Michael Jackson 1958-1984

In the summer of 1983, I was 10 years old. It is the time I think back to when I hear people describe what the childhood cliche of summers were like. In my mind it was hot everyday, the school holidays seemed to go on forever and I was beautifully unaware of the world around me.

My overriding memory of this summer was Michael Jackson and Thriller. I was hanging out at the time with a couple of kids from my primary school, who also went to the choir that I sang in at the local church. One of them had, in their bedroom, a wonderfully futuristic double tape player. This huge contraption could not only play a tape, but could also record off the other tape deck at the same time. This lead to us making C-60, upon C-60 of us singing along to the whole Thriller album.

We would start at the beginning and record ourselves all the way through to the end. When I would return home I would spend the rest of the evening in my bedroom listening to the days work and looking forward to bettering the recording the next day. So it went on for days and weeks. Thriller slowly and surely entering into my childhood psyche, as it must have done for millions of others through the years.

That Christmas we went to stay at my Uncle and Aunts house. My cousins had the Thriller video and although 11 by then, I was scared and mesmerized by what I was watching. I was so scared that I had to watch it over and over on their VHS just to make sure that I hadn't missed anything. It would be a couple of years before I saw American Werewolf in London which would be the first actual horror film I saw.

For some reason my Michael Jackson fixation had stopped by 1984 and heavy metal entered my life shortly after, again Eddie Van Halen's perfect guitar solo on Beat It was a precursor to my lifelong obsession with loud, heavy music.

Michael Jackson had already died for me by 1984 and the media's fascination with the bizarre aspects of his life held no interest. An isolated, lonely man destroyed by his immense fame and monstrous Father, became freak-show fodder for the tabloids throughout the remainder of his ultimately short life.

However, I will always remember that perfect summer and Christmas and Thriller will always be a part of those memories.

So long Michael Jackson, 1958-1984.