FEEL BILLIE THRILLER

Many of you have indicated that you are interested in seeing the return of Inspirational Song Saturday. Well, okay. I am going to cheat a bit and do a repeat of one of my VERY EARLY posts to give you an idea of what you are in for with these Saturday posts.  If you like them, I might post a list of all the bands/singers that have already been "done" and you can Search those posts if you want to go back and read them.

The way this post goes down is with one song at the beginning that is feeling Inspirational to Me Right Now. That means it is one song hitting me in my Happy Place right this very minute. It is not limited to any decade. So, while the rest of this post is a feature of 80s music and MTV, and how these two things are meshing, or maybe not meshing, though I haven't really gone there yet, but I am sure that I will, that has nothing to do with this first song.

 I actually dedicated this song to Jasmine a couple of months ago on my Thursday post. However, I love love love it. Back in December, I felt like I was dying inside. Or maybe I was already dead. I don't know... just hollow. It felt like all the good things were gone and were never coming back. I had to very deliberately change my life, and what I was doing, so that I could start feeling again. It was a glorious thing to feel after months of not. So, when I heard this song it almost felt One Republic wrote and sang it just for me. It is one of those songs that I could listen to repeatedly. Every time I hear it I want to play it again. Yep. It's one of those.

Do you have songs like that, or days like that, or moods like that? When I get like that, I just sit on YouTube and keep hitting the repeat until it is out of my system. So here goes:


Well I took two trips; I almost went a third time, but I decided that this blog wasn't going to write itself. So, I decided I better stop watching and listening and grooving - and get back to the writing. How many times did you hit the repeat? I warn you that is the BIGGEST PROBLEM with these posts. Especially with the upcoming music if you are an 80s lover... you are about to watch videos you haven't seen in FOREVER and you are going to fall in love all over again. So, don't say you weren't warned...

Okay, now let's get down to business.

You can't talk about the 80s, MTV, and NOT talk about Michael Jackson. Unlike some other musicians, Michael Jackson wasn't an unknown in the industry. He was part of the Jackson 5. He was the youngest member of the Jackson 5, but the one that spent the most time in the spotlight. So, one could safely argue that he was the most talented member of the Jackson 5. In 1982, something phenomenal happened. Something that hasn't happened again. THRILLER was released. Would it have been the success that it was if not for MTV? I don't know. However, the combination of MTV and Michael Jackson was magic. And THRILLER set the music industry ablaze and the public went wild. I don't think Michael Jackson knew what hit him. THRILLER was not his first solo album, but it might as well have been, because nothing could have prepared him for what was to come. To this day, THRILLER is the best selling album of all-time. Let that sink in. (best selling album of all time) There were nine tracks, and all but two, hit the charts, which is unbelievable! Here they are:

1. "Wanna Be Startin' Somethin'" Michael Jackson 6:02
2. "Baby Be Mine" Rod Temperton 4:20
3. "The Girl Is Mine" (with Paul McCartney) Michael Jackson 3:41
4. "Thriller" Rod Temperton 5:57
5. "Beat It" Michael Jackson 4:17
6. "Billie Jean" Michael Jackson 4:54
7. "Human Nature" Steve Porcaro, John Bettis 4:05
8. "P.Y.T. (Pretty Young Thing)" James Ingram, Quincy Jones 3:58
9. "The Lady In My Life" Rod Temperton 4:58

Let's take a look at what had the fans in such a frenzy.



Do you remember when I talked about how some stars knew how to rock a video and some didn't? Michael Jackson knew how to rock a video. People watched that and their jaws hit the floor. It wasn't just that the concept was awesome, there was some story there, the singing was incredible, but how cool was the dancing? He hit you in every sense you had. In fact, it was sensory overload. You wanted to call MTV and ask them to play it again. Please, pretty please play it again. Just two or three more times. Billie Jean knocked it out of the park. Michael Jackson understood the power of video. Video and song. They fed each other. You could do a video of yourself in concert, but why would you? So, he didn't. And he hit one homerun after another while everyone else stood around with their mouths hanging open wondering, "How is he doing that?"

I found this video looking for other videos and it isn't a song, but more of a "what they were thinking back then" video. I thought it was really interesting. If you find it tedious. You know where the stop button is. You can move on...



Of course, the last song has to be Thriller. The video is 13 minutes long and people couldn't get enough of it. We waited for Thriller to come on. Even me. And the only other thing I waited on was Duran Duran videos. So, that should tell you something. It was like a mini-movie. If this doesn't indicate that Michael got the connection between video and music, nothing will.



The only two videos I picked were from the Thriller album. That doesn't mean that Michael Jackson's career ended there. In fact, one of my favorite songs of his is Man In The Mirror.

It made me really sad that Michael Jackson died so early in his life. It made me even sadder that he felt the need to change his appearance so dramatically. I like these videos, not just because it is Michael in his prime, but it is because Michael when he still looks like himself. Just because you have the money to lighten your skin and have all kinds of plastic surgery to make yourself look different, (in his case, more Caucasian) doesn't mean you should. If I could have given him one thing, it would have been simply loving what he saw in the mirror.

RIP Michael Jackson. You are one of a kind. There will never be another musician like you.

Did you notice how much more important it became to be a good dancer or to have good dancers after Michael Jackson and MTV?  What is your favorite song by Michael Jackson?  What is your favorite video by Michael Jackson?

Everybody knows where we're going.

Ironically, while I loved this song when it first came out, I hated this video.  I didn't get it.  I didn't want to see what they were trying to say.  Now I see.  It's funny how that happens.



