One Song - The Jackson 5's "I Want You Back"

Episode Date: July 23, 2026

How do five brothers from Gary, Indiana arrive at Motown and change pop music almost overnight? This week, Diallo & LUXXURY dive into the Jackson 5’s explosive debut, “I Want You Back,” and break down the impossible chemistry behind the record that introduced Michael Jackson to the world. The guys explore Michael’s astonishing lead vocal, the overlooked role of Bobby Taylor, the songwriting precision of The Corporation, and the trail the song left through decades of hip-hop, R&B, and pop. Then LUXXURY opens up the stems to reveal how one of the tightest arrangements in music history became the first chapter in the story of the biggest musical family the world has ever known. Songs discussed in this episode: "I Want You Back" - The Jackson 5 "O.P.P." - Naughty By Nature (1991) "ABC" - Jackson 5 (1970) "Jump" - Kris Kross (1992) "The Twist" - Chubby Checkers (1960) "Let's Twist Again" - Chubby Checkers (1961) "...Baby One More Time" - Britney Spears "Oops...I Did It Again" - Britney Spears "Mama's Pearl" - Jackson 5 "Only One Can Win" - The Sylvers (1972) "Time To Change" - The Brady Bunch "Boogie Oogie Oogie" - A Taste Of Honey (1978) "I Will Survive" - Gloria Gaynor (1978) "Big Boy" - The Jackson Five (1968, Steeltown Records) "Last Train To Clarskville" - The Monkees "Sprit In The Sky" - Norman Greenbaum (1969) "Jump Around" - House Of Pain (1992) "Izzo (H.O.V.A.)" - JAŸ-Z (2001) "One More Chance" (Album Version) - The Notorious B.I.G. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

That is a rhyme for the Egypt. Hold on, pause it. That's the first... That he became legendary for later. Luxury. Today's song is by a group that needs little introduction. Indeed, when we think of a singing group to this day, from pop to R&B to K-pop,

this is the group that defines our expectations. That's absolutely right, Jollo. And this is the song that broke this family band worldwide, becoming their first ever number one single and rocketing them, particularly the short. member to Global Superstardom. This is part one of our two-part episode, focusing on the evolution of that famous group from Gary, Indiana.

And even if you've heard this song a million times, it's not too late to take a second look. Today we're talking one song, and that song is I Want You Back by the Jackson Five. Recently, our company's softball team lost the big game by one run. Then Dale tried to console us with the quote, winning isn't everything. Well, Dale and I, are very different. I get early payout from Bed 365. If my team goes up big, I get paid out instantly,

even if they blow the lead later. Sound familiar, Dale? Thanks, Beth365. Must be 19 or older Ontario only. Please play responsibly. If you have questions or concerns about your gambling or the gambling of someone close to you, please go to connectsuntario.cate and C-A-T-N-Supply.

Drop everything. The McDonald's, creamy parmesan and bacon quarter-pounder is back for a limited time. So juicy, so cheesy. This burger demands your full attention. Made with 100% Canadian beef, topped with the creamy parmesan and black pepper sauce, hickory smoked bacon and crispy onions.

Oh, yeah. Try the creamy parmesan and bacon quarter pounder today. Or treat yourself to your dream burger lineup with our original quarter pounder with cheese or quarter pounder BLT. At participate in McDonald's restaurants in Canada, product availability varies by restaurant. I'm actor, writer, director, and sometimes DJ Diallo Riddell.

And I'm producer, DJ songwriter, and musicologist luxury, aka the guy who whispers, interpolation. And this is one song. The show where we break down the stems and stories behind iconic songs across genres and tell you why they deserve one more listen. You will hear these songs like you've never heard them before. And you can watch one song on YouTube and Spotify while you're there.

Please like and subscribe. Luxury, when was the first time you heard, I Want You Back? I mean, it's one of those songs in the Jackson Five, the Jacksons, are just, you just grow up and they've always been around. And I can't tell you that I can remember the first time I heard. song, but it did. I was thinking, I was trying to think in advance, like, when did I first hear it? And I think it might have been one of those kind of sample source things. But then when I was trying to retrace my steps, I was like, oh, yeah, because I was listening to the piano part. And I was like, oh, it's OPP by Nottie by Nature.

But then I listened and I was like, it's da, da, da, da, da, da. Yeah, that's the very similar sounding ABC. It's ABC. And by the way, Not the song we're doing today, which is I Want You Back. Listen, One Song Nation, we were talking about which Jackson Five saw to do. We did have this debate. Should we do ABC or I want you back?

I don't think we do both since they're both sonically quite similar. Let's talk about the similarities. I'll finish my story, by the way. So first of all, I realized, okay, it's not OPP. They're using ABC. They're sampling APC. So I was like, what else? Oh, maybe it's crisscross.

maybe it's jump. Let's listen to that. And that was it. That's the answer. That is actually from I want you back. Yeah. I think that might have been one of the early hip-hop songs I heard where I was like, that's a sample. I wonder what the source is. I think I might have chased the source back to I want you back from the criss-cross version. But then it got me thinking, why am I confusing these two songs? And I realized there's a lot of reasons to get them confused. Absolutely. 100%. I just love the idea that your first exposure I want you back was through

Chris Cross Jump. I mean, I don't know if I'd heard it before, but like, when I think about it, I'm like, it's really locked in. When I first started listening back to the song to prepare for the episode, all I could think about was Chris Cross Jump. Like, it kept on popping in my head. So I did a really quick analysis of the reasons why we get I Want You Back and ABC confused. And there are a lot of good reasons.

I Want You Back was their first number one hit in 1969. Okay. So a year later, they go back to the drawing board, kind of. Oh my gosh. Let's twist again. Come on and let's do that's We're going to do the twist It's less twist again like we did last summer

That's right That's the shorthand we use on the show Oh, it's one of those let's twist again It's the same old song Sugar Pie Honey Bunch They took the same template And re-did the song I'll give you a few examples of stuff

That is the same in both of the songs Here we go Starting with the intro piano break Let's hear them side by side This is ABC which begins like this So it's D-D-D-D-D- What is that?

Is that a horn? Is that a guitar? That's a guitar, like really fuzzed out. Okay, fuzz of guitar. And I'll play you in the same key, that same piano part. Here it is isolated from I want you back. It's the same key. Oh, my gosh.

It's the same part. It's the same number of nose. It's one, two, three. 100%. That's right. It's also the ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba that we just heard. I'll play that again. And that shows up in I Want You Back, sounding like this.

Different notes, but bup-b-bubs. Yeah, it's buzub. They own the bubba market. They definitely made a checklist. It's like, let's use that piano again. Let's use that fuzzy guitar again because that same sound appears in both songs. Yeah. Let's use the bup-ups.

And to be clear, these are made by the same group of musicians, the same songwriter. So this is definitely a conscious choice. Can we answer the question right away? Is this? Because, you know, there's that great documentary about the Funk Brother. Yes. That famous band. Are the Funk Brothers playing on these songs?

There are L.A-based Funk Brothers playing both songs. Absolutely. We'll be naming them and getting them their flowers a little bit later. But it's the same group of Funk Brothers, the L.A. edition. And so we've got a walking bass line in the chorus of both songs. There's a dropped beat before both of the chorus breaks. Like they literally took a pencil and paper and mapped out what they should do to make their first hit into a second hit. And finally, not unimportantly, there's a crazy syncopated snare.

