The Michael Jackson single being released today was co-written with Paul Anka. It comes from the session Michael and Anka did for the song “This is It” in 1983– 31 years ago. Johnny Mathis covered it. Like that track, this one has been blown up and rearranged from the original demo. The songs were long forgotten until Jackson died. I wrote about all this in 2009 right after Michael died. Here’s the original demo:
Here’s another version:
And a clip of the new version:
My original stories about the Anka-Jackson records:
http://www.showbiz411.com/2009/10/14/20091014paul-anka-wrote-a-second-song-with-michael-jackson
http://www.showbiz411.com/2009/10/12/20091012michael-jackson-paul-anka-this-is-it
And here’s Johnny Mathis doing it way back in 1984:
Here are Michael and Paul Anka from their “This is It” session, from Anka’s “Duets” album:
The new album, “Xscape,” due May 13th, includes a cover of America’s 1972 hit “A Horse With No Name” with different lyrics. If it walks like a horse, and sounds like a horse, it’s a horse.
