Thoughts On M.J.

The Beatles are probably my earliest musical memory.  I had a little Fisher Price record player and I remember listening to “Penny Lane” over and over again (I loved the piccolo trumpet, though I didn’t know what it was at the time.)  The Beatles came from my parents, from my Mom—this was her music passed on to me.

I don’t remember where Thriller came from, but it felt like my own.  I know that being a kid in the early eighties you couldn’t miss it.  Biggest album in the world with no exaggeration.  I just remember it being there, everywhere.  And I couldn’t get enough.  I listened to that tape over and over and over.  ”Billie Jean,” “Thriller,” “Beat It,” those were my songs.  Over and over again.  Especially “Beat It.”  I didn’t know what “pop” music was. I was too young to draw any lines between Michael Jackson, or The Beatles, or the Elvis songs my Dad played in the car.  It was all just music. I liked some of it more than others, and for a big chunk of time the only thing I wanted to listen to was Thriller.

My family jokes to this day about some charity party thing we went to, and of course the DJ was playing Thriller songs all night.  Shit, I was probably requesting them non-stop. The details are fuzzy, but he had a fake white MJ glove and I ended up with it.  I begged him for it (in hindsight my father probably slipped him $20 to get it).  Whatever.  I absolutely loved the thing and ran around with it at all times.  What an image image—a little blond six year old kid from Connecticut running around with a Michael Jackson glove.  I wish I had a picture.

Fast forward a whole bunch of years to when I’m in college.  I had just driven all night from a Phish show in New Jersey to another show in upstate New York.  We’re exhausted.  The sun in coming up as we’re pulling into the campgrounds to park for the weekend.  Everyone is asleep and out of it.  Suddenly “Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough” comes on the radio and we roll down the windows and fucking crank it.  Everyone’s looking at us, but people are into it.  That song has a goddamn groove.  I’m half delirious running on fumes and Mountain Dew and this song was a jolt right through everyone’s spin.  I will never listen to this song again and not think of that exact moment.

So Michael Jackson died today.  Music has been an enormous influence on my life, and Michael Jackson had an enormous influence on how I know music.