On the end of four, like it's crazy how many similarities between the two songs. Totally. Which is why to this day I get them confused all the time. But I tell you, would I get confused a lot more often than I think maybe most people is hit me baby one more time and oops I did it again. Totally. And I think it was sort of the same thing like, hey, when it worked the last time, let's do some of the same stuff in this follow-up song. It's a legitimate means of, it's a legitimate songwriting method. Absolutely.

Writing sideways. We've talked about it. From your own hit. Many times. Exactly. When it's from your own hit, you're even less likely to get nicked for it. And just for kicks guys, because it's fun. And I heard this break.

I was like, oh, damn, I know exactly what they were borrowing from. This is the break from ABC. Here it comes. That I-ya. Does that sound familiar? This is 1970. In 1970, what's one of the coolest funk songs of all time that had just come out in 1969? I'll tell you.

Maybe it's sly? Great guess. It's close. This is the meters Sissy Strutt from June 1969, which starts with this. The build to the yeah. Yeah, it's literally the same.

So I love how they just sort of added all these ideas together to make the second hit. Barry, Gordy, and Joe Jackson, clearly listening to the radio. Very good at it, too. Very good at it, too. Yalla, what about you? When was the first time you heard this song?

It's such an interesting question. I really tried to figure out We would have been the first time that I was consciously, definitely aware of the Jackson 5. In Atlanta, there were two cartoons, one from 1965, one from 1971. They were in syndication, so they came on every day after school. So it was like an hour of the Beatles cartoon, which was definitely my first exposure to the Beatles. It was the reason why for my fifth grade, I'll never forget for my fifth birthday. When I turned five, I asked my parents for a Beatles cake, and I think back now, holy smokes, my dad made little

Beatles figurines. And I still, I think I still have the John figurine. That must be so valuable. That's like your rosebud right there. Totally is.

Yeah. He made four little Beatles for the top of the cake. Right after the Beatles cartoon went off, it was the Jackson 5 cartoon. This is your, every day after school,

you come home and you watch this block on some syndicated station. It was Channel 46 in Atlanta for those who are paying attention. Meanwhile, I'm watching the Brady Bunch. That's my version of that. Yeah.

Did you watch, did you have also the Brady Bunch where you were? I have no knowledge of the Brady Bunch. That's crazy. Like zero. Like I, you know, I know so many people my age know the Brady Bunch and Gilgonziles. I watched none of that stuff. I was watching a lot of early anime like Starblazers and Robotech. And I was really into, I was really into these cartoons about bands because they were very much like Scooby-Doo.

They got into adventures. I think for both the Beatles cartoon and for the Jackson Five cartoon, none of these are the real people's voices. No, of course not. You know. They didn't have time for that. But they played, but the music sinks were the real songs. And I remember that the Jackson Five cartoon started off. I pretty sure it started off with ABC.

And every episode ended ironically with Mama's Pearl, which is one of my favorite Jackson Five songs to this day. You know, every episode ended with that great song. And by the way, I know what you're right thinking. I agree. I hear even more similarities with ABC and I want you back. But I was going to say to build on that, like I hear so much meters suddenly.

Now that my ears are tuned into it, Because the meters are like the coolest band who ever lived, like, in a lot of ways. And, like, I think they made a huge impact because what they were doing was, so, like, the syncopations. Yeah. And there's a lot of, like, bass lines and guitar lines that are, like, coordinated. So they're just playing the same line. I'm hearing a lot of stuff that in 1970 would have sounded super fresh because that band had just come out, like, a year before.

And every musician was definitely listening to them and taking some cues from it. A hundred percent. Anyway, I'm just hearing that with the syncopated snares and, like, the, you know, the bum, bum, the sort of non-liarical vocals. Those things are in other songs as well, in other forms. But having made that eye connection, I definitely, these guys are listening to the meters, 100%. Looking back, I think that that cartoon had a big, you know,

impact on us impressionable kids. Yeah. Because it's not like the Jackson Five are the only group with the sound, and even with, like, young singers, the Silvers famously. Yeah. Are sort of like an underrated singing group that had a very Jackson Five sound. There were other groups, you know, with like little kids.

Definitely by the time I was coming along in the 80s. Yeah. But there was something about the Jackson 5 having their own cartoon. I think it definitely expanded their influence. There were other singing groups, even with little kids, that were not as deified. Right. You know?

No, that's such an interesting point because, and it's also interesting our parallel experiences because I'm watching the Brady Bunch and the Partridge family, which are two family bands also with TV shows, right? Wait, the Brady's had a band? Yeah, it's time to change, then it's time to change. Don't fight the tie, come along for the ride, don't you see? When it's time to change.

Yeah, the Brady's had a band. I didn't know the Brady's at a band. The Partridge family had a band. I know the Partridge. I'm also watching The Monkeys. So, like, we're kind of... They're literally a band. They're literally the Beatles.

We're both watching after school, like, band comedy kind of kids shows. I mean, don't sleep on Josie and the Pussy Cats. Let's not sleep on them. I feel like that's one of the best... There's another podcast. Shout out to Van Lamp. and Rachel Lindsay, but he did a whole list of, like, his favorite fake band. Yeah.

Oh, wow. And Josie was on that list. The Archie's had real hits. Yeah. But it really puts you, it puts the band in this iconic status in pop culture to not just be playing records on the radio, but to also be on TV. That was the next level. Yeah. And to this day, you know, we're still able to see this footage.

It does kind of put them in a different unique category with the monkeys and the Hartridge family and the Beatles. Imagine a slide had his own cartoon. Yeah. We might all be walking around singing Stand as kids, you know. But before they were Jackson Five, they were just a family. And they had a couple of names before they became the Jackson Five. They were the Jackson brothers. That made sense because Joe had basically enlisted Jackie Tito and Germain into a group,

the three oldest boys. They had a couple of people in the band who were not even technically the siblings. You know, there was famously Johnny Jackson and Ronnie Rancifer who appear in some early recordings and they're listed as like, you know, cousins or, you know, so they're, it's called Jackson's, but they're not, they're not, you know, telling siblings. It's more like the Beach Boys, where they got the cousins involved. Exactly.

That's really interesting. I didn't know that. So even when the Five Brothers idea finally comes along and it feels like it's the whole brand, there was a little bit of construction around it. Now, this is where we need to talk about Bobby Taylor. This is the unsung hero of this episode. He needs his flowers. We're going to give them to him.

Bobby Taylor and the Vancouver's, I was laughing. I was like, what was aspirational about? the city of Vancouver. It sounded like it was in Europe. Bobby Taylor and the Montreals. We had Canada, y'all. Canada's still fancy. Bobby Taylor.

