The Love You Save: Michael Jackson and the rear-guard Baby Boomers
Will Bunch looks back at Michael Jackson's pop-star youth and his own early years. DN readers are contributing their own memories of "MJ."
The Love You Save: Michael Jackson and the rear-guard Baby Boomers
The album pictured at top is the Jackson 5's "Third Album" -- but it was the very first album I ever owned. I'm pretty sure it was a Christmas present in 1970, when I was 11 years old and was ready for ownership of some of the static-ridden tunes I'd been listening to with Cousin Brucie on New York's Top 40 WABC. Actually, it wasn't the first rock or soul album in my house; my Dad was just 30 years old when the Beatles released "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" in 1967, and we had a couple of Beatles' LPs. maybe even the Rolling Stones. And I even remember Iron Butterfly's "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida" and the first Led Zeppelin disc in my friends' basement, when their older siblings with the peace-sign posters in their basements were out of the house.
But that was the whole point of owning a Jackson Five record -- they were the first group that didn't belong to the '60s, to young hippie-wannabe parents or to patchouli-scented or Nehru-jacketed brothers and sisters. Indeed, their first big hit -- "I Want You Back," with the killer piano riff that signaled a fresh new sound -- was released six weeks after the muck of Woodstock, and it was one of the first No. 1 songs of the 1970s, a new decade, our decade. The Jackson 5 and their strings of hits like "The Love You Save" was the first pop music that truly belonged to us -- the rear-guard Baby Boomers -- and their lead singer Michael Jackson, just 12 years old, smiled broadly bounced with a kind of energy that spoke of our new blood that would build something fresh atop the ruins of a tumultuous decade.
And then the 1980s came, the fulfillment of that promise -- for him, for us. When Michael released "Thriller," it seemed to speak yet again to my sub-generation, 20-somethings still grasping for a common identity in the bitter aftertaste of the Pepsi generation, sandwiched in between the grumpy elders and cleancut teens who were both trying to herd us into the Age of Reagan. Michael Jackson truly was, for that brief moment, our "man in the mirror" for a confusing new decade: Someone whose weird clothes spoke of rebellion yet made no coherent statement, not a radical but a careerist and a perfectionist who was moonwalking his way to the bank, totally apolitical and racially ambiguous, an artist who understood "new media" (remember when that meant MTV?) and thus was going to reign forever as the King of Pop.
Then we grew up -- and Michael Jackson didn't. Hot summer nights with "Billie Jean" on the turntable inevitably led to babies, and now that we were parents we rightfully recoiled from the horror stories coming out of the Neverland Ranch. In reality, Michael Jackson was never really what was so neatly packaged and gift-wrapped under the Christmas tree in 1970. We learned that he was the child of a physically abusive father, a celebrity who felt that he'd been robbed of his childhood.
Those things didn't give him the license to act in the irresponsible ways that he did, but it did make him a different kind of metaphor for my fellow tail-end Boomers, as so many of learned that even middle age doesn't always vanquish the demons that were set loose so many years ago. Some defeat those demons, and some don't. Michael Jackson epitomized our greatest fear of all -- he simply ran out of time. Maybe that's why we cut him so much slack in spite of it all -- the love you save.
In the end, 2009 -- the year that I and a number of my friends joined Jackson in turning 50 -- will be remembered as a remarkable year for my generation. Today, we have lost our rock star, but back in January we gained our first president in Barack Obama -- the first late-Boomer POTUS, pretty much unscarred by Vietnam or anything else from the '60s, like Michael Jackson (albeit in a totally different way) presenting a new spin on race in America, with the promise of some new moves and a vibrant voice. I think for a lot of us who voted last fall, our generation-mate Obama brought back faint but hopeful echoes of that remarkable piano riff from so many years ago, the same melody that seemed to be fading away as we lost Michael Jackson.
I hope every parent in America dreaming of nurturing a superstar stops cold and reconsiders tonight. Kids deserve kidhood. Hard enough to grow into a healthy adult . . .— gastropoda
You see, in the end, it's all about Will and Ronald Reagan. Even in in a obituary-esque post, Will has a link to his book. Your such a capitalist.— jmc
Bunch, do you do your own headlines or does someone else do them? I mean someone has sense of humor puting MJ and guard your rear.....oops sorry "rear guard" