The Number Fortys: Michael Jackson - "Farewell My Summer Love"

In The Number Fortys, we review every song that was sitting at #40 on the Billboard chats, starting in the first week of January 1984, right around the time this writer became cognizant/obsessive about music. The seeds for the idea came from Tom Breihan's Number Ones column over at Stereogum. However, we here at k-postpunk believe that the bottom is more interesting than the top (and obscurity is more interesting than either).

Well this one's easy as fuck to cancel. It says a lot that, even with MJ riding a wave of post-Thriller success, that the title track from some "lost sessions" from 1973 which Motown just happened to find the year after MJ became the biggest fucking musical star on the planet, could still only reach #38. Michael's voice is golden, and the chorus has a melody that you can still remember even after the song ends, but the rest of the song--despite the overdubs Motown threw on there to make it sound more contemporary--is 70's sting-laden schlock.

Of course, the references to school and such have aged about as poorly as MJ did. I don't have much to add to the conversation going on right now concerning Michael Jackson's monstrous acts, other than to say this was all apparent and obvious when the allegations surfaced. When your defense is, sure, me and the little boys slept in the same bed together, but we never had sex, you're a little suspect. Also, MJ didn't love children, as people said at the time. He loved little boys. Not a whole lot of little girls hanging out at the Neverland ranch. Lastly, and most importantly, whatever abuse he suffered is not a defense. Many, many people experience physical and/or sexual abuse without themselves becoming abusers. Now to overcome that requires strength, commitment, and hard fucking work.

I am sorry for what MJ suffered; I am even sorrier that he created, out of his own personal hell, a personal hell for others. I'm glad he's dead, and I wish he had died sooner. But ultimately, I wish he had gotten the kind of help that maybe might have helped overcome his demons, or at least learn how to keep them at bay. Everyone's experience is different, but I can say that therapy has helped me immensely in learning to deal with my own personal violent and destructive tendencies. I put off making that call for years, way longer than I should have, in part because it didn't seem to do shit in helping my parents. I was wrong.

As a musical piece, "Farewell My Summer Love" is a 3. As a documentation on one man's journey through a life of pain both absorbed and inflicted, I can only avert my eyes.

THE NUMBER ONE

The lyrics here are pretty much coke-fueled gibberish. You can go read them them if you want. Now that I'm listening, the music is kind of coke-fueled gibberish too. Are those steel drums? It's got a nice melody. And Duran Duran, a band that obviously grew up with Roxy Music posters all over their walls, were gifted, like Roxy, with a solid enough drummer to give their songs the groove and force to get through most melodic rough patches. This was their first #1. Their previous single off this album, "New Moon On Monday," which I vastly prefer, only reached #10. The world isn't fair, but then you already knew that. NMonM is a 7. The Reflex is a 5.