Absolutely. Bobby Taylor is credited with discovering the Jackson 5 and helping bring them to Motown. People have said that Bobby Taylor's role was to see talent, work with them. Cultivate. Exactly. He was also one of the main people who was able to convince the label like, hey, why don't you have

the band be anointed, by Diana Ross. And that's where you get, Diana Ross presents the Jackson Five. And let's face it, it's sort of the beginning of the end of Bobby Taylor's role because part of the tragedy of Bobby Taylor

and the story of the song we're talking about today is the first album, which is, as you mentioned, it's called Diana Ross Presents the Jackson Five. They were just trying to get some of that Diana Shine to this brand new act that no one had heard of before. So Diana Ross Presents the Jackson Five

is the first record. It comes out in October 1969, and 10 of the 12 songs on that record are Bobby Taylor productions of mostly cover songs. In fact, they're all cover songs. It's Stevie Wonder song. There's a Smoky song. There's a Sly in the Family Stone song,

a miracle song. But at a certain point, with those 10 tracks completed and two tracks to go for the record, Bobby Taylor gets cut out completely by Barry Gordy, head of Motown Records, who decides to put together his own songwriting crew, which he calls the corporation,

because at this point, he's obviously aware that publishing is another source of income. It's about that double-dipping. It's about that double-diffing. There's so much of that. You talked about on the DeBarge episode. You did that too.

Yeah. Yeah. There was a friend of mine who was recently saying, like, well, you know, I know that we don't play Puffy songs anymore. But he produced a lot of these songs. He starts rolling off these songs. And I'm like, no, that was technically the hitman who produced that. That was Ryan Leslie who produced that. Puffy's another one who was like throwing his, he's the label CEO.

So he's getting paid like that. But then on top of that, he's putting his name as like a producer on so many. He's like, how many fingers can I put in this pie, basically? Oh, God. You don't like that? It's just too visual. But you're basically saying Bobby Taylor got pushed to the sideline. He basically got pushed to the sideline in favor of a group called the Corporation.

This is a songwriting entity that Barry Gordy puts together. It should mention that in 1969, it's kind of a pivotal year. Because that's the year that Barry Gordy sets up a satellite Motown operation in L.A. The summer of that year, he moves the Jacksons, including Joseph, from Detroit to L.A. And he hears this demo called I Want to Be Free. Unfortunately, I could not find an example of it, but this is an early version of the song I Want You Back, intended for Gladys Knight.

Oh, wow. Yeah, it's written by Freddie Perrin, Alfonso, Mizell, and Deke Richards. Those are the three. Oh, Mizel. Awesome. Very cool. These are the three co-writers,

along with Barry Gordy of today's song. And they had written this song for Gladys Knight. Barry Gordy hears it and goes, you know what? I think I want to use that for my new band for the Jackson's. And he does. He brings that song and he brings the songwriters in together, and he pushes Bobby Taylor out.

He's no longer. part of the equation. So this songwriting team, the corporation... So Bobby didn't find, I want you back. He did not, unfortunately. He did not participate in that song. He's on the other 10 songs as producer, but not the hit. Yeah. So the corporation, just a little more about that, they replaced Holland-dozer Holland, who had left Motown in 1967. And it's important to note that the reason why this group of songwriters is called the corporation. And not by their names, is because Barry Gordy was annoyed that Holland-Dosier-Holland had name recognition in and got famous. And they left That's so lame. It's so lame. So he's like, I'm going to call it the corporation.

And it's only now with episodes of one song that names, the actual songwriter names are revealed. There are no musician names on the labels either on any of these early records. So Barry Gordy kept his hand real close. It's like the Funk Brothers all over again. It's the Funk Brothers all over again. You know, getting the information on who made these records, you know, requires a little more digging. So let's give a little shine to these names. This is the corporation is Alfonso Maisal, who, along with his brother Larry, they produced Johnny Hammond, Donald Bird. They produced a taste of honey's boogie, yogi, yugi. And for you hip-hop fans out there who might recognize the name Mizeel, it is indeed the case that Alfonso and his brother Larry are cousins of Jam Master Jay. Apparently, they're

just a great family because they're also cousins of Ronnie Specter. Right. At the Ronnette. And Nedra of the Ronniz. That's crazy. That's right. So the second songwriter, part of the corporation, is Freddie Perrin, who also co-wrote ABC and The Love You Save, and also co-wrote and produced I Will Survive by Gloria Gaynor. So these guys are all have a second life as disco aficionados later in the 70s. And he also wrote, It's So Hard to Say Goodbye to Yesterday. Which was originally sung by... G.C. Cameron before the Boys to Men version.

I love on our show when you find out that song that you just associate with one artist is actually a cover. It's Roberta Flack. It's Dolly Parton. There's so many Whitney Houston. and so many songs that that applies to. Absolutely right. And finally, Deke Richards, who wrote and produced songs with Martha Vandela's Bobby Darren,

and he produced the Supremes after HDH left Motown, Holland, Dozier Holland. And last but not least, Deke Richards, who wrote and produced a bunch of Supremes hits, including Love Child after Holland Dozier Holland left. So that's the group called the Corporation, along with Barry Gordy. According to Marlon and Tito, I read an interview who explained what all their roles were. Breddie was the score and arrangements guy. Alfonso was also part of the arrangements. Deek did the lyrics, and Barry Gordy apparently was the melody guru.

Where was the song recorded? Right down the street, Sound Factory, West Hollywood, California. Not Detroit, you know? I always associate, you know, Gary, Indiana, Detroit, Motown. Especially this era of the Jackson Five. You'd have to know this is Hitsville. Yeah, this is Hitsville, Los Angeles. It's the Motown Outpost that they had set up here.

All right. We're going to take a quick break, but when we come back, we'll hear the genius of these previously unsung musicians. We will hear Michael's amazing, isolated vocals, and we'll begin to understand all the reasons why this thing keeps working across generations. Stick around, we'll break it down. Prime presents perfect pairings. What pairs with Reacher on Prime? Reaching for a sparkling punch delivered with Prime. It's an unbelievable feeling when you're enjoying a punch.

At the same time, Preacher is enjoying punching people. Wow, he's still punching people. Entertainment meets fast delivery. It's on Prime. You've been looking forward to this. All week. And with Cutwaters cocktails, this? Took only seconds, because tonight's about catching up.

Not catching the server. Whether it's our cut water lime margarita, lemon drop martini, or rum mitai, they're expertly mixed and ready before the snacks hit the table. Cut water, expertly mixed cocktails, a perfect pairing for an evening with good company. Please enjoy responsibly. Must be 19 plus. All right, welcome back to one song, luxury. This song that we're talking about today, I want you back, is their first.

first Motown single and their first hit single. But it should be said, they did have a single before on a very small label called Steeltown, the Steel Town Sessions. A song called Big Boy, let's hear a little bit of that. Man, that is soul music. Yeah, yeah. It's nine years old. Michael's only nine there.

It's 1969. By the way, this song, Big Boy gets re-recorded at Motown and placed on the album, Diana Ross presents to Jackson 5. This version is by the Jackson 5 plus Johnny. The Johnny Jackson we mentioned earlier when they were using some non-siblings. But now we've come to I Want You Back, their first hit single of the song that introduces Michael and the band to the world. And we've got the stims. So, my man, luxury, where do we want to start?

Should we start with the drums? Let's start with the drums. And we believe this is Gene Pello. But again, no credits on the liner note. So all of the band names, all of the musician names will be saying today come from later interviews. And we'll be given as much shine as we can. Let's listen to who we think is Gene Pello, joined by Sandra Crouch on tambourine and Joe Clayton on bongos. Flacks.