All the right friends in all the right places
So yeah, we're going down
They've got
All the right moves in all the right faces
So yeah, we're going down

Let's paint the picture
Of the perfect place
They've got it better then when anyone's told ya
They'll be the King of Hearts, and you're the Queen of Spades
Then we'll fight for you like we were your soldiers
I know we got it good, but they got it made,
And their grass is getting greener each day,
I know things are looking up, but soon they'll take us down,
Before anybody's knowing our name

They've got...

All the right friends in all the right places
So yeah, we're going down
They've got
 All the right moves in all the right faces
So yeah, we're going down
They say
Everybody knows, everybody knows where we're going
Yeah, we're going down
They say
 Everybody knows, everybody knows where we're going
Yeah, we're going down

 Do you think I'm special?
 Do you think I'm nice?
 Am I bright enough to shine in your spaces?
 Between the noise you hear, and the sounds you like
Are we just sinking the ocean of faces?
It can't be possible... the rain can fall
Only when it's over our heads.
 The sun is shining everyday, but it's far away.
Over the world that's dead.

 They've got, they've got...

 All the right friends in all the right places
So yeah, we're going down
They've got
 All the right moves in all the right faces
 So yeah, we're going down [Repeat]

They say
 Everybody knows, everybody knows where we're going
 Yeah, we're going down
 They say
Everybody knows, everybody knows where we're going
Yeah, we're going down

It don't matter what you see I know I could never be
 Someone that'll look like you.
It don't matter what you say I know I could never fake
Someone that could sound like you.

 All the right friends in all the right places
So yeah, we're going down
They've got
All the right moves in all the right faces
So yeah, we're going down [Repeat]
They say
Everybody knows, everybody knows where we're going
Yeah, we're going down
They say
Everybody knows, everybody knows where we're going
Yeah, we're going down
Yeah, we're going down [repeat x2]
All the right moves... heeey
Yeah we're going down
They say
All the right moves... heeey
Yeah we're going down


So, what do you think? Love it? Hate it? Did they paint the picture? What did you see? Are we going down?

J IS FOR JITTERBUG

Well, fellow bloggers I do have more to report on the SSDI front, but it shall wait until tomorrow. Maybe the next day. If you are not caught up to speed on the old news, then you need to backpedal and read I IS FOR INSURANCE, and I am calling a time out. Those two posts should catch you right up. In the meantime...

Leanne over at From Chaos Comes Happiness chooses a theme word each year instead of doing resolutions. I can get behind that better than resolutions. I think I might have written out resolutions in junior high school once and then quit that. Why? Because I had zero follow through on them. I realized, even then, I was going to do what I was going to do. Period. Aaaaggghhh. However, this embracing a word thing... I do like that. For instance, one of her words from a previous year was create. I thought that was a fine word to wrap yourself around. I like verbs. They are very proactive. This year she chose believe. Another verb. Then she indicated various areas of her life that wanted to push some of that belief into and watch some action happen.

My friend Mary the Food Floozie announced yesterday (quite late, actually) that her word was going to be nurture. I almost fell out until I realized that some of that nurturing was going to be self-directed. She is one of the most nurturing people I know. It is all give give give. So, nurturing your own spirit, in addition to others gets a thumbs up.

Becky over at Farmgirl Paints was talking about how she normally feels bleak during January. In a recent blog post she said that she didn't feel that way this year and that instead of feeling stuck on survive, she had found the thrive button. Thrive. I liked it. I didn't think of it myself, but it was better than anything I was coming up with for myself. The best I had wrangled in was persevere, and that still felt like a lot of work. Whereas with thrive, it feels alive. Growing. Flourishing even. Persevering feels like your neck deep in molasses, but you're going to keep moving anyway. Nothing is going to grow in molasses, let me tell you. Thrive. Much better word.




The definition of thrive:

1: to grow vigorously : flourish
2: to gain in wealth or possessions : prosper
3: to progress toward or realize a goal despite or because of circumstances

Ding ding ding. I think we have a winner. So, thrive it is.

To that end, the email campaign is on to get my Big Idea off the ground. The first step is the website and I need all of the help that I can get! I have already emailed everyone in my contacts list. Naturally, as soon as I was finished my mother came in and pointed out that I had made a typing error. Spellcheck didn't catch it, because technically it wasn't wrong. I typed "be" instead of "by" in one instance. Bah. So, there is a sentence that begins, "They do this be," instead of "They do this by." Of course there is. If you have received the aforementioned email and not sent it out yet, please make the adjustment. If you have already sent it as is. Oh well.

I shall be going through all of the blogs that I follow looking for email addresses. You can save me some time by sending me yours. How do you do that?

You can leave your email address in the comments. Or you can email at rarichards68@gmail.com your email address, and I will send you the corrected version of the email. You need not change a thing. This is me being proactive and thriving. Please copy/paste and send it to everyone you know. The idea is to cast as wide a net as possible. We then want them to send it to everyone they know. It may take five throws for it to get to someone who actually has valuable information for the site. But, it will never reach that person unless everyone continues to cast. So, throw that net.

And for all of you who were worried that Social Security had dealt me the knock out punch, in the immortal words of Patrick Swayze in Dirty Dancing, "No one puts Baby in the corner."


I dedicated this bit of footage to Phoenix on Thursday, but the song is really speaking to me. And I like this video better than the original. I think that we all have the capacity to be heroes. All the right friends in all the right places. When you have that, big things are going down.

Click here to watch it if you missed it the first time.




image found at www.weheartit.com