Dissect DJs - Michael Jackson - Man in the Mirror

Episode Date: April 27, 2020

We dig up the original Dissect DJ recording to break down Michael Jackson's iconic 'Man in the Mirror'. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Dysect VJs What's going on everybody? It is the Dicek DJs. Back with a brand new episode and we're about to break down the one and only Michael Jackson in his 1990 masterpiece, Man in the Mirror.

But before we get into it, I do want to give a little back info on the time of recording of this episode because it was actually the first episode we ever recorded and it wasn't even an episode of the time. We had no idea what the Dysack Dijays was even going to become. We were just kind of hanging out with microphones on

and we're like, let's break down man in the mirror. And as I had mentioned in episode one, it had been a concept that we had been doing on my three things we got to talk about podcast in a segment that we call Breakdown this song. And so we said to throw the headphones on, turn the microphone on,

breakdown man in the mirror, and this was the result. And also, this is when I was still recording up in the castle tower and shouting at cars and planes regular. So you might hear a little bit of that, but just take it a zombie ounce and enjoy the entertainment. So, yep, let's go ahead and dash,

That's sick. Man in the Mirror. This is the first time in your life that you've made a change? No, not just that he made a change, but he kind of realized and he'd make a change. But it's once in his life. Like, he's never made a change in his life? It has to be, like, at least the 13th or 14th time he's made a change. He's not taken into account. It is a difference when it's like a fundamental realization. Like, fuck, bro.

I like got to make a change. Like, this is serious. Like, I got to, like, read and think everything. It's the one time I have to school. I have a shit together. It's basically, it feels like right of the bat, I'm like, this is a get your shit together moment. Gotcha. It's going to feel real good.

Gonna make a difference. Gonna make it right. What do you say? I missed that word too. I don't know what he said that. I never know what he says. I've never actually tried to listen to it, but it, no. As I turn, you know, we should have our lyrics in front of us.

I can pull lyrics up. My favorite winter code. He apparently has his favorite winter coat on. His favorite winter coat. coat. How many planes go by? Do you have a favorite winter coat? No.

I definitely have a winter... Wait a minute. Why do you call it a winter coat? You only wear coats during the winter. Why would you call it a winter coat? Yeah, but there's a specific... I guess it's like a heavy coat. Yeah, yeah, yeah, okay.

Okay, uh, the line that I did know. It's a bad day to do this. Sundays are a bad deal because they have planes. A shit ton of planes. A lot of planes. A lot of planes. I swear that plane with a Longo Toyota thing just went by not even 90 seconds.

By the way, ladies and gentlemen, as time goes on, we will get into a studio with soundproofing enough, But at this point, we are looking, we are looking, no, no, no, fuck you. It's the castle tower. This is not bunk. This is Castle Tower. We're looking out to the Hermosa Ocean right now. Mm-hmm. It's fucking fabulous.

This is where all the planes fly. Planes are driving by. People want to be where we are right now. The problem is everybody's driving by wanting to be here, and it's fucking up our shit. Yeah. It's all good. Okay, so the line is, as I turn up the color on. What is that?

I don't know what it means. Color on? Like, not up. I would think color turned up. I mean, it makes sense. But collar on. And his favorite winter coat next on? Like a dog collar?

Shit, it's getting freaky right off the back. And his favorite winter coat next. Ooh, Michael, you're afraid. Oh, my goodness. But we already knew that. This wind is a blow in my mind. I see the kids in the street. We're not enough to eat.

I see the kids in the streets is one of those lines that does not age well with Michael. Yeah. They didn't have enough to eat. He was like, come on in here. Who am I to be blind? Retending not to see them. None of disregard

A broken bottle top And a one man's soul No, that made sense Repeat what he said right there? None of this made sense I read it as he was saying it A sum of disregard A broken bottle top

And a one man soul What the fuck does any of that mean? All three of those lines make Absolutely no sense On this song of karaoke Every time I'm like, wait What am I fucking singing right? It's not even like it rhymes

And a one-man so... I always thought I said a one-man show, by the way. Which would make a lot more sense. I mean, it doesn't really work with what the rest of the words in the song is. That fucking plane is back! The plane is back. Dude, it's just doing circles right now. This is non-stop playing my shit up right now.

Okay. Apparently, they're just going to be a plane in the background. I don't have planes in the background. I don't know. We're keeping it going. All right. They follow each other or knowing you know, because they got nowhere to go.

I don't want you yet to know I'm starting with the... Now I let it ride Because... It's impossible not to. You have to let it hit Because he saves Whatever is happening in that song

For the five previous lines of him singing You have no idea what he's talking about No idea what he's talking about And then he hits you I'm starting You're like, okay, cool Hit us with the main verse Because I had no idea

What he was going off the rails Like none of the rails. It was going off the rails completely Until he hits you with the man That's why I was like, I'm not going to stop And also, I know, at least for me and you, like, whenever it gets to that part, like, there's no way we can't just, like, stop, sing the words. And that could stop it. It just, like, hit the dance moves of, like, bada, b'n, bavis.

