32 Songs - Track 2

Billie Jean - Michael Jackson

"BIllie Jean is not my lover,
she's just a girl who claims that i am the one"

Like Gra I have fond memories of the Jackson 5 cartoon. The bright colours, the big 'fros the funky songs and dance moves. There was something innocently cheerful about it all. Now look how it all turned out for them.

The album Thriller is the point where Michael went from the child star to being the man and Billie Jean delivered a prophetic warning of what was to come, the trouble with the law, crazy women and the kids that may, or may not, be his. But it was the first line that got me "She was more like a beauty queen/ from a movie scene." I wanted to meet a woman like that, one that was so far out of reference for my teenage mind to handle.

It isn't just the lyrics that do it, though I think that will be the case with most of these songs, but there is something in the simplicity of the music. The hook just picks up and goes and Michael throws in his now characteristic 'yee-pa' and 'yee-hee' yelps. I've been listening to the song now for more than ten years and always in hard core sessions of repeated listening with me singing along.

I admit recently to having ditched Michael's version for Shinehead's dub one at the end of the Back To Mine CD mixed by UK artists Faithless. It is much too short but damn it's good. Plus the first line has been altered to "She was more like a beauty queen/ with an M-16" and that's just gold.