Let's Hear It!

What’s Halloween without a party, and what’s a party without killer music? In compiling my playlist, I realized there is no shortage of songs about darkness, doom, depression, and despair. Imagine that. Fortunately, there is still room for a little magic. Some random tracks from my playlist.

I’m So Afraid – Fleetwood Mac. No spooks or demons needed to get to this condition. All it takes is one’s own loneliness, which is infinite, unchanging, and terrifying.

The Green Manalishi – Judas Priest. The devil is beside you, is at your door, is in your bed. Who else torments and tortures well into adulthood but that one person you thought was your lover? Two pronged crown, indeed.

Still Life – Iron Maiden. Leftover teenage angst is tapped in this creepy suicide pact tale. Or maybe it’s the fluent, haunting opening guitar solo emulating a mysterious pool’s rippling surface that keeps luring me back.

I Put a Spell on You – Nina Simone. Other excellent covers have been made of this song (Creedence Clearwater Revival, Screamin’ Jay Hawkins), but something about Simone’s rendering sinks in and stays with you. When the High Priestess says “you’re mine,” you’d better believe it.

(Don’t Fear) The Reaper – Blue Oyster Cult. Funny title for an ode to everlasting love. Maybe not. Looking for and finding your one and only is an acceptance of need. Anyone you need can leave you, and will one day die. Same goes for you. Fearful stuff. But, God, the alternative: life without love. That’s the real horror.

Witch Doctor – David Seville. What with all the darkness and despair, you gotta throw in some lightness and fun. Besides, behind the squeaky, perky walla-walla is the same story—resorting to a wicked scheme to try to get someone to love you back and end your misery.

Thriller – Michael Jackson. Anything that makes someone with pretty girl issues want to dress up like a tattered, rotting, sunken-eyed zombie, brings a diverse group of people to the park on a weeknight to practice the shuffle-ha-slide during a lightning storm, and gathers an even more diverse of over 200 to perform the dance at Tiguex Park simultaneously with the rest of the globe for Thrill the World, is pure magic.

Off the Wall: My best friend brings Off the Wall to class for a week, flipping open the album cover every chance she gets so we can gaze at Michael’s full length tuxedo-wearing, glowy-socks-sporting self topped by that dazzling smile. Our five-strong gang of twelve-year-old girls hang out on the blacktop at recess with the transistor radio turned on so we can dance to “Rock With You” and sing to “She’s Out of My Life.”

Thriller: I am a high school outcast (black) and instantly bond with “Beat It” because it has a rock vibe and all those black people in the video. My friend and co-outcast (gay) gushes about the “Thriller” video he watched in Drama Club. A group of Cambodian boys break dance to “Billie Jean” in the hallway during lunch hour and I really want to learn to dance, so much so that my neck tightens up because I am afraid to move.

Motown 25: I am spellbound, enthralled, and overjoyed by Michael’s supremely rhythmic hat-tossing, heel-swiveling, hip-thrusting, leg-bending, moonwalking performance of “Billie Jean” at the 25^th Anniversary of Motown. I really, really want to learn to dance.

Bad: I’m a “Bad” girl. I’m trying to lose the high school weight, so I need music to work out to, and “Bad,” “The Way You Make Me Feel,” and “Dirty Diana” are just the thing. I also relate to Michael’s darker, angrier, more sexually aggressive persona. I’m in college, after all.

Grammys: I fall asleep and drift awake to Michael singing “Man in the Mirror” and realize through a fog that this is what I had stayed up for. I open my eyes and Michael is kneeling in the middle of the stage in a blue coat chanting “the man” like he’s in church crying out his soul to God. He doesn’t win a Grammy. I hope he doesn’t care, because his gospel-infused performance is magnificent.

Dangerous: An obsession over a boy ends badly, and to keep myself from sinking into an inky, oily pit of despair and flunking out of my senior year of college, I sign up for a Jazzercise class. The instructor plays “Who Is It” and it mirrors back exactly what I’m feeling, only I get to dance to it. “In the Closet” evokes visions of romps in the desert with a bronzed, sweaty, shirtless man while I’m sweating through my squats and leg thrusts. I think this record is seriously underrated.

The Void: The surgeries, the bleached skin, the sexual molestation allegations are too much. After the first allegation, I see a black and white photo of Michael sitting in his home, and I burst into tears. He looks so terribly lonely. I check out, emotionally disconnect, and quit following him.

I Finally Do It: I sign up for a Hip Hop class at the community college, and I am the oldest person in the class. My instructor mentions Michael Jackson once, and I buy a DVD of Michael Jackson videos and start practicing. I re-experience his genius and even learn a few moves. One of my co-workers has the brilliant idea of dressing up as the Thriller zombies for Halloween. I say we have to do the dance. Five of us, four zombies and one Michael-zombie, learn a piece of the routine and perform it in front of our co-workers. It is great fun.

Eight Months Later: One of the zombies, dressed in her regular clothes, comes into my office and announces “Michael Jackson died.” The phrase “stared at her in utter disbelief” is in effect here. Disbelief is in effect during the drive home from work, listening to Michael Jackson songs, and is still in effect switching through all the TV channels to catch the latest update. Sometime during the coverage on The Nightly News with Brian Williams, I crumple into a ball on the floor and rock myself, bawling.

Off the Wall is the soundtrack of the one and only time in my life that I was part of a girl gang. Because of Thriller, I got inspired to learn to dance, and being the only black girl in my high school class wasn’t so totally terrible. Bad is how I got in shape, and Dangerous is why I kept moving when I wanted to die. Today, when I am convinced I have no rhythm and no soul, I pull out the Number Ones DVD, dance with Michael, and I am cured.

Even though I still can’t do the moonwalk.

I hope you’re not lonely anymore, Michael.