My Life With Michael Jackson …part 1

June 25, 2009 started for me in the year of 1970. It seems fit­ting that I’m sit­ting here watch­ing a rerun of this season’s Amer­i­can Idol, “A Trib­ute to Michael Jackson”.

Credit: tipoy­ockn (Flickr)

Being from the Deep South and the daugh­ter of a very strict father, I don’t know how I was even able to hear their music; none the less, I was very aware of them, espe­cially the young one. He could just sing like no body’s busi­ness and he had moves I’d never seen before…and oh my good­ness, he was so cute! There was only one other boy that could com­pare and secretly, Don­nie Osmond didn’t come close to giv­ing me the excite­ment this kid did! His music made me want to sing and dance just like him! Watch­ing the Jackson’s vari­ety show was the high­light of my week; the show had so much energy, the skits were funny, and I loved hear­ing them sing. I was hooked! I’d walk around singing “ABC” all week! I knew no shame! LOL

Count­less times I’d enter­tain myself in our back­yard. I’d have Michael Jack­son and Don­nie Osmond sit­ting at my lit­tle table for din­ner with an occa­sional appear­ance by David Cas­sidy; each one would take turns being my hus­band. I can’t remem­ber what we would talk about, but I do remem­ber the con­ver­sa­tion was always flowing…and they never said any­thing I didn’t like. LOL

As life rolled on by the Jackson’s show can­celed and I heard less from the Jackson’s and my favorite singer. I was so dis­ap­pointed by it all. I can remem­ber think­ing, “How in the world will I get by with­out that show?!” A cou­ple of years passed by and a new movie came out called Ben. I didn’t go see the movie because I just hated rats, but I fell in love with the Song “Ben”.

Life con­tin­ued to roll on and I heard bits and pieces about Michael here and there but not too much infor­ma­tion. Even­tu­ally the “need” to hear his music faded but never left me entirely. Then as I grew into my late teens new music hit the radio. Michael had new stuff and I LOVED it! I couldn’t get enough of “Don’t Stop Til You Get Enough” or “Rock With You”. Get­ting into dis­cos before I was old enough made my time spent with these songs all the bet­ter, but noth­ing com­pared to the ela­tion of see­ing the Jackson’s in con­cert and hear­ing all my favorite songs in per­son. To this day it is still by far the best and most mem­o­rable con­cert I’ve ever attended. This is the same time period I thought he was the most good-looking man on the planet. Not to take any­thing away from him in “The Way You Make Me Feel” and of course my other favorite, “Bil­lie Jean”…starting to see a pat­tern here? LOL

He rocked my world! No one could move like him and cer­tainly no one could make you feel like he did through his music.

It’s hard for me to pick my favorite song by MJ, there are so many that have touched my life. It just doesn’t seem right to choose one that stands out over another.  Maybe by the time I write part two of this post I’ll be able to pick an all time favorite or at the very least nar­row it down to a select few…just don’t know if I can. Maybe I’m find­ing his songs mean more to me today because he passed away last Thurs­day, June 25, 2009.

Maybe some­one read­ing this can leave some of their favorite song names or favorite mem­o­ries of MJ. Maybe I’ll get lucky and you’ll remind me of a song I’ve for­got­ten about. So go ahead…what is your favorite MJ song(s)?