friends have been sharing, via facebook and twitter and text, sadness over michael jackson's death at the too young age of 50. and friends who i share a long history with remember me as someone who was crazy enough to collect--and save--all the billboard magazines that chronicled the record-breaking sales and accolades for "thriller" and spend hours learning the choreography from all the "thriller" videos (and then actually perform them for people! ha) and they are sending nice notes to me, thinking that i would be devastated. but i have been sad about him--and for him--for years. he seemed so very soul-sick...
his exceeding strangeness nearly soured me on the music--but so much of it is too good to try to forget, isn't it? "off the wall," is in regular rotation here at home (more than "thriller") and since re-discovering the jacksons' "triumph" a couple of years ago, i've been playing that a lot too. i cue it up on the ipod just about every other day. maybe you've seen me dancing in the streets to lovely one? can you feel it? and this lesser known, but great disco track? it's a real pick-me-up on a slow day:
*** someone posed the question once of "my favorite jackson 5 song." so many good ones, got to be there...who's loving you...
but mine is, without question, never can say goodbye.
i love how he breaks it down at the end of the album recording--the way he sings "don't wanna let you go-oh..." "ooh ooh baay-be..." and "no no no, oooh aaw..."
this version doesn't quite have the same yearning, but the early performances are always worth a look.