Let's get back into the, n-da-na-na-da-la-da-ha. Oh. Winter essential Michael. Which, by the way, he's one of the only artists, if not the only artist, that's able to pull off the-a-c-c-k-n-. No, he kind of invented it. Well, anybody else has done it since, is, like, just biting Michael? artist that does that. I don't know who does it. That's what I'm trying to say. Because if anybody does, it's just like they're doing their

Michael impression. That's when he literally gets away with using that as weird. How are there this many buses in Hermosa? It was Sunday. We're Sunday Hermosa. Look at that. Look at that. You. A bus just drove by 30 seconds ago. Hey, wherever you are sitting, ladies and gentlemen, is not nearly as cool as where we're sitting. Unless you're on the coast of like Ibiza. There's other cool

places, probably. And that's why I said that because everybody's being a victim of their selfish kind of love in the mid-states. Did you just turn this into? You brought full circle the man in the mirror. I'm with it. I just turned mad at the mirror. It's a full-on.

Political message. I mean, it is a little bit. Here's the thing about this song. It's like, it could be whatever you wanted to be. By the way, we're all big. We all could just look at the man in the mirror and make a change a little bit, you know? It's time that I realize. Not a nickel to-lone.

Is that what that says? Yeah, he's talking about like homeless people here. All right. Yeah, it's true. Everything so far has been good. I don't know what happened in that first. fucking chorus or whatever he was singing but he went off the rails and now he's back on now I'm able to make sense of what he's singing but he's starting to stick to the whole like there's

homeless people out there and let's take care of him but he started talking about kids at the beginning he was looking at and then and then made it confusing so you didn't know what the hell he was talking about a one man's soul which is still doesn't you know what that's not a that sounds like that first first a line there because you're going to forget about it by the end of the song and he wanted to stick it in there real quick one man's soul sounds like an indie Christian rock group from the 90s I think it is We will be pretending that they're not old enough Oh, Willow Deeply Scott,

Somebody's broken heart And washed out of the deep. Real quick, because it's about to get into it And we're going to have to let it play through. Yeah, we have to let it ride when it gets that part, yeah. Read those lyrics? This is the last egg before it. Yeah, you're going to go for a while.

What's the last lyrics that you just say before this? All right. Oh, Willow deeply scarred. What? Somebody's broken heart. Okay. And a washed out dream. Yeah, I get.

That I get. Okay, I washed out. Yeah, but, yeah, like, all together. All right. Yeah, all three of those. Oh, Willow deeply scarred makes no sense at all. I keep thinking of like a tree. Like a tree.

Like you put a mark in a tree. Are you talking about, like, environment shit? Like, people shouldn't cut down trees now? Well, like, you know, you put your name in a tree. You can't go too deep. Is that what you think you say? You can go too deep. Then you deeply scar it.

That's what I've always thought just that was a kid. Yeah, but that's the idea when you put initials on a tree, you want to scar it so it stays there. Yeah, but it's deeply scarred. Like, you don't want to hurt it. That's a tree. It's fine. They don't have emotions. Yeah, that's what I think of willow, deeply scarred.

What's the next verse? Somebody's broken heart. Okay. So he went from a willow. He's just saying cliches at this point, I think. Yeah. Like, he's just a book of cliches. Why does his rhyme this time?

This one did rhyme, which I appreciate a little bit more. Here's the thing that I realized, he could make anything sound epic, was as I'm looking at these lyrics, I'm like, none of this makes sense. He didn't write this either, probably. No, he's done it. He never.

Yeah, yeah. So somebody else wrote this and they were just like, hey, Michael. It's amazing. I have a voice, y'all. Give me these words. You know what it is? There you go. You know Michael had a team around him of some kind of like hippie,

hippie poet or something? Who was like, do you think he wrote this though? I think he put the beat together. He did this track. You could probably easily find it. I don't want to look that up. This is a purse song? Do you should be look at this one?

We should detail each song. All right, I'll, who wrote man in the, let this ride out. Written and composed by Sita Garrett and Glenn Ballard. Sita Garrett sounds familiar. Who is that? Is that a singer? Sita Garrett. And then let's get into it.

Oh, you know who it is? I think it's the girl in that song with... Who's the guy from The Temptations who did that one song in the 80s that we love? Dennis Edwards. Oh, Dennis Edwards. Don't look any further. That's Sida Garrett, the girl on that video. This song is a jam.

Sorry, I got side-checked with Sada-Garrette. But now at least I know who sang that. So now I got a face on it. No, no, she wrote it. She wrote it. And Side of Gareth thing? so Michael clearly didn't do shit and with that

No, I mean, he's only the one who makes... What's Saddick Garrett? What are you thinking? Like, what are you... So that's the thing, that's what I was getting at. It's like, the person who wrote this, now we know it's Side of Garrett, sort of got like super poetic with it. You ever like, you start like kind of writing poetry

or words and you'd be like, I'm going to say this thing. It's kind of masked. It's coded in this way. But if you look inside your heart, you don't understand what I'm trying to say. That's what a lot of these lines are. It seems like all these lines.

