Believe it or not, I had planned on doing a post on one of the late Michael Jackson’s songs, which showed just how forward-thinking and creative he was. However, I am moved to write a completely different post instead.

Here is a list of songs performed by Michael Jackson that I’ve found new appreciation for since his untimely death, and perhaps even before that.

Man In The Mirror
Whether you’re into New Age thinking or not, Michael was singing Gandhi’s message long before it became mainstream.

The world is a fucked up place, and whether you want to believe it or not it’s mostly because of selfishness on the part of all of us. No matter how many of us do make a positive impact, there will always be people who choose to lie back and let other people do all the work, while they continue to pollute and be rude to people.

Last Sunday I was in the gym for the first time in a long time, and when this song came on the radio it hit me hard.

I realised that Michael was someone who wanted to make the world a better place, and he knew inherently that the best place to start (other than with ourselves) is with the next generation – which is why he raised so much money for children’s charities.

Off The Wall

So tonight
Gonna leave that 9 to 5 up on the shelf
And just enjoy yourself
Groove
Let the madness in the music capture you
Life isn’t bad at all
When you’re livin’ off the wall

Whatever this song is really about, for me personally it’s about taking time out from working like a dog, just to let go and have fun. I have no idea when working 9am to 6pm became “normal”, but spending so much time in the office isn’t fun. (I’d hoped to get away from that as a freelancer, but unfortunately employers just see us as “temporary office workers”.)

PYT (Pretty Young Thing)
Whenever I hear this song I think about the bit in The Making of Thriller where Michael is rehearsing with Ola (the woman he stars with in the music video), and I wish I was in a similar scenario with a devastatingly attracting girl.

Not only did this song have a remix, but it was sampled in a Kanye West track (of which I have no idea what it’s called).

Money

Anything (anything)
Anything for money
Life for you, die for you
I would even sell my soul to the devil

I can’t remember if this was before or after the first allegation of child abuse, but this song was an example of Michael’s forward thinking and intelligence.

Ironically, a lot of people (even and especially now he’s dead) were after his fortunes in some way or another, and most of them didn’t care how they would go about it.

But even if we’re not talking about Michael Jackson, we see examples every day of people who will lie, cheat, steal, manipulate and even kill for money. We even have “reality shows” (which MagusX1 on YouTube rightly refers to as “game shows”) set up to encourage deception, backstabbing and manipulation for the sake of winning the grand prize.

This song in particular makes me think about how far I would go to earn money. I wouldn’t like to think it was true for me, but – as is often said – everybody has a price.

Unbreakable
This track has become one of my anthems. Say what you want about Invincible, but for me this is the stand-out song in the whole album.

Michael Jackson was literally unbreakable, although the media (and the people who blindly believe anything they put out) didn’t do him any favours. Even with all the crap that he went through, he always came back harder than ever and still did his thing.

I think it was Ne-Yo who described him as “an energy”, in the sense that energy can be transferred but never depleted. Even in death, Michael is someone that had such an impact on people and the world of music, that he will always be remembered in some form or another. Nobody can take away the goodness he produced.