though? - Yeah, dude. It's like, I'm not sure what city that's supposed to be, but they need better garbage maintenance. - It feels like Michael Jackson's vision of what a city looks like, 'cause he's never actually been to one. - Hey, so I think there should be "Tubba Weeds of Trash", just pulling across my path. No, it's a great music video. We're gonna 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 in 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 Michael Jackson's video, 'cause they loved that video so much. And then he went on later to direct Ah-Ha's equally iconic take on me video. - I did not know that. - What are my favorites about that? - He's still on me and Billie Jean? - That video makes me cry. Like, it's so emotional at the end when it's starting against the wall, trying to get out becoming human again. It's so, it really gets me. - Either we've all been that person banging against the wall. - At some point in our lives. - It's so pointed. - Wow, Steve really set the standard for amazing music videos. - I don't think that video's been topped in terms of emotional resonance for me. (laughing) - It also has to be said that when Billie Jean first dropped, MTV didn't want to play it. MTV didn't want to play. For those of you who 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 where the kids from musical youth with Pasaduchy, amazing song. Pasaduchy on the list. As I probably the first reggae, 12-inch, I ever remember having. (singing in foreign language) 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 Yetnikov, basically he calls MTV. He says, "If you don't put Billie Jean in rotation, we're pulling all of our artists." And that thread has some weight at the time. Like the other CBS Records artists are huge on MTV. We're talking Cindy Lopper and Journey and Billie Joel. These are people that MTV is regularly playing. - Yeah, it's true, too. It's quite a Yetnikov kind of a notorious industry figure. In this case, sort of did the right thing and did rightfully as artists and changed the course of music history and the making. - Absolutely. - At the time MTV was really just focused on white artists. Let's call it like it is. Rock artists, 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 were sort of staying in their lane until they got called out for it. - And Walter used some of those old-school mob tactics. - Yeah, essentially, hey, you're gonna put them on and eventually MTV for it. - Pretty much, yeah. So you mentioned off the wall, another incredible Michael Jackson record, the previous one that had done gangbusters, numbers. - You're almost saying ghost busters numbers. Ray Parker Jr. fans, you all hear me. - And by the way, I'm gonna 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 cross over 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, but 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 gonna be like Gene Kelly. He was gonna be like Elvis. He just, he had like a bunch of people who was like, I'm gonna be the best dancer. I'm gonna be the best singer. I'm gonna be the best actor. You know, he had just done the win. - He had a vision board up at that ranch and you know, yeah, with all these people's photos on them. Just, he had a very clear vision. He thought the Quincy was the person who was gonna help get in there. What can you 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 gotta 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 [BLANK_AUDIO] 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 spreadsheet. 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 obviously next. So 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 face it. We are all up one mind. We're just bringing out our issues in real time here at the pot. But out of that 700 demos, they settled on an initial nine tracks. But 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 replaced this was going to be the ninth song on the record. And I love this story because it's Len 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. And this was going to be the ninth song until Billie Jean replaced it. Here it is. What have been on the armless here? It made the right call. I don't know. But 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 Thriller. 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. Like, you know, it's fun to say. 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. I spent at least there's a version by Ellen Foley. You may know from being on night court. And she was also Meatloaf's co-vocalist on paradise by the dashboard light. 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's a 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. So he got dropped from Thriller, but he got picked up for man in the mirror. Well, so I have a question for you, luxury. What's one song? And you sort of hinted at this, but what's one song that you would cut from Thriller? And 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 100 episodes, you asked me that in my answer. You didn't like so much. You were really, you convinced me, I should say, it's not 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 listen to you. For those who don't know it, 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. There'll be no darkness tonight. Maybe your love will shine. 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 as mine. I don't think we need it. So to those who don't know, the girl is mine is actually the first single off of this album. It's crazy. It does pretty good. Yeah, but it's the most forgettable out of the whole thing. Nobody's like, hey, put on, put on the girl is mine. 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 amazing song. That is the Michael's album. That's the Michael Paul collab. That feels it every time. Imagine if Thriller replaced the girl as mine with say, say, say, it'd be pretty much a perfect out of 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 said it's 50 million. No to self. I bet you some of our younger listeners don't even know about the girl is mine. 