Their Bad Mother

The Day The Music Died

Friday June 26, 2009

Categories: Current Events, Memories
Beat It was one of the very first albums that I owned. Oh, I had, of course, a collection of Disney Pops, and the soundtracks to Annie and Star Wars and the like, but Beat It was the first real pop album that I ever owned. And I listened to it endlessly. I danced to it, I dreamed to it, I rocked out to it as only a scrawny white pre-adolescent girl can: with utter abandon.

I didn't have a crush on Michael Jackson - I was young, and had already promised my heart to Speed Racer - although my cousin Christopher accused me of just that. He's BLACK, you know, he would whisper, the weight of the conspiratorial wisdom of all ten year old boys heavy in his voice. That means that you can't have his babies. I didn't understand what loving Michael Jackson's music - anybody's music - had to do with making babies - I wasn't sure that I understood entirely how one even went about making babies, or why anyone would want to (the narrative of Billie Jean escaped me entirely) - but I knew that it didn't matter to me what color he was.

This, of course, became the great cosmic joke about Michael Jackson: that even he didn't know what color he was. That he became devoid of color. Except that in the way that mattered to me - what his music sounded like, and how it made me want to dance - he was always full of color. And flashing lights and fireworks; explosions of sound and feeling. Beat. He remained full of that color, for me - or rather, his music did - through all the years that followed, through all the controversies and scandals and the gradual disintegration of Michael as a person that I could recognize (literally and figuratively) as sharing the same human world as my own. The music never changed. The music was always among the mostly deeply textured, the most richly colored, that I had ever heard. And it always made want to dance.

Like a white girl. Like a white girl who didn't know that there was such a thing as dancing like a white girl. Which is to say, like a person, just responding to the most stirring of beats.

And for that I'll always be grateful to him, and glad that he was part of this world, my world, for a time.

 


Requiescat in pace, Michael Jackson.



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Comments
Birth_Lactation
June 26, 2009 2:38 PM
http://obnurse35yrs.wordpress.com/

What a great tribute. I'm also glad he was part of my world..... Always made me want to dance also! He was a legacy and his sadness of later years should not be how we remember him. Thanks for this!

Jen
June 26, 2009 5:08 PM

I had a hard time explaining to someone that I am sad he passed away because it is as if a part of our childhood died.
Do I like what he became later in life....no. Were my walls as a pre-teen and teen covered with Michael Jackson, oh hell yes. Was he guilty of what he was accused? I think so. Will we ever know? No, that is between him and his maker.

Paula C
June 26, 2009 6:42 PM

CELEBRATION OF A LIFE, A LEGEND - The King Of Pop

Thank you for your post and like you no matter what was said about Michael Jackson I loved his music and love him for the music, artistry and dance moves. He is the moon walk guy, he is the guy that would and always will get the foot tapping and the dance floor moving. Man, Woman and Child around the world loved Michael Jackson.

He will be missed.

Laura
June 27, 2009 9:58 AM
http://Breathtaking

There aren't words... What a star!

Jennifer
June 29, 2009 1:33 AM
http://www.squidoo.com/Start-A-Preschool

He will be missed dearly :o(

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About Their Bad Mother


Catherine Connors is a mother, writer and recovering academic who traded the lecture hall for the playroom and discovered that university students and preschoolers have much the same attention span. In addition to Bad Mother blogging at Beliefnet, she is, among other things, the author of HerBadMother.com, the moderator of Her Bad Mother’s Basement, the co-founder and co-editor of WeCovet, a contributing writer/editor at MamaPop and BlogHer, and most recently (deep breath) founder of and contributor to Canada Moms Blog. And in her spare time… oh, wait. She doesn’t have spare time. But she’s okay with that.


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