Yeah. And here's where the percussion comes in. We think this is Sandra Crouch and Joe Clayton. Sandra Crouch, you have the tambourines. And there we have the full beat coming in. So funky with those bongos, man. Incredible bongo band. Yes.

But interestingly, the beat drops out after that intro. Oh, by the way, I love how the big goes in and out. Until we were working on this song this week, I didn't realize the heavy lifting that those bongos are doing. They're doing a lot to set this party off right. That's right, because they're going through this verse. When Michael comes in, the drumbeat drops out.

So the bongos are keeping the tempo going. Listen, that, when the music dropping out like that at the top, another just one of those classic, such a good decision. You know what I mean? a big tension build moment. We'll be hearing some more instruments adding tension a little bit later. It also makes the song feel bigger, ironically, by having that dropout, it makes like, oh, this song is really about to go. I'll say when I was an open format DJ, there was something about, like, if you could bring it in perfectly with the, is that a glistando?

Yeah, the piano glasando. The piano glasando, if you did it just right, where the piano glasando, and then that first one came in, there was something that just happens to the crowd where there's just like, oh shoot, that's that song. It's almost like a call to the dance floor. It's perfect. It's one of those decisions. It reminds me of a fan of the show Owen cuts when he's like, oh, you stupid.

Owen, I'm wearing one of your shirts. It's like, you can't do that, but yes, you can. Yes, you can. Yes, you can do that. I think about this song, I think about Shook Ones by Mob Deep. There's something great when like the music drops out unexpectedly at the beginning of the song. It's sort of like just let you marinate for a second.

It's like, here comes the song. That's right. So the beats do drop out like you say. And then they come back in the chorus. And then we get this full beat. I'll play you one layer at a time. First the drums. And add to that some claps and some bongos.

And some tambourines. And then we're about to get to the post chorus. Check this out. Wait, I got it wrong. Okay. The syncopation on this. Yes. We got to talk about this.

It feels imperfect. When I went back and listened to it this week, I was like, are those bongos perfect? I don't think that they're perfect, which is fine. Okay. You're talking about, are they syncing up exactly with the other instruments? Yeah, like they don't fall exactly where I would think they need to. Well, there's two things. That's not even criticism.

That's just like to point out how music sounded different when you had 18 musicians on the track versus now when you would just program it in the squares. Well, I'm going to jump ahead a little bit because we do need to give some shine to the arrangement of the song being a little bit on the Prague side. We have some interesting decisions that were made in a pop song, in a funk and R&B-maybe based pop song. In 1969, Mike. What just happened there at the end of the chorus that surprised all of our ears, even though we've heard the song a million times,

I didn't get it right, is that we have half a bar, basically. The chorus is 7.5 bars, or rather 7 bars of 4 and 1 bar of 2. Yeah, you're right. It's not a full 8. It's on a full 8. And then when we have that post-chorus thing, which is the syncopated snare, it's on the, here, I'll just play it, and then I'll explain what it is.

So here's the end of the chorus. I'll count it with you, and then we'll go into this crazy post chorus. Okay, count from here. Three, four. One, two, three, four, two, two, three, three, three, three, three, three, three, three, three, three, three, three, three, three, three, three, three, four, e, eight, a, and a. It's on the E of four. Again, it's a meter.

level syncopated stuff going on there. So syncopated. It's so syncopated and surprising, but we just had these two really wonderful surprising choices made in the arrangement of this pop song that gives it some extra special flavor, I would say. It's so good. And you know what?

We all heard that it didn't go to eight. And yet that's one of the things I love about this show is that when you sit back and you're like, what a weird choice to make for a pop song. It's a cool choice, yeah. They could have gone all the way to four bars. Nothing required them to, but it makes it more surprising

and it hooks your ear. Dun dun dun dun dun da da da da da da da da dun dun dun da da da dun dun yeah it's like it's a little more bland it's a little bit more bland it's like the pixies do stuff like that it's more of a like it's a very modern sounding choice or maybe it's more of a like yes genesis king crimson kind of pre-prog rock thing to do but in 1969 they dropped half a bar in a chorus of a huge pop song awesome one more connection that just came in my head by the way is like okay we get dropped half bars in other music we get it like maybe in jazz but. like the how David Burt Bacharach thing, that popped in my head as being maybe another influence because that's another place where you'd find pop music with really surprising choices about meter and time signatures in the 60s. So that could have been an influence as much as the meters was clearly an influence. That makes a lot of sense. Look, we don't know much about Gene Pello. He's one of these musicians that, like, there's just not a lot out there, but we believe he's born Eugene Pellici and that he was a session player for a bunch of instrumental and surf rock bands, like the Marquettes

and the T-bones. I feel like this is the guy you get because they're recording in L.A. instead of Detroit. 100%. Yes. And he played on records with the Beach Boys

and the Ventures and the monkeys Captain Beefheart, but don't know much about him other than what I just told you. That's about all I could find. That's crazy. I guarantee his family member, his surviving estate

will find us in the comments and be like, thank you. Yeah. It might be one of the few mentions ever. Exactly. While we're talking about the band names that the Jackson 5 had before they became the Jackson 5,

We want to be also the ones to debunk a rumor that some of you might have heard. There was a rumor that was going around for a long time that the band Ribbles and Waves plus Michael was the Jackson 5. But that got debunked in 2003, and I won't go into the lawsuit. But basically, the guy said, no, this was a completely other group that sounded like the Jackson 5. And the Michael in that group, also from Gary Indiana, ironically, was actually a kid named Michael Rogers. So it's not the same group. I feel like we should have that be a segment, like a recurring thing, and call it. debunked.

Debunk. Or quashed doing debunked. I love that we were able to give Gene Pello some flowers. On to the bass. This one of the defining features of the song. Yeah, this bass line is practically its own melodic hook that you can sing when you think about the song. It's by Wilton Felder, bass and sax player,

who's in the jazz crusaders, a.k.a. The Crusaders. So he played with Joe Sample and Larry Carlton. By the way, important fact, before you go on, because I want to hear a reaction to that. But the most important thing is that he's also born on August 31st, just like me. We share a birthday. All right. Well, you guys are birthday, but...

Love you, Wilton Felder. I love it when these guys come from a jazz background, because then, like, the bass playing for pop songs is like, they're like, oh, this is all he need. Let me fill it in a little bit, which is what he's done. Yeah. He has all these, a lot of melodic motion in between the chords, which we're about to talk about because there's a lot of chords in the song. It's kind of crazy.

But, yeah, so he also plays on ABC. He also played on Marvin Gays, Let's Get It On. Awesome. Hughes Corp, Rock the Boat. Oh, man. And they play a huge session, like, a list as long as your arm for Joni Mitchell, Steely Dan, Billy Joel, recordings up the wise for this man. His liner note credits take him to Joan Baez, Randy Newman, hundreds more.

He does a lot in this song, so where do you want to start? Maybe at the beginning? A lot of space. Let's hear the chorus. You can almost see him being like... Yeah. He's playing an electric bass. Oh, of course.

Yeah. But I hear what you're saying. Like, it kind of feels like the walking baseline is very much an upright bass jazz thing. That's all I meant. I was saying he thinks like a jazz bass play. 100% agree. Yeah, yeah. And it's not James Jamerson who would also have been in the Motown L.A. stable at the time.