Yeah, it's just like a whole thing. whole like you interpret it what do you what do you think it is but at the end of the day you're going to look at the man in the mirror aren't you what do you think a summer disregard and a broken bottle top means or willow deeply scarred yeah what what willow is that is that the willow inside or willow smith is it willow the movie justin's favorite from me i love willow by the way mad morrigan queen badmorda somehow we made it about willow all right and with that ladies jennep we're going to let the song light out for about 30 seconds because it's one of the best Part here we go.

They follow the pattern of going to see. We didn't talk about this song. He just gets it. This is the rest of the songs. This is where Michael is the best. Come back. Nobody says less than Michael at this point. He could say five words and make him jam out of it.

That's all. It just repeated. And the fade out. Look at the page. Now, final conclusion of Man the Mirror. That shit did not make sense. None of it did. But it's still one of the most fascinating.

The last like two minutes of that song, Michael is not actually saying anything outside. He says maybe 10 words total. Like, and he just kind of has him on repeat. And it's this general idea is the same the whole time. But like you can give him like nine words, almost like alphabet soup. Like, okay, you have these nine words to make a jam. You can't use any other words. Go.

And he will make it fire. Come on. Come on. Make that. Like, you could give him any words and he'll be like, okay. I'm gonna bring this to the studio. I'm gonna make it fire. He used this song and decided to sing it

was because that first line where he saw the kids in the street with not enough to eat and who was he to be blind not to see their needs? Mind blown. Isn't it really? I don't know.

I didn't really blow my mind that much. Why? Is that plane back? Here's the thing. Their banner's like half shredded which is what drives me because it's an ugly banner and it's been driving back and forth the whole day.

So I'm already annoyed that I keep shredding. will not buy another... No. Nobody's going along with a... It's a bad name. Anyways. All right, Steve, let's go ahead and give our snaps and claps and all, whatever we give them. Let's go ahead and give it to. What are you giving this rating for this? Four slaps. That's it. Just clean.

Snack it off. Classic Michael? Not my favorite Michael. A jam, though. Like, Mike makes jams. We know this. It stands at test time. You can play it any time. Really, actually, you can play it any time, and it probably would work. wherever the given setting is. It's not a five slapper, four slapper. A hard four.

All right. You ready for me? Yeah. Four claps and the snap. Very like slow, subtle snap. I feel like... Because the song is subtle. Context of snap and slap, both, like, very important.

Very much. You got to give it the other slowdown. It's almost sad that the listener can't view how we do it because the way you actually just laid the four slaps and that snap down, I feel like it explained a little bit more than just hearing the rating. I think they got that from your explanation and from the rhythm of my claps and snaps. Yeah. They get that.

My explanation is simply this. Michael looking at the man in the mirror and saying, you know what, I'm going to make a change. He could have made a bigger change. I guess he made a face change. I guess he made a lot of changes. He made a lot of changes. You know what? He started out black.

He looked in the man in the mirror and he was like, you know what? How he looked by the time it was over? He was like, I'm looking at the man in the mirror, and I don't like him at all. I would actually argue. Instead of short hair, I want long hair down my side, and then my skins, I'm going to change that to. My nose, let's definitely get rid of that and turn that into something nobody's ever seen before. I would actually argue that there has been no person in the history of man that has made more change than Michael Jackson. You're right.

You want a second chance of this? You want to invent this? No, I'm gonna keep... You still want him to make more change. No, I don't want him to make more change. I'm just going to keep the four claps and the snap as my record. But... We'll let you hold it at that.

I am going to rebuttal what I said about, you know, his changing because you're right. This man. Yeah. Probably never won. He changed a lot, dude. The only thing that stayed the same was is like gorgeous voice. And name. It's amazing.

And his name. He never tried to suddenly become like, no. He never did a prince. He never did an artist. He never did a whatever prince did. I'm not necessarily for I'd like to be known as the artist

for aly known I just feel like names are arbitrary and at this point I'd rather let my actions and volumes speak for itself yeah

yeah exactly I'm glad he stayed Michael Jackson Michael Jackson from when you were four to when you were in the floor you know what I'm saying

how crazy is it like two of the most influential people you're all right Justin could hand himself after we made that last statement I'm not listening to the back I don't even understand why it was funny I was gonna say how big do you have to be

to make a name like Michael be like the name that I like when you hear it Anybody really to be honest with you got Michael Jackson Michael Johnson Michael Jordan Wait don't throw Michael Jones and the category with Jordan and Jackson like they're all in the same fucking level The Johnson was an Olympic Yeah he was over a year

Like a beast. He was a big name for 1996. Beast, it was very awkward running style. He ran like a gazelle. We're getting out of hand. We're giving our class. We're giving our snaps. Michael, thank you for what you did for us.

Your music will forever live on and I love it together. I think it's time for the next song. What do you think, Cass? Yep. Next!