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 think we agree on this. Boogie song. It's kind of like a boogie 80s funk song. Like here's say, say, say. It's so good. It's like an explosion of falsetto. I'm just looking at the data. Like the girl is mine is the third least stream song on the record. I mean, it's just didn't pass the test of time. And by the way, I love the ladies mine, but it also got a second life when hip hop started. Oh, and the lady in my life is the least stream. 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 didn't get sampled quite a bit in the 90s. Yeah. On some great songs. The one I think of the most is from our French on Stockman and Boys To Men featured on the L.O. 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. Quincy Jones was enough for like, you know, deep like dark songs like this. And definitely not MJ at this period of his career. Yeah, I think that darkness was part of now you're saying that you're making me think about when I first heard it. That's part of what resonated for me is pop radio at the time. I mean, sure, you've got an eclectic range of songs in the 80s. Great, great time to be growing 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, but I can't know that they're coming soon. But you know, eternity suits and such not for me personally. It's hard for me to think about the 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 Maserati in this Miami vice world and that baseline that do do do do do do do do do. It's got one of these infinite baseline kind of feelings. Yes, 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 fight 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 isn't a little bit. It's not a singular story that baby the answer. It seems like the character in the story, Billie Jean is a composite. Right. 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 choice of names there. It's very famous to the 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, but that's like a little. That's the one. Yeah. And those that don't know Billie Jean keen 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. 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. And she could be the current female. Exactly. Exactly. It kind of resonates today. That same stupid argument is going through our culture even now. But she beat him. And she beat him cold. 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. You've never heard this part of the session. Stick around. Welcome back to one song. So last year we didn't episode 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 Wodean. That's right, y'all. But this time we won't be talking about songwriter Rod Temperton, who was an unsung hero of Thriller because he did not participate in this song at all. There you go. That's right. It was Michael himself who wrote the song and actually demoed it up on his own 16 track. And we have. 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 gotta give Michael credit. That's almost the damn. That's a fully formed song. It is a fully formed song. Now, just to be clear, I 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 Philin Gaines and another unsung hero we're talking about who played Bill Wollthler, who played the keyboard. Wollthler 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. Yeah. The secret life of plants. Yes. 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. Big part of this song and his contribution to it. Yeah. I think Wollthler 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 is on his solo 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. Played by famously in Dugu Chancellor. That's the 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. It's not 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. Yeah. And what is about to come in after that first couple of bars is this sound. The kabasa, which I think might come from the lindra. So when you add that in, I'll do it before and after. So here's without the kabasa. And then I'll add the kabasa. It's in the right speaker when you listen to the song. So the kabasa 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 ever recorded. We'll talk about another unsung hero of this episode and the recording of it in just a moment. But that kabasa 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 accenting. 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 kabasa in there because it was the bad boy records philosophy that you needed a little bit of that to make the girls move the back to make the spines 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 Bounce Rock's Gate, famously sampled by Deb Punk for Da Funk, which is a more stripped down version of this. You know, 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 layer it at another things to it. But one reason for that 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, I can see the similarity. But the part of how he got that sound was because it's this eight foot square plywood platform that's 10 inches off the ground. Uh huh. 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 a huge part of the contribution to why it is so distinct sounding because the drummer is on a almost foot tall wooden stand. And he also isolated the high hat. He did something with a 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 play to play. And one last thing I'll say he's playing to the demo. So he's locked in to the LN1's 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 in Dugu style. She said, quote, in Dugu 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 baseline. It really does make the song to hear Michael tell it. And for listening to the demo, you would think the baseline was all him. But Quincy Jones says Michael stole it from the song State of Independence. Quincy said, quote, the notes don't lie, man. He was as mega valiant as they come. 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 Vangelis or Vangelis, I understand it's pronounced by actual Greek people. The guy who did this up there for Blade Runner. Blade Runner, Cherry, it's a fire. That's right. So in 1981, they recorded this song for the record Friends of Mr. Cairo. See if it sounds familiar. Is that something there? 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. Yeah. 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. 