And it sounds very Jamerson-esque. Like, that melodic bass style is so James Jamerson. We've talked about him on lots of earlier episodes. Go back to our Supremes episode. I was going to say the Supreme's movie. That's our really deep kind of love letter to the Funk Brothers and the Motown musicians. But this is Wilton Felder. another incredible jazz musician.

We heard the intro, we heard the chorus. What other things is Wilton trying out? Let's hear him do the end of that chorus into the I Want You Back build. And I'll build up some more layers because that section is so beautiful and crazy. Again, it's like crazy that it appears in this song on the radio, number one in 1969.

A lot of bleeding those drums. I want you back time. The end of two. I keep getting the bloody syncopation line. I even wrote down where the 16th note is. But it surprises me every time. Let's listen again.

Okay, I'll try it. You got it? I'm going to watch you. I think that snare makes sense when you're thinking about like doing the jerk. Yeah. You know, mashed potatoes. It's jerky.

It's like I was thinking about this. Like people dance differently in the late 60s. You know what I mean? And you can really see who could dance and like move. You know, there's, I love watching old clips on, on social media. I've just everybody had their own. style, but they're all kind of like finding like weird beats and there's a lot of jerkiness. If I were there in the 60s on some like whatever American band's version would have been or Soul Train,

I would have been the guy like dancing super literally. So I would have like jerked my body like at that e like on the snare view. I would be boom boom boom. Like I would have been the one. Oh that's been me too man. I've been striking poses. Don don't don't. See that's the sexy version. I would have just been goofy about it. Boom boom. My sexy is kind of goofy. We both married up, let's face it. One of my favorite parts in the whole song comes in, I think it's after the second chorus.

Yes, the breakdown. Oh, the breakdown. And that's when the bass just shines. Can we hear a little bit of that? Let's listen. He just fills in all the space there because the drums were out. But also, and I know that we haven't gotten to the vocals yet,

his do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do. All I hear is Michael sort of dancing with that with his, a ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ball. Like, they're kind of like doing like a helix. You know, I'm so glad you brought that up because the drums, the bass and the vocals are all doing kind of a dance of an interplay.

Sometimes they're mirroring each other, but sometimes they're leaving space the one for the other. So that's a really great point. And in this section, he's filling in all the 16th notes with kind of a mix of arpeggio and just melody, like just a walking bass line. But it just perfectly, I'll play it with the vocal

so you can hear the interplay. Again, the drums are out in this section. Yeah. And let's listen to what the vocals are doing. with the bass. And then so satisfying when it comes back in. We are all from Gary, Indiana today. All right, so the base is laying down a solid foundation.

Solid foundation. Solid foundation for the corporation. But now what is happening with the guitar? So in the guitar, we have a lot going on because we have three guitar players. And we know who they are because of an interview with one of them. So Lewis Shelton is one of the guitar players who confirmed that he played along with David T. Walker and Don Peake from the funk brothers. And Shelton confirms the lineup because, as he says, they'd all just played on the monkeys' last train to Clarksville. Oh, hell yeah.

Take the last train to Foxville and I'll meet you at the station. And so he says, quote, I assume that's why the contractor for the Motown sessions called me to play on their first recordings. We had just recorded Last Train to Clarksville, and I guess he just had his phone number by the phone. He's like, let me get those guys back again. So the same band that is playing on Last Train to Clarksville. This is a great song. That's playing on, I want you back by the Jackson Five. Now I've got to go back and listen to Clarksville.

Yeah. Another monkey's connection with the Jackson Five. So if you're listening to, this is from 1969. So we have a lot of like hard panning because they're still figuring out how mono and stereo works. Not everybody has stereo yet, so their mixes are sometimes mono, sometimes stereo. You'll hear on one channel, two guitars and on the other. channel you'll hear the other guitar. I'm going to play you the first two guitars. One of them's doubling the bass line and the other guitar is doing that iconic ostinado, that insistent,

which doesn't change with the chords. It just stays the same the whole time. We're in A-flat, which incidentally, interestingly, I just learned this, is the least popular of the major keys. I never knew that. The 20th most popular of all the keys, but the least popular major key. So you're going to hear just A-flat in one guitar. and doubling up the bass line in the other. Here we go. So that goes through pretty much the whole song. One guitar player is just playing that ostinato

pretty much the whole time. And then we have this third guitar coming in right where I stopped it, which is halfway through the intro. And it's doing this really beautiful kind of jazzy thing. I wish I could tell you which guitar player played which part, but I don't know that. But let's listen to the pretty jazzy part.

That's that. That's the part. Yeah, it's so beautiful. It's very emotional, right? He's just comphing the chords. It's very jazz guitar player. And then he's getting a little more confident here. You'll notice he gets a little more confident. He's like, oh, I got this.

The reason why I say that is because you have to remember these session guys literally played on the monkeys the day before. They didn't get a demo version. They didn't get a chance to go through. They got a piece of paper put in front of them with probably just the chords, written down by the arrangement. and they probably might have run through the song once or twice, maybe three times. Yeah. They also might have just started playing and hit record. So what I hear, when I hear

this guitar in particular, is he's sort of, he's looking at the chords on the chart. And he's like, oh, I can play this, I can play this. And then he kind of figures it out about eight bars in. He's like, okay, I got my part. And then he plays it a little more confidently. By the way, I love the fact you bring up the word confidence because as a session musician, if they don't like what you do today, you may not get hired for months and months and months. So, like, I like the idea that, like, halfway through the song, he's like,

oh, they like what I'm doing here. Yeah, yeah, yeah, you're right, they're getting some feedback. Like, someone's nodding in the control booth or something. So he's like, all right, I got this. I'm going to just do that again, but more confidently. Yeah. They're like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.

He's like, and then we have that iconic distortion part that we heard earlier when we were doing the comparison with ABC. Let's listen to that. It's very nasal. Well, it's also very ABC. That's that fuzzig guitar you're talking about. That's sort of a hooky thing.

Again, this is AM radio, probably 1960. Most people are hearing this on. FM's not really a thing until the 70s. So anything that kind of stands out in that register because there's no bass. There's only no low end. Trebles and mids. That sounds to me also, like it might be a guitar,

like an early fuzz pedal. Remember, these pedals are all super new. Hendricks. Like, that's all super new. You know, Led Zeppelin. They've got the earliest pedals. 69, man. That could be like a big muff or something like that, but it also might just be the guitar plugged in to the board and just on

overdrive, just overdriven, like on 10. That's another way you can get that sound. And I think about Spirit in the Sky. Yes. Oh, that's a great comparison. That's a great comparison. And then in the breakdown, this is what it does. And I'll bring in some more instruments as we listen.

So beautiful. And then the drums come back, and you can hear that guitar part goes back to descending. That sounds like someone not sure what to do. What should I do here? You can just kind of get some rhythm, but no actual notes. He's kind of vamping. And he goes back to that part.

So that's the same guitar. That pretty one is doing the fuzzy stuff too? It's on the same track. I'm not sure if it's the same guy. They might have just punched that in separately. That'd be kind of cool. He's like, Bannan, da, do you.

Yeah, that's some like Jack White stuff, like Seven Nation Army, yeah. Let's go to the piano. Maybe your first introduction to the whole song. We may never know. We may never know. Who is playing the piano on the song? Well, there's four names associated with piano,

and I don't hear four pianos. Wow. Okay. It's Fons Mezell and Freddie Paren who are both co-writers of the song. They both, they might be on piano for it. Later version, like later liner notes of reissues have included their name, as is Clarence MacDonald and Joe's sample from the Jazz

Crusaders. Oh, wow. Okay. Not really sure who's on this track. Anyone out there in one song Nationland who's certain, who knows who it is, please let us know in the comments. But let's listen to that iconic glissondo intro. And there's the jump, jump, jump loop right there.

Did you hear it? Here, I'll point it out. Yes. Chris Ross will make you. Chris Rock will make you. Chris Rock will make me jump, jump, jump. Rick Ross will make you. Rick Ross?

Yeah, that's a crazy loop. I just found that little chunk right there. Is that Jermaine Dupree who produced that? That's right. That's right. Who ripped off DJ Mugs, apparently. There's a whole backstory with the House of Pain coming up with their song, jump around, and shopping it around to Rough House Records,

who turned it down so that Jermaine Dupree could take the jump idea and turn it into the Kruz's off. Oh, he took the idea of jump. Yeah. Man, there was a Dan Halen song called Jump. Nobody owns Jump. But that's why at the end of Jump Around, they're dissing Roughhouse's producer, Joe Nicoli. Get the bull suck, punk. No, I remember that.

Everlast had a lot of issues with a lot of people. But as a person from Atlanta, I can't tell you how proud us kids were that some other Atlanta kids had an international hit. That was such a big deal to us. So I'll just talk a little bit about the chords because there's a lot of chords in this song. in the first two bars of the four bars of the verse, which I'll now play for you, you're hearing basically just one to four. Pretty simple.

But in the third and fourth bars, we go through seven chords. So let's listen to that, knowing what you're about to hear. First half is simple. Second half, a little bonkers. Two chords. Now we're going to cycle three.

Seven chords. Again, four bars of a pop song on AM radio in 1969. We're jumping around a lot. But when we get to the chorus... Don't say that. Everlast is going to come for you. No, he owns the word jump.

He owns jump around for sure. You're right, I shouldn't mess around with him. But in the chorus, we have this chorus with 15 freaking chords, one per beat. Count them out loud. Here we go. Starting with... Back to one. I think I miscounted it.

I'll do it one more time so we get it right. Here we go. You're saying every note is a different chord. Yeah, we're cycling through. I'll tell you what the chords are. We go one, five, suspended, six, five, four, five. I won't tell you all the chords, but basically each note technically is part of a chord. You know, with, though, I mean, the way chord changes work, too, it's like technically

you can simplify the number of chords by not including suspensions and spicy notes like that. But, like, if you look up a transcription, on the piano, you'll hear 15 different chords. I'll play it for you first in the context of the song, and then isolate the piano. Here we go. I lost count. Here we go again. It does sound crazy. And some of those are harmonized thanks to the bass lines.

So I'll play them together. I like the widows isolated too because it sounds crazy. Yeah. It's like a person going, la, la, la, la, la, la, la. La, la, la. It's all over the map. To my untrained public school education. No, stop it with that.

It is crazy, but it's like you don't notice it until you notice. kind of thing. Yeah, it just makes it hooky. It's like when you, I used to be in a cappella groups, and sometimes the note that you needed to hit seems so counterintuitive. But then when the other notes were added to it, it sounded perfect. That's that great analogy. You're reminding me of when Jimmy Jam was on the show, talking about telling Janet what note to sing when she's doing her own harmonizing herself, meaning there isn't a group of singers over the microphone. She was doing one note at a time,

and she's like, where is this going. And it wasn't until like the third or fourth take where she could hear the blend. She's like, oh, I know where this is. I get it now. Yeah. That's really the magic of being in the studio is when you can be doing something like, are you sure this is what you want? Yeah. And then you're bagging, you're like, ah.

Exactly. The magic of multi-track recording. Absolutely. I love what you just played. Yeah. Where are some other places that the bass and the piano are having like this little dance, this underplay? I'm so glad you asked.

Okay, so that whole ABC versus I want you back confusion happens in this dancing part in the post chorus. This is the dance between the piano and the bass because the piano is doing this. A B C, no, not ABC. What? And the bass is doing this. Oops, that's not the bass. Wow.

Let's bring the drums. It really makes you go. Come on, go, come on, let me show you what it's all about. You have to. You have to. Let's hear that same thing again with the drums too. They're all doing different. They're all doing something different rhythmically.

All three of those parts. It's so good. Yeah, it's so good. It's so good. It's so separate. You know, what's going on the Marvin Gaye song from two years later? I think just won another award for like the greatest R&B song of all time. And I feel like there's just something about the spacing.

You can hear the room. Yeah. You can hear there's congos over here. There's drum over here. And the snares doing that we're a syncopated thing. The piano's doing its own thing. Like there's just, that's the joy of having multiple people contributing to a song and not just working off the squares as we made.

I'm so glad you're saying that. And you're kind of, to build on what you're saying, I'm realizing, like, the corporation quote, you know, they wrote the song, they arranged the song, but I wonder how many of these so individual contributions of these incredibly talented players. You just wonder who decided to make all these pieces interlocked like that. We'll probably never know.

We may never know who exactly decided to make the end of the snare syncopation where it was while the bass did what it did with a huge amount of space in between, but do, do, do, don't, I want you back. and then we have that piano part there. Who decided that? It's genius. Big decisions being made by these musicians, and they probably got one check. That's right. They were paid for the day,

probably 50, 100 bucks. None of the publishing, not to ruin the splits that we'll be coming to later, but these guys aren't in the publishing. Let's face it. I hear strings on this song, lush Motown-era strings. Let's hear some strings.

I'll give you some context. Here comes the chorus. Oh, come on. The best part. Come on. Fight me. That's so beautiful and crazy. Beautiful, classy.

It's so classy. It's so classy. That's the exact word. It sounds expensive. It sounds expensive. That does not sound like, they couldn't do that on Steel Town. Let's do it before and after.

I'll take out the strings and do the rest of the rhythm section, all the other instrument parts. Let's listen to what that sounds like. It's not going to sound terrible, mind you, but it won't sound as classy. Now the strings. I didn't even realize there's so much going on there. I didn't even realize they do that. Like, I didn't even notice that part before.

It's a little melody there, right? Absolutely. Can you humor me? Could you do just the drums and strings? Oh, great idea. So glad you asked. Let's do that. I guarantee you, unless you were in the studio that day,

you've never heard this combo. So great. We have some strings are just mirroring the descending baseline and the other ones are producing these gorgeous chords. There's like a cello in there or something. It's like that lower register string in there. Listen. Yeah, that's doing the descending bass line.

It might be shallow and bass. Yeah. So beautiful. So high class, to your point. That would be one of my absolute favorite parts of the song if it weren't for Michael's vocals. We have arrived at the part of the show that I think a lot of you have been desperately waiting for. Or just fast forwarded to this moment. Let's face it.

