Oh, wow. Someone on the ILM board brought up a duet between Paul McCartney and Michael Jackson that not only had I never heard, I'd never heard of it. "The least famous of their three co-writes/duets," the gent argued, "is IMO the best of them all."And damn if he isn't right. "The Girl Is Mine" and "Say, Say, Say" have gotten a bad rap over the years, and I think it's unfair - particularly in the case of the latter, whose defense I'll save for another day. They're good songs.
But allow me to extoll above them the virtues of "The Man," a tune on Macca's 1983 Pipes of Peace album. (The reason I'd never heard it: McCartney solo has never been an album guy for me. Give me the singles, and that's pretty much all I need.) The songwriting's credited to Paul and Michael both, but I suspect, given the vocal range it calls for, it was almost entirely MJ at work concocting this oblique observation of - a god? A golden child? A man who's found self-awareness and wisdom within?
Or perhaps, more specifically, the one who has the courage to venture out into unknown territory, and come back with experience and tales for those who cannot themselves leave. The heroic journey described by everyone from Joseph Campbell to Sandra Cisneros. Can you be the one to go where others cannot? Can I? Who can? This is the man.
PS: How this was not a single, I'll never understand.
2 comments:
NTM too -- it certainly got no airplay in NYC that I know of. Which is odd, considering the MJ-Mania rampant at the time. Quite nice. Agreed on "Say Say Say" as well -- I await your entry on that.
I was also unaware of the existence of the third duet. I myself was just watching "Say Say Say" on Youtube yesterday, thinking that it was a good song and an awesome video, the kind of great 80s storytelling video that glued one to the screen. I think the contempt for it is based mainly on contempt for Paul and Michael, not the song itself. "The Girl Is Mine" was mainly filler, though.
-D*
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