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. 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 say 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 Gellis. 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 fill in gains who we'll be mentioning in a moment on keyboards. And Lewis Johnson on bass as well. And the background vocals were, it was 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 the world. 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 can blow. And Michael Jackson. So Michael 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 heard I apologize for my. Oh, and also my like the ear of my ways. And it sounded like this 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. 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 the 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 and 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. It's just there when it goes to the four. 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. 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. Yep. It's one note. The texture. Yeah. It's building. It's tension because it's just one note down down down down down. it's insistent, kind of like a psycho stabbing. (laughing) - I was gonna use a paranoia, but we have the same page. - There's something terrifying in that. - There's something threatening a little bit of a psycho knife stick. - It's kind of slicing through, like. - Mm-mm, mm-mm, mm-mm, mm-mm. - Wow, that's crazy, there's very so deep in the mix. And also, this is a song that got mixed something like 90 times before they went back to the second mix because they were like, oh, you know what, 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 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. (drum music) - That's dangerous. - We know that part. - We love that part. - We love that. - That's got more, it's more melodic. It's more of a riff and stuff. - 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 Dexon's, oh man, I wanna hear that. - You can dance, you can dance, you can dance, you can dance. - But I will say, 'cause we're famous for this on the show, if you just have the drums, or that, bam, you can dance, you can actually make this a French touch song. - All right, here we go. (drum music) Does that not kind of sound like stardust, caches? (laughs) - Dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun. - Junior Sanchez, hit us up. We will make that remix with you. I know I'm gonna 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. (drum music) 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. (drum music) Then I'll bring back the synths. (drum music) And then when we get to this part, it's a little bit imperfect and human. (drum music) Why do we call that imperfect? - I call it imperfect because I wanna 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. - Do you say that he's not quite hitting the note? 'Cause to me, they sound good. - You might have a more trained ear of the mind. - 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. (drum music) Do you hear how those are different? That's a bit, who, who, who, who? He goes up a half step. (drum music) 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, a four 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 sounds to my ear. I'm not microtaxial. - Yeah. - 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 the good one over the bad one. - I was gonna say, I think that the level of nuance and subtlety between those is pretty much that you would probably not have it in there if you just did it once, and then just ran it across your screen, you know, cut and paste it the whole way across. - But with tape. - The change wouldn't be there. - Tape in the mix and time, you know, not really to burn with deadlines approaching for delivering a final record. - Yeah. - They just decided. (guitar music) You hear now, don't you? - Oh, I don't. - And then the rest of them, he stays up on the, (guitar music) I'll play it again. (guitar music) It's very small in subtle. - Again. - A human. - The only difference I think was that, I thought that was all intentional. 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 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. - It's a difference. - Across this repetitive section, 'cause this goes through the whole song, it gives it a little variety, maybe. - That had something subtle, who's to say? - By the way, I didn't know that there were synthesizers underneath. I thought it was just him going, like I thought that was all him. And now I know that there's layers to it. - I think I thought the opposite. I think I was surprised. - You know the last one. - Yeah, I don't think I noticed he was there. - Yeah. - The story behind the sound you're hearing, this is really important. We mentioned both Anthony Maranelli and Bill Woolf are 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. - Right. - This is a giant keyboard, very expensive keyboard. And dialing in, it sounds a big deal, 'cause in this era, you have 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, and have authoriac sounds necessarily that you want to use. You've got to find that. 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 asked Bill Woolfner to find that sound that he had done that one time, it like sound check, it like whatever, Minneapolis, who the hell knows where it was, you should. So Bill's like, I don't know what sign he's talking about. So he finds, he takes time, whatever hours, finds something close, and he's like, is this it, is this it, is this 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 lyricon. 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 lyricon, and he's playing this. (upbeat music) That's the people always told me. Yeah, I'll give you some whirly underneath it, and add some other layers, so you know, context. (upbeat music) I'll bring in some vocals. ♪ And my mother always told me ♪ ♪ I beg you, I call you love ♪ ♪ I beg you, I was a dude ♪ ♪ I couldn't live, I couldn't live ♪ ♪ I couldn't live, I couldn't live ♪ Great, he's the tension in the song. Wait, I think we've got to hit the main here a little bit. One of those keyboards that are on the part before Tom jumps in there. So that's a whirly. I believe that that is another unsung hero of all things Michael Jackson, which is great fill in 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 for Don't Stop To You Get Enough. He wrote the entire bridge, ♪ Da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da ♪ Early versions of The Seven, and you see his name in the publishing, and he took it off. - Who did, crazy? - I think it was Michael who decided, "Yeah, I don't want to give him 10% anymore." Talk about Machiavellians. - 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 gonna wait until they say 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. ♪ All of them, all of them, all of them ♪ - And together they sound like this. (guitar music) - We're gonna go, "Gone, celli, celli, celli, celli, celli, celli." (guitar music) - Ooh, leave that going. - Smooth. - Wow. 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 strings, I don't think I've ever named a string player. They're never credited. We get string arrangement by Jerry Hay, Jeremy Lubbock. 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 at their somewhere where we're like, "I've never got credit for this." - Yes. - Yes. - But it's also fun. - There's one time where we are begging you to reach out to the comments and say, "Hey, you left out this factoid." 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 and Michael Jackson were both arrangers and this is called either arrangement or orchestration. I just had an argument with my friend Brad about this because traditionally arrangement is deciding what instrument plays what part but in the modern era it's kind of that's now a little bit called orchestration and arrangement is like what do you do across the song? It's more linear. So different people use different words to mean these things. But Quincy Jones came up as an arranger and he has this genius for deciding what instrument should 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 Lyra con, we have the string section with cell I and Aviola 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 this is all the way to the end. And that's how you break it up and create this sort of audio interest when our backbone is this unchanging baseline and drum beat. And same. Well we've come to a part where I'm sure a lot of you have been waiting for. We're going to listen to some isolated Michael Jackson vocals and I think let's just start with verse number one. And let's play the falsetto for that one line we just heard. About how many parts do you think that he would put in there? Like 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. That's great. So he definitely had put this song into a place when he hit the microphone 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. Lyric is I am the one who will dance on the floor in the round. Why is it in the round? Now when I hear it in the round, you know my actor right brain kicks it is like no this is the round exactly. 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 knocking boots. Yeah I mean like you know squeaky clean Michael jazzy 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 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 but I hear. I mean listen the round I never thought of that explanation it would make sense. Obviously in the round. But what I mean I was always like is he saying the word room weird? Yeah I think when I was a kid I didn't know what I was on the floor in the round. That's what I thought it was. But your explanation makes more sense. This may be 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 mean keep going. She goes to sing the heavy air turn with the iced dream to be the one who would dance all the floor and round. Those snaps too. It's so cool that they left those in. He decided he's them. 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 like that. 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 bring 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 a 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 going to become. But some high percentage of sound we're hearing coming from Michael Jackson isn't like melodic lyrical 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 hee hee 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? I just need to call attention to those O's because they're really strange. And they're kind of all over the play. It's a cool choice. Yeah it is. It's building the tension and it should be pointed out by the way that this whole song is in basically F sharp minor perhaps story in mode. But in this moment we have a borrowed note. Here's where we are in the song. We're in the pre-chorus. We're taking a break from that one four of the sharp the whole time. The rest of the song the entire chorus but we have these two pre-choruses that go to six. Change of 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 Tom's we were hearing the dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum. And he hits one note that's not in the mode. The scale that we're supposed to begin. It's the la-da-da-da-da. That's an E. It's technically an E sharp which any piano player can tell you or any musician can tell you is not an existing note. There's no such thing as E goes directly to F. It's a half step in between. There's no 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. Yeah. 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 into the chorus. You're breathless. Yeah yeah I'm totally breathless. Let's hear the chorus my man. 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 is 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 going to 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. Listen to that again. I never noticed that. You're like he's like I could use that. It got cut out of this song. I'm going to listen for another song. Oh wait he said you know what Amy. And like Annie. We're like okay. Annie are you okay? Yeah exactly. There's a little more. She is just a. She is just a. Here I'll put that in the mix. So it's kind of a calling response in his angry. The gene is not my she is just a yeah and maybe he's not even sure if she's just a girl anymore because she might be she might be taking him. Yeah. Yes. Fill in in all these gaps. 