Hey, don't do that. Just listen to the whole thing. It's all gold. Let's start from his first riff There's a particular riff I want to hear Now I'm using riff as singers Talk about riffs There's a riff later in the song that I definitely want to hear

But let's start at the beginning Ah Just let my tear now That's an 11 year old Singing like an old wise You know, wizened church singer None of my kids at 11 could hit those notes And that's why

You know why? Because I've been so kind to them I've been such a kind father. It's true. I wish I, you know, just a little of abuse. They don't have enough pain in their life to make great art. Is that what you're saying? I've just saying my belt holds my pants up and it is robbed them of their singing careers. Okay.

You'll never be Joe Jackson. This will never be played in the UK. You can't make those kind of jokes. Wow, that sounds fantastic already. Let's hear the, these opening, almost all these lyrics are so famous that I don't think we have to break down the meaning of the lyrics. They're pretty self-explanatory. I love it because. He's singing about grown man stuff, but he's got this baby voice.

I know, he's 11. What does he know about heartbreak? He wants who back? How long were they together? When? He's singing like he already has some rent do or something. Who's charging this 11-year-old of rent? Let's hear a little bit of the opening verse.

When I had you to myself, I didn't want you around. The blues, baby. Those pretty faces always made you stand out in a crowd. But someone picked you from the bunch when the glass was on it. took to take a second look. That's what it is. It's the disconnect between it being kind of like bluesy delivery and him being 11.

He's 11. Yeah, he's 11. I could be wrong. It almost sounds like, you know how sometimes you can, you think you can hear a singer smiling through the lyrics? Here, I feel like he's dancing in the booth. Oh, interesting. And you know what?

I hope that that's not a scene in the movie and I'm not like. It is a scene in the movie. It is a scene where they're like, hey, Michael, don't dance in the booth. Because he keeps moving away from the. Yeah. But what's weird is whether he was moving on this take or not. I just, I can feel the move in his voice. You know what I mean?

Like even if he's fighting the urge to move, you feel the move. That seems like, you know, it's a movie. I'm not going to say I believe everything in the movie, but that seems like the kind of thing an 11-year-old might need to be told. Yes. The first time in the recording. Or a grown man recording something for his TV show. Have you gotten that note?

Stop dancing, D. Oh, now you're D. Okay, before I tried to call you that, you're like, no, full name, all the L's. I'm using shorthand, man. But no, you just feel so much movement. You feel so much when you hear these, when you hear these vocals.

Let's keep going. Here comes the chorus, y'all. You got to hear my, I got to hear my, oh, oh, baby. And then we'll plug in the background vocals because he's doing the response to the calls. Oh, I definitely was going to ask you about that. Okay, cool.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. You want to hear it plugged in with the BGVs? Yes, yes. Who's doing those background vocals? So credited with vocals on this song are Michael Jackson. Tito, Jackie, and Germain, and Marlon all get backing vocal credits. But there's also a couple names in addition to them, Keith Washington and Lutie Washington.

Lutie Washington? Lutie Washington is an amazing character actor from Hollywood. Oh, my God, I didn't know he's a singer. I didn't know he did background vocals. Where would I know Lutie Washington from? Lutie Washington was a lot of stuff. He's in House Party. He's in Hollywood Shuffle.

Yes, no, dude, that guy. I think he was on the Richard Pryor show way back when. Dude, you know this guy's face. Look up, Lutie, Washington. He's actually, I know for a fact, he was born in Indiana. So maybe he had a family connection or something there. We will find out. He dies in Englewood.

He died quite a while ago. This guy's face looks really familiar. He's so funny. Character actor, yeah? He's so funny. Oh, my God, I know exactly who this guy is. I love it. He's in fat.

He's in the Michael. He's in the Weirdo Yenka video for fat. He's the fat guy eating pizza, right? He's the fat guy eating pizza. Fuck me, man, stop it. You ain't down with us no more. You ain't fat. You ain't fat.

You ain't fat. You ain't fat. You ain't nothing. How did we not know that he was singing on I want your bat? That is incredible. That's the most important thing we've done today. Hey, if you learn nothing else. This is the number one fact of today's episode.

This is the fact. The guy from. Fat Fat video All kinds of Michael Jackson connections from Indiana to fat He was on the Wayans show too

Dude I'm telling you This guy Prolific This guy was prolific Yeah he sometimes got called Big Man He's that guy I think I love Lutie Washington

This is fantastic All right let's hear some background vocals Yeah I'll do the call and response And the chorus here I want you back Yes I do now I want you back Those guys show up a little earlier, too.

Let's listen to, I see some other backing vocal stuff. Let's see what it is. All these great classic duop call and response. Let you go, baby. Just a nice little harmonized stack. I just thought those were just the brothers. But now to know that they had a couple other voices in there, including Lutie Washington.

When we do this show, sometimes we stumble upon a fact while we're recording the show. It should be mentioned. Stop presses. Lutie Washington. He's not on here randomly. He was one of the co-founders of Steeltown Records. Is that the first label for that first song?

Yes, exactly. He's one of the reasons why Big Boy was released. And he's had a big role in sort of launching the Jackson Five. So this is a renaissance, man. He actually has some of his own songs, which I'm going to listen to after this recording. So he was a recording artist. He founded a record label, and he had a great career as a character actor. He should, if he wasn't dead, he should be the third host of the show.

You know, I'm actor-writer. I love to have him. Musicologist, DJ, like we have all these titles. He's that guy. He's that guy. Capital T, capital G. Let's hear that second verse. Trying to live without your love, just one long sleepless night.

Let me show you girl that I know wrong from right. Every street you walk on alley, He's singing on the ground. I didn't even want to rock. He's singing like he understands these very adult emotions. You know what I mean? It's so weird. It's like a little blues man inside a tiny boy's body.

I think that was a big part of Motown back then. It's like everybody had to have a gimmick. You know, like, Stevie's, he's like, I got one guy who's blind. Amazing voice. He's freaking blind. And then this other guy's thing, like he's 48, but he's a child. Give us the bridge, man. As James Rav would say, take us to the bridge.

All right, we got a bunch of Bubba Bubba Bums. And listen if you can hear Ludi Washington in here. That's probably him. Oh, yeah, the low, the bass note because he's big. It's duop.

It's street corner barbershop. So that was, I took out Michael's lead line, and let's hear that separated. Wow. I'm reminded of our... He's so James Brown right there. That was so James Brown. He's so James Brown. And I'm also reminded, though, of our guerrillas episode,

because I'm hearing the same thing, where you would think that the producer would, like, generously let this poor singer do two separate takes for those two parts. Because it's hard to do... Bup, ba, blah, ba, blah, ba, all I want. Bup, Bup, B, B. To go back between the Bapababas and the All I Want All I Needs. But he did all of that in one take.

Basically one take. Almost breathlessly so. That's insane. I mean, that comes from the hours and hours and hours that Joe was working those kids. Oh, God. Day after night. No, I mean, like, that's the one good thing about all those repetitions. Like, you know, the best always say you just got to rehearse, rehearse, rehearse, and do it over and over.

