The Day Michael Jackson Died, Part 1: Soundtrack of My Life
Last night "Another Part of Me" kept playing over and over in my head, and that's what he was to me.
The sounds of MJ run through my entire life. The Jackson 5 cartoons in the 70's... the disco-infused, Sound-of-Philly Jacksons of the late 70's.. the Wiz... the way "Off the Wall" seemed to take over everything for a while in 1980... Motown 25!... Michael and Sir Paul ruling my universe with "The Girl Is Mine" and "Say Say Say"... the sustained brilliance of "Thriller" and "Bad"...
"Bad" was the soundtrack to my freshman year of college - I literally wore that cassette tape out!
"Dangerous" was the same for me in those final days of college and my first year in Switzerland. "HIStory" was the soundtrack for the rest of my time in Europe.
I'll never forget the day I was walking through the main train station of Zurich and realized that, ohmigod, what's a 75-foot high statue of Michael Jackson doing here? I knew that that was a bad sign of the man's psyche (who agrees to let such statues of themselves be placed in public, around the world?), but I also knew the answer: only Michael.
I almost got off the M10 bus yesterday as it passed the Apollo. I don't much like random crowd scenes, and I'm more a "mourn at home" kinda person. That being said, I *did* almost get off that bus. Only for Michael.
Rest in peace, Mr. Jackson.
The sounds of MJ run through my entire life. The Jackson 5 cartoons in the 70's... the disco-infused, Sound-of-Philly Jacksons of the late 70's.. the Wiz... the way "Off the Wall" seemed to take over everything for a while in 1980... Motown 25!... Michael and Sir Paul ruling my universe with "The Girl Is Mine" and "Say Say Say"... the sustained brilliance of "Thriller" and "Bad"...
"Bad" was the soundtrack to my freshman year of college - I literally wore that cassette tape out!
"Dangerous" was the same for me in those final days of college and my first year in Switzerland. "HIStory" was the soundtrack for the rest of my time in Europe.
I'll never forget the day I was walking through the main train station of Zurich and realized that, ohmigod, what's a 75-foot high statue of Michael Jackson doing here? I knew that that was a bad sign of the man's psyche (who agrees to let such statues of themselves be placed in public, around the world?), but I also knew the answer: only Michael.
I almost got off the M10 bus yesterday as it passed the Apollo. I don't much like random crowd scenes, and I'm more a "mourn at home" kinda person. That being said, I *did* almost get off that bus. Only for Michael.
Rest in peace, Mr. Jackson.