The Way You Made Us Feel

On hearing the news of someone’s death, sometimes it doesn’t affect you immediately. Sometimes it takes days for it to finally settle in. But not this time. When my wife called me this morning and told me that Michael Jackson was dead, it hit me immediately. I just mumbled out to my wife that it shouldn't have happened the way it did. She said he should have had one comeback tour. There was silence and there was a kind of sadness in the call. I then hung up.

As I continued my journey to work, all the emotions and thoughts came back to me. And I felt that it wasn't right. He should have had one last chance to redeem himself, one last chance to let his music speak again. We were waiting.

It's hard to have grown up in the Eighties and not having loved Michael Jackson. I heard the songs "Thriller" and "Beat It". But for me, the real catalyst to liking MJ was my friend Ashwin. When MJ’s Bad album had released, I remember Ashwin talking about the songs. He was all into it. “The Way You Make Me Feel” was one of his favourites. He even recorded the full-length version of the song from the video that was shown on TV.

MJ madness was in the air. At any given opportunity, Bad would rear its head. In school, during one of our PT classes, we were all sitting and for some reason, we had free time. I don't remember why it was, but I remember Ashwin had xeroxed copies of the lyrics of Bad, handed it to some of us and he was singing “The Way You Make Me Feel” for all of us. For one of the school’s cultural events Ashwin even came up with an idea for a play where there would be one guy, our friend Angelo, troubling people and showing off, until Ashwin steps up hunched in a shawl and a wig... he pulls of the shawl and introduces himself as Michael Jackson and proceeds to do some killer moves on his skates, blowing everyone away. I don't think the play ever happened, but I remember very vividly how Ashwin explained the entire setup to us.

For a long time, I had only heard the title song of Bad and “The Way You Make Me Feel”, but never the full album. I didn’t have the album, so I decided to remedy that. I once skipped school and walked to the old HMV House cassette shop on St. Mark's Road. Not having the money to buy the cassette of Bad, I became “Bad” and just shoplifted a copy! I had no idea why the people working there let me go, because I was wearing a white shirt and anyone could clearly make out the cassette cover hidden in my shirt. I know I could. But I did get away without any trouble there. (Later, I found out that even if they knew, they let me go since they themselves were looking to screw the owners over for the low pay. I got a lot of cassettes at very low prices from there, courtesy of a couple of guys working there!).

Not getting into any trouble at HMV House was really just the quiet before the storm. The real storm was at home, when my mom asked me where I got the tape from. I very well couldn't tell her I had stolen it. So, I told her a lie that someone was willing to sell it to me for Rs. 10/-. The cassette cost Rs. 45/-. My mom told me, after a small beating first, that the guy who sold it to me probably stole it and just wanted money. She asked me how I got 10 bucks and I told her I gave him 2 bucks that I had and I still owed him 8 bucks. My parents always did the best for me, so she gave me 8 bucks to give this imaginary thief. I was a bad boy. Of course, the beating and the little guilt didn’t matter because I finally had the album! Ashwin was kind enough to give me his prized copy of the lyrics of Bad and I was thrilled. And then came another person who shared my madness for Bad...

My cousin Smaran stays in the US. He used to come down to India with his mom and sister once in 2-3 years. My sisters, Sritha and Deeptha, loved MJ too, especially Dee. When Smaran was here, the album went on for weeks and weeks in our house. I remember this one time; we had all gone to Cubbon Park. There were 7 of us kids. Cubbon Park was a huge park and apart from having a lot of entertaining things for kids, it was a very popular place for couples. As we were playing around, we suddenly ran into a couple sitting on a bench; 2 lovebirds, enjoying each other's company. The moment we saw them, Smaran started and all of us joined in and, just like what Ashwin used to do, we were singing, "Hey pretty baby with the high heels on......". The couple started laughing and we moved on, enjoying a whole evening in the park.

The park, being as huge as it was made us lose our way at one point of time. We walked all over the place, guessing and trying to backtrack, when we came across a sight that had all of us relieved... the couple sitting on the bench! The moment we got there, we were so relieved that we had found our way, that we immediately started screaming again, "Hey pretty baby with the high-heels on...”

Ashwin continued to fan my interest in MJ. He recorded copies of Michael's other 2 big albums, Off The Wall and Thriller for me. When he had just watched MJ's Moonwalker video one day, he couldn't stop raving about the picturisation of the song "Smooth Criminal". He would describe it to me in great detail and I would imagine the moves and the action. Needless to say, it was one of the first videos I ever bought. Bad was also the first poster I ever bought and the first poster I hung on the wall in my room.

As I grew older, I got into a lot of other music. There was 5 years between Bad and MJ’s next album, Dangerous. Ashwin moved away from near my house to a new place far away. But when Dangerous came out, I had another friend of mine, Brendan, who was really into it. Brendan had cable TV and that meant he had MTV, back when MTV actually played music. The video of Black or White blew us away and so did every other video from Dangerous. My favourite song off Dangerous was “Give Into Me”. I remember once miming to the song in my room for my friends, with the volume turned all the way up. As Slash started his blistering solo, I started trashing everything in the room! No, there were no repercussions, except for my friends thinking maybe I was going insane. I remember sitting on Brendan’s roof in the night with my guitar, trying to learn and teach him the beginning of “Give Into Me”.

The video I loved the most off Dangerous was “Who Is It?”. At that point of time I was dumped by my first girlfriend for another friend and so, when I saw the video of a high-class call girl, I immediately identified with it. A lot of my friends didn’t understand the video and I explained it to them. I would just say it was about my ex-girl! I remember Brendan confirming my interpretation since one of the VJs on MTV had said the same thing. Years later, I came to know that the video was directed by David Fincher, who became one of my favourite directors, with “Seven” and “Fight Club”.

Dee’s favourite song off Dangerous was “Who Is It?”. She was more into the album then I was, since she listened and knew all the songs in the album, whereas I used to only listen to the ones I liked.

MJ’s next album was the epic HIStory, which was 2 cassettes. One was his hits and the other was all new songs. I met Ashwin very little during the Dangerous phase, so we never discussed the album, but when we met after HIStory was released, we discussed it and both loved it. Ashwin loved the video for “Stranger in Moscow”. Brendan said that the video for “They Don’t Care about Us” was nice. I didn't have cable and I missed all the videos for HIStory, until I bought the VHS later.

Pink Floyd dominated my interest for most of my college life and beyond. I got into a lot of bands like R.E.M., Enigma, The Cranberries, Led Zeppelin; but MJ always had a special place in my heart and I bought all his albums.

Blood on the Dance Floor was not really a complete album, with just 5 new songs and a whole lot of remixes of the songs from HIStory. Still, “Morphine” was one of my favourites. MJ's last real album, Invincible, was a letdown and I didn't enjoy it as much as I had enjoyed his others. “Heartbreaker” was the only song I really enjoyed.

When I was in UK, I picked up a copy of the Ultimate Collection, which was 4 CDs of rare songs and hits, plus a DVD of a live show. I enjoyed the songs a lot, some more than others.

It's sad and poetic that MJ's last album was a re-release of his biggest hit, Thriller. Thriller 25 was good, but only the original album. I didn't enjoy any of the reworked songs.

Michael had been through a lot in the last years of his life. I do not know the rights or the wrongs or the good or the bad that he did, but I always hoped that he would bounce back. No one can deny the sheer brilliance of his albums or the way his videos were shot. He raised music videos (“short films”, as he called them) to an art form.

I was waiting for him to come out with his next album... I guess I will still be waiting. But I will never forget the way he made us feel.