Don't Stop Till You Get Enough

I've always thought that Bruce Springsteen was the reason I decided to write and sing songs. It was 1993 when I saw him perform "Glory Days" on Letterman's last show on NBC. My future was determined right about the time he jumped on the piano. 

A week later, I was housesitting for the Hittlers. 

(The Hittlers were our neighbors on Garland Lane - a lovely cul-de-sac in the Minnesota suburbs. Everyone was a little concerned when they moved in and was relieved to discover that their last name had TWO Ts).

I was looking through the Hittlers' CD collection and found "Born in the USA." I made a tape of it (at 45 minutes it fit perfectly on one side) and listened to it all summer while mowing lawns. That's also the summer I started writing my own songs. The first one was called "Time." It was about nuclear war and the music was a direct rip-off of Aerosmith's "Dream On."

So I always thought it was Bruce who put me on this path. But in the midst of the recent media madness, it became clear to me that the magic and mystery of popular music grabbed me much earlier. Psychology has a term: flashbulb memory (a memory created in detail during a personally significant event; perceived to have a "photographic" quality). 

A big one for me = my mother coming into the play room when I was five with a copy of Michael Jackson's "Thriller" album. I don't think my mom gave me music as a present ever again, but that may have been the most important gift I've ever received. It was my first album. The first time I had music that was mine that I could play over and over again. I remember it feeling like a sacred event -- taking it out of its sleeve, putting it on record player, hearing the pops as the needle hit the vinyl and you knew "Wanna Be Startin' Something" was about to begin. 

My first concert was Michael Jackson's "Bad" tour five years later. I used to blast "Dirty Diana" in my bedroom, set up a fan on my bed to blow back my hair like the video, open the window so the neighbors could hear and sing along. They played "Heal the World" every day before the school news program when I was in junior high. My friend Dave & I bought HIStory the day it came out. 

From a songwriting perspective, just deal with this list:

I'll Be There

ABC

She's Out of My Life

Don't Stop Till You Get Enough

Wanna Be Startin' Something

Billy Jean

Beat It

Thriller

PYT

We Are the World

Bad

The Way You Make Me Feel

Man in the Mirror

Dirty Diana

Smooth Criminal

Give in to Me

Jam

Heal the World

Black or White

Keep the Faith

That's just off the top of my head. I mean, come on. 

My friend Sam got married last weekend and the reception basically turned into a Michael Jackson tribute. I'm not much of a dancer, but I stood apart watching everyone dance to song after song. They knew all the words, all the moves, all the changes. It was beautiful to behold.

It was Michael Jackson who got music moving in me. Maybe it was Michael Jackson who inspired me to pick up the guitar. He was and is the best, the brightest and the biggest. 

He's gone too soon, but those songs are still here. They are in us. Isn't that a beautiful thing?