It’s hard for me put together words about the passing of Michael Jackson. I’ve talked about what he means to me in a previous post about the Jackson 5 song, “I Want You Back.” In that post, I not only talk about the Jackson 5 but how I feel about Michael Jackson as an adult.
A lot of news stories are talking about how great music was but they aren’t saying what it is about the music that is so great, so I will try to do that here in tribute to Michael Jackson.
“Man In The Mirror” is one of Michael Jackson’s masterpieces and one of the great examples of American pop music. This remarkable song effortlessly melds together different genres of popular music to create a song that is both intimately personal and powerfully universal. Jackson doesn’t so much as sing in this song as he confesses, prays and preaches not only for himself but for all of us. When people complain about everything that is wrong about popular music, the immoral subject matter, and the lack of heart, my counter-argument is “Man In The Mirror” represents everything that is right about popular music.
When you look at the cover of Michael Jackson’s third solo album Bad, it’s a little silly. Michael dressed head to toe in leather putting on his best tough guy expression (the eyeliner really didn’t help). At the time, I remember actually believing that Jackson was tough, but really come on, Michael is the last guy you want backing you up in a bar fight.
The thing was that we bought it at the time but listening back through that album now, the “tougher” songs with the rougher edges like “Bad” and “Dirty Diana” though finely crafted pop songs seem like more of an act then a genuine expression of what was in Michael Jackson’s heart.
In Jackson’s previous two solo albums, there weren’t any songs about Jackson’s world view. It was popular music. There was interesting things that about love and relationships but nothing that truly reflective issues in our society except for “Billie Jean” which dealt a woman accusing Jackson of being the father of his child.
So when Jackson released “Man In the Mirror” as the fourth single from Bad, it was a revealing look into how Michael viewed the world. Now it’s not like we didn’t have artist who dealt with social issues. At the same time that Michael Jackson was singing about zombies with "Thriller," Springsteen was singing about joblessness and the blue-collar struggles. However, there was something different with “Man In The Mirror.”
As I turned up the collar on a favorite winter coat
This wind is blowin' my mind
I see the kids in the street with not enough to eat
Who am I to be blind pretending not to see their needs?
Michael is revealing to us his flaws. He walks by homeless people without doing anything just like most of us do. He’s dealing with feelings that we all share and are ashamed of. By expressing his own feelings he invites us to reflect on the way we interact with the world.
The song opens up in the chorus with a simple message, “If you want to make the world a better place, take a look at yourself and make a change,” that is reinforced by a gospel choir enters bringing us to church. Combining the synthesized background music with the gospel sound makes the gospel feeling less threatening and unfamiliar while adding a layer of soul that lack in many music of the time.
Jackson’s vocal delivery makes the song. He starts with a quiver in the beginning of the song like someone softly telling you a secret. His voice grows to an elated peak at the chorus and energizes with urgency towards the end of the song.
One of the most misunderstood but effective vocal techniques that Jackson utilizes are
the vocal percussion that Jackson interjects between the phrases and the way he accents certain syllables. If you just took out everything in “Man In The Mirror” except for the syllables that he accents and his interjections you would be left with an incredible rhythmic groove. This combined with his melodic delivery and his wide range of expression is why many consider Jackson one of the greatest pop singers of all time.
In the end of the song, Michael preaches to us that if we look at ourselves and make a change, it will make the world a better place. I don’t know if Michael Jackson truly did this in his life. I want to believe he did. I want to believe that he died a good man. I want to believe that what he sang about in “Man In The Mirror” came straight from his heart.
I’ll never know what kind of man Michael Jackson really was and it doesn’t matter if “Man In The Mirror” was just some attempt to make people believe that he cared about the world because I believe in this song as I believe in Michael Jackson.
Thank you Michael
No comments:
Post a Comment