There aren’t many Michael Jackson songs that don’t make me want to dance. But I’m a sucker for the “Little Michael” songs in particular, before he was “MJ” or “The King of Pop” or the tabloid-dubbed “Wacko Jacko.” Give me the way-back-when, pint-sized wunderkind of The Jackson 5, strutting and mugging and hamming it up in his smart little duds in front of psychedelic 1960’s television backdrops. That kid had a voice like an angel and an innate groove that was twice as divine.
Michael Jackson’s songs, over the course of his lifetime, offer a practically unparalleled embarrassment of riches for anyone looking for a song to dance to. Think about it: have you ever been to a wedding reception or a party or any other function with a serviceable dance-floor where the DJ didn’t play Michael Jackson? (If your answer is yes, I recommend you find better parties to attend. Or fire your DJ. Not necessarily in that order.) Even if you narrow Jackson’s body of work down to his childhood and young-adult years, there is still just too much dance-worthy music there to make an indisputable selection.
Bring on the disputations if you dare, but I’m picking the 1969 Motown classic “I Want You Back” for a song that not only makes me want to dance, but also a song that makes everyone want to dance. Here it is, performed live in 1971 on the Jackson 5’s Goin’ Back to Indiana TV special :
I may be wrong about this (I’m not), but I don’t remember ever seeing anyone who didn’t start moving or shaking or foot-tapping or head-bobbing, even if only a little bit (as is all that some unfortunate souls are capable), once they heard the first few bars of this song. And when Little Michael gets to that shouting/squealing part during the break? All I want. All I need. All I want. All I NEEEED!!
Well, all bets are off at that point. If you’re not up and dancing by then, somebody needs to check your pulse.
There’s something both adorable and especially poignant about an 10-12 year old worrying that “now it’s much to late for [him] to take a second look.” Of course, we grown-ups know that there’s so much more to come, so many more second and third (and etc) chances, so little that has been lost in the grand scheme of things… but the urgency of young love does not abide such consolations. It wants what it lost, and it wants it back immediately and desperately. Aside from being an eminently dance-able song, “I Want You Back” reminds us what unabashed, unafraid and uncompromising youthful insistence sounds like: starry-eyed, idealistic, committed, perhaps impractical, but ready to go to the mat anyway. That kind of devotion, which aims to correct the error of a love lost no matter what it takes, is why I think this song continues to register so deeply with the rest of us old, jaded farts.
We should all be so bold as Little Michael when he sings Oh baby, give me one more chance / Won’t you please let me back in your heart? because, go ahead and admit it, you’ve probably been so blind as to let something go that you shouldn’t have. And you want it back.
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Here’s your quick-access link to the entire 30 Day Song Challenge 2014 prompt-list and my picks for each day.