Michael Jackson – You Will Be Missed
BySome might say that June 25, 2009, was the day the music died.
After all, Michael Jackson grew up, became a superstar, an icon, a legend and a little bit crazy in the public eye.
His life, in a way, reminds me of the Jim Carey movie where he finally discovered that this whole life was being filmed as a reality show and all the people he thought were friends and family were really just actors who had a regular work schedule and took lunch breaks in the studio commissary. Carey was the only one who didn’t know until the day he took the boat to the far side of the “ocean” and punctured the bubble he was in.
And yet, as much as Michael grew up and lived with all of us watching every move, we hardly knew him. Not really.
I’m not pretending I knew him or even saw him perform live. But I know he touched my life.
I remember dancing to some of those great tracks from “Thriller”. I remember being overwhelmed when I realized one of my personal heroes, Quincy Jones, produced that album. I remember my band performing Michael’s songs and seeing such great audience response to them. We still do them.
I don’t know about you, but I was secretly hoping those 50 London concerts would do much more than pay his debts. I was hoping he would have one of the Hollywood movie career rebounds and once again be king of the hill.
Maybe it would have never happened anyway. It would have been a tough rebirth for sure. He would have had to overcome a mountain of bad press regarding Neverland and those kids.
We will never know exactly what happened there but my take on it was that he made some seriously bad decisions.
But that’s between Michael and his creator now.
He has punctured that big bubble we all share and gone on to another reality.
We will miss you Michael.
I was watching some CNN I-reporters today from Sri Lanka, Nigeria, London, Indonesia and once again was struck by the power of music to be the universal language we all share.
We will miss you Michael.
Thank you for bringing so much joy, excitement and compassion into our lives.