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 Billy Jean by Michael Jackson. A song by Michael Jackson. Perform 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 mind beat it and want to be starting something. Oh wow. Yeah. Want to be 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 for his 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, hard dishes in sibling 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 like those songs a lot, but especially, I like the new songs. And for those who aren't watching all of the other Jackson's 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 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 going to bring up one of them. Watch this clip above Fawzi in the movie, The Little Prince. This is Snake in the Grass. If you would like to take a trip to a star, the quickest transportation yet known to man is none other than us, Snake in the Grass. I mean, we're sitting here watching the studio. You really owe it to yourself to watch that clip alone on YouTube during our show because you will see so many little things that I thought, basically invented, but he's even dressed like what Michael is dressed like. Oh, absolutely. It's insane. That's the word inspired does not do justice to the level of influence that this particular scene and this particular dance had on, 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. A larger public introduction of the famous moonwalk, 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 back slide. 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 him for many other things, including to teach him his routine from smooth criminal, which Jeffrey Daniel is credited as the choreographer for four. Michael, as an artist, got lots of influence and inspiration from many sources. He's a sponge. 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 entertainers 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 Calloway did the buzz. And here's Bill Bailey doing the back slide in 1955. So these dances have origins that go back probably before that. These are just early recordings on video. So, Deala, what would you say the legacy of Billie Jean is? Look, I mean, it's hard to understate the legacy of Billie 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 Billie Jean for Pepsi and that commercial campaign, the fire, the fire, the fire. The one where his hair caught on fire? That's the one where his hair caught on fire. And that's the first time that you really hear to hear his biographer say this is first real exposure to painkillers, that's the 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 things that ended up making, you know, fame a cage for him. Wow. 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's a little bit of a 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, Billie Jean is, it's not just iconic. It's 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 that I want to continue listening. I would, I would completely agree and listen. So 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, 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 way he sings. There's an achingness to his vocal, which is so human, it's 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, brain serial number. Yeah, I think it's one of those few artists that's going to be here pretty much as long as there are humans with years listening. And it's shocking to know that he left us only at age 50. I know. That's shocking. That's incredible. He would be pushing 70 if he were still alive. Can I say real quick? Yeah, it's funny because we're both dads. My son had his Michael Jackson face and he actually wrote a Michael Jackson song called You're Scared of Me, which I definitely have on videos. Oh right. And maybe one day we'll make that song. Bad, dangerous. You're scared of me. You're scared of me. You're scared of me. I think Michael's here to stay. All right, luxury. It's time for one more song. This is the segment where we share a deep cut or a hidden gem with you, the one song nation, and with each other. All right, 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 that 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, funky 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. Monite. Steve Monite. And this song is a, yeah, you guessed it. It's only you. And I wanted to have this be my one more song today. Here's a snippet. I mean, I think, you know, whenever I hear this song, I'm going to say, I'm going to say I think, you know, whenever I hear this song, I always, for a split second, I have to think, what song is this? Because I think team and pal has 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. 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 train. And 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 to the scathing reviews lyrics. I love it. And that's a cure song called everything's coming to a grinding halt, but he replaced all the lyrics with the words from the scathing review of the cure and 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 @Dialogue, D-I-A, L-O-L, and on TikTok @Dialoreal. You can find me on Instagram and L-U-XX U-R-Y and on TikTok @LuxuryXX. And you can follow our podcast on Instagram and TikTok @AtOneSongPodcast for exclusive content. You can also watch full episodes of OneSong on YouTube and Spotify. Just search for OneSongPodcast and we'd love it if you like and subscribe. Also, be sure to check out the OneSong Spotify playlist for all the songs we discuss in the episode. It's really good. You can find the link in our episode description. And if you've made it this far, you're officially part of the OneSong Nation. Show us some love. Give us five stars. See you 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 10am in IKC R-W-D-J, Luxury. And I'm actor, writer, director and sometimes DJ, D-I-L-R-O. And this is OneSong. 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 exactly produced by Kevin Hart, Mike Stein, Brian Smiley, Eric Eddings, Eric Wilde, and Leslie Guam.