MICHAEL JACKSON – "One Day In Your Life"

I have to confess that I find Michael Jackson possibly the most over-rated artist in pop history. I also have to confess that I rather like this one. Largely because most of the things that really annoy me about him – the vocal tics, the monstrous ego, the sheer overblown-ness – are absent from this song. It’s simple, it’s sweet and it’s sincere, the voice soars in the right places, and I have a lot of time for it. I may need to don the tin helmet later on for Jacko records, but not just yet.

TOTPWatch: Unsurprisingly, Michael Jackson had better things to do in 1981 than go to Shepherds Bush to promote a six-year old recording. So on the 4th of June, Legs & Co interpreted the song in his abscence.

Also in the studio that week were; Siouxsie & The Banshees, Kate Robbins & Beyond, Squeeze, Imagination and Phil Collins. The host was Richard Skinner.

Yes, I can’t for the life of me understand how this got to the top and “Don’t Stop Til You Get Enough” didn’t. Tom’s quite right about how most people would slip up on a “Guess Jacko’s Number Ones” quiz. I certainly would have never picked this. On the other hand, I can’t agree with Erithian about Jackson being overrated. I think both “Off the Wall” and “Thriller” were magnificent bodies of work. We all know he became a nutjob after this and is now a tragic figure whose best mate is Mickey Mouse but those two albums alone mark him as a leading light in pop. As for ODIYL, again I differ from Erithian. I thought it was way too twee and it’s not surprising to learn that it was recorded some time earlier. I don’t think Rod Temperton would have had anything to do with this.

Off The Wall may well have been the last genuine pop album my parents bought and was thus spun on and off for about twenty years at home. As such this baffled me a touch, as it wasn’t on Off The Wall and was nowhere near as good as everything on it. Its an okay ballad, but has a sappiness which I was getting to dislike, and lacked all of the lithe dancability of Off The Wall. I can’t say I really like it all that much now.

If we are building a history of music from the representatives at hand it is a wonder I got through the early 80’s without insisting that
a) All albums had to be gatefold
b) And be about Walls.

That said I loved the gatefold of off the wall, as you got to see Michael’s legs. Such a simple idea, but one which I think gave the album an extra bit of longevity for me.

Despite loving Adam Ant I was still unaware of Jacko at this point and didn’t hear this until many years later. I think my favourite ballad of his is ‘Human Nature’.

He was such a better singer back then, at least a much more appealing one before all the grunts and squeaks took over. While most singers get better at their craft as they get older Jacko just seemed to regress from an assured and soulful little boy to a herky-jerky robot. Maybe his voice vanished with his nose and all the tics were a form of vocal cosmetic masking.

This is fluff though, pretty fluff but not exactly “I’ll Be There”

A refreshing piece of re-issue from the younger artist who I mush prefer to the “shriek freak” of the 80s and 90s. So much around him was hype and all his records started to sound the same after a while.I don’t think I can stomach anything after “Billie Jean” and that was only just about bearable.

This was cute and was getting towards the end of my 3rd year at school and moving up to a different building 2 miles away which I thought was very sad. We had to take our “options” and decide what to study and what not to study. All I wanted to study at that age was on at 12.45pm every tuesday. After 5,4, and 2 the rundown and then number 1, I would head off to English literature and “study”(I’d hide a radio in my desk with one of those long thin white-wired earpieces going up my sleeve out by my tie and into my right ear, head resting on hand) and take bugger all notice of Mrs Mitchell reading a boring classic to us. I just listened to the new entries and chart climbers until 2 p.m.

Peter, your mask is slipping. Put it back properly like a good lad.

Not only Jackson’s first and best Number One but also his ‘Over The Rainbow’. Listening to it, you can’t quite believe this wasn’t a show tune that had already been around for a generation.

Personally I love that sumptuous, over the top production (those French horns!), and Jackson’s performance has a butter-wouldn’t-melt quality that makes you forget these are actually quite nasty lyrics he’s singing (‘I will stay in your heart/ and when things fall apart/ you’ll remember…’)

Even in 1981 this seemed like the work of a completely different artist to the freakish post-Off The Wall Jacko. Looking back, it was the last time he actually sounded like a human being.

#15 No she was Jill Mitchell and she wore yellow shoes and was always playing with her bra straps, but she was very nice apart from that.

BUNNY ? Is this the “next line round” ?

Chas and Dave ?

Re 19: On J5’s I’ll Be There, it was Berry Gordy’s idea to have Michael throw in “Just look over your shoulder, honey!” as a direct ref to the 4 Tops’ 45.

And while we’re talking about Motown re-cycling, how about the “Pagliacci” mention on Carolyn Crawford/Truly Smith’s ace My Smile Is Just A Frown, some time before Tears Of A Clown.

I mean, why waste a guaranteed smash hit reference to an 1892 clown opera?

No, no. Don’t think twice, it’s all right.

Around the time of Don’t stop till you get enough Lena Martell was number one, One day in your life used to be the closing song at Solihull ice rink when it was in the charts, did Jacko know it was re-released?

Some radio play of this over the weekend prompted me to come here to see what sort of reception it had, and I’m slightly surprised it was given such short shrift. It’s generally a poorly received opinion, but this is probably one of my favourite Michael Jackson singles.

First and foremost, I’m a bit of a sucker for love songs where the dumped party continues to convince (or, more accurately, delude) his or herself that their partner may change his or her mind. It sums up the temporary madness that accompanies heartbreak for a lot of people, and Jackson’s vocal here is sweet, broken and vulnerable – probably my favourite vocal performance of his on a ballad, actually. He was possibly the right age to do something like this, naive enough to not struggle to convey the sentiments earnestly, but old enough and experienced enough to have developed the talent. No hiccupping or showboating here either. The performance is strong, simple and believable.

The only thing that really bothers me about the arrangement is the harmonica’s solemn wailing which could be put to equally good use soundtracking one of Compo’s sulks on “Last Of The Summer Wine”. Motown weren’t to know that, obviously…

Oddly, not long after its spell at number one I have a crystal clear memory of it wafting on the summer breeze from somewhere close to my house. I caught the words “One day in your life, you’ll remember a place” and clearly committed the scene – a suburban C Road, the slight beginnings of sunset in the sky, a Tonibell ice cream van pulled over and waiting for customers – to memory, whether by accident or design. Just over a year later my parents were putting our things in boxes to move to a new area, so it also has an unusual poignancy for me in that respect.