And you know why? Because live, you don't have the luxury of being able to overdub it. So he had to learn how to sing both of those parts live later anyway. Maybe the philosophy for recording was, look, if you're going to do it on stage, you're going to do it in the recording booth, too. By the way, I can say, you know, we all know that Mike was a professional. But this is very early in his career. There was one bono, one bone that's actually flat. I'm actually surprised by it. You heard it too. I heard it too. I heard it too. Let's listen together It's right there. There's a little bit of a clad because he's having to go between these two parts Listen, I can't do it. If I were producing to say nothing of an 11 year old, I would generously be like, you know, let's make sure that you feel comfortable getting the part. Yeah, I'm only bringing up in the context of we know that he was a perfectionist and that that would never he would never let that take

fly once he had the power in the studio that he eventually had. That's all the only pair is. But in the mix, let's just listen back to where that is in the song and you don't even notice it. I just went by and I didn't even notice it. Yeah. And who would? We do not care. Michael, we love you. So to your point, like one of the techniques, especially in like late 60s before we have the proto-tile era for masking imperfect vocals is doubling or tripling or quadrupling. Just putting a layer on time.

That's right. So we hear two layers. two layers at that point, and that's part of what helps bury it in the mix. That's part of why you don't notice it. By the way, he only had to hit that last all I need one time like that to go into freaking music history. And he might have been like, hey, can I just could we save that great take and just cover

up that one sort of flat bon? That could be right. That could be right. This is my favorite part of the song vocally. Let's hear it. Play us the part that comes next. That is a rhyme for the ages. Hold on. Hold on. Pause it. That's the first.

You know? That he became legendary for later. And in 1969, I hear that James Brown of that, too. Yes, yes, it's very James. Yes, I tune the ha. The same thing. Like later, Michael, because I have the sounds, I can prove it. He'll have a separate layer where he's already done the lead vocal, the harmonies.

Then he goes back and does a separate, ha, track. With O's and the ha and the Hes. Woo! Why am I singing so much today? I'm sorry, guys. No, please cut that. Never apologize. I'm getting caught up in the Michael

Magic. Did we get to the end of the song? Yeah. That was not only James Brown. That was Eddie Murphy's James Brown. I wish it didn't fade out. I wish it was one of those things. One of the sweetest episodes we've ever done was our Algreen episode. Because he just went on for like

two minutes. With the post fade out? This is all stuff that you wouldn't know unless you had the steps because it's just fade out. Here, obviously. it's a full fade, but I'd love to have like, you can tell he's going off. He's got some ad-libs. He might have done an early version of like,

didda-da-da-da-da-da-da. He's got more in the tank. I don't know. Why cut him off, you fools? What a bunch of, that is just a magical recording. What can you tell us about the publishing on the song? I want you back by the Jackson Five. Well, it's a fair split between those four songwriters from the corporation.

Yes, yes, Barry got his money. Thank God. I was so worried about him. 25% each for Barry Gordy, Alfonso Maisel, Freddie Perrin, and Dennis Lucier, aka Dick Richards. There's a good name change for you right there. He's like, I don't want this French sound in it. Dennis?

That's not cool. So much magic in that session. And the magic lives on. Like, this song continues to rock. It doesn't rock clubs the same way that it did maybe 20 years ago. But it definitely, if you're doing a wedding, if you're doing like anything where there's like an age range and you need something that's going to please a lot of people, it still works its magic. It was instrumental in launching the career of the Jackson F5, but it's been

instrumental in launching the career of other people. People forget Kanye West when he was coming up, used this song in the song that he produced for Jay-Z on a blueprint album, a song called H-to-the-Izzo. H-to-the-Izzo, B-to-the-I-A. I mean, you can hear the sample clear as day in there. It's in that baseline. Absolutely. The strings are in there, too, yeah. And by the way, like, it's not even just the music sometimes. Sometimes it's the lyrics that get, you know, brought back, whether you want to call that an homage or, I think there's a word that you sometimes whisper.

Long pause. Interpolation. Why don't we hear the interpolation that was done by notorious BIG? Oh, Biggie, give me one more time. I got that good big girl you didn't know. I got that good big girl you didn't know. But that's the Torres BIG. One more chance, the original album version off of Ready to Die.

And, of course, that's just an interpolation of the course. One of these days, my career is headed in a direction where one day I will be at the head of the council of interpolation decision making versus evocation. I really do think that one day I would like to form a body that meets in the star chamber and looks at examples of stuff that sounds similar and decides what it is. My judgment on that one would be not interpolation. Nobody owes any money. That's an homage.

straight up. It's an homage. Straight up homage. And hip hop is a weird place because people use other people's lyrics. Totally. It's part of the culture. All the freaking time.

As a reference to something, it's a lineage, it's part of the heritage, it's to call out something that then people will go discover, maybe that they didn't know before. Well, be sure to join us for part two of this two-part episode

on the Jackson family as singers. When we talk about, can you feel it? The third single off of their triumph album from 1981, We're going to talk about the path that they took from 1969, this scrappy young outfit from Gary Indiana. And we're going to talk a little bit about, they're sort of in between years, like in the 70s when they're working with Gamble and Huff and a lot of other producers. And they're producing really great stuff, but it's not selling quite at the level of their earliest stuff.

We're going to go through all that into off-the-wall era Michael and then land at triumph because I think that can you feel it is just a it's a great song. It's enjoying a moment on TikTok. and we want to talk about it. That's a great point. It's easy to forget that in 1969, they come out with a bang. Yeah. In the 70s, they are superstars,

but they have, it's hit or miss through the 70s. It's hit or miss in terms. There's some albums, because they're still dropping an album almost every year. Yeah, yeah. And there's some albums that do good,

and there's some albums that don't. They love, like, dancing machine. Oh, my gosh. Yeah, stuff like that. Blame it on the boogie. Blame it on the boogie. There's some great stuff in there, and we're going to talk about show me the way.

But it's important to note that some of those albums didn't sell well. They leave, Motown. They have to change their name from the Jackson 5 to the Jackson's. We're going to get in all of that in part two. So stick around for that and we'll have even more surprises on that episode. More Lutie Washington's. Who knows? You never know. Like, I was prolific. As always, you can find me on Instagram at Diallo and on TikTok at Diallo Riddle. And you can find me on Instagram at L-U-X-X-U-X-Y and on TikTok at Luxury X. And you can follow our podcast on Instagram and TikTok, I'm proud to say, at once-on podcast for exclusive content. You can watch full episodes of One Song on YouTube and Spotify. Just search for One Song podcast. We'd love it if you'd like to subscribe. Also be sure to check out the one song Spotify playlist for all the songs we discuss in our episodes. You can find the link in our episode description. And we have a Patreon now. Patreon.com slash Diallo luxury. You should check it out. It's a lot of fun. We do all kinds of crazy stuff. We're nuts over there.

Because it's behind a paywall. We get into a lot of really, really, really fun stuff. You should definitely check that out. If you made it this far, you're officially part of the One Song Nation. Show us some love, give us five stars, leave a review, and send this episode to a fellow music fan. It really helps keep the show going. All right, luxury, help me in this thing. I'm producer, DJ, songwriter, musicologist, and every Friday night from 10 p.m. until midnight after Henry Rollins'Hawrw DJ, luxury. And I'm actor, writer, director, and sometimes DJ, D. Yala Rittle.

This has been one song. We'll see you next time. This episode is recorded at KCRW headquarters, engineering by K. Gilles Gilles, produced, edited, and mixed by Air Kicks. We'll see you next time. Rosen lasagna, medium power, 15 minutes. Sounds like Ojo time. Let's play. Feel the fun with Play Ojo, the online casino with all the latest slot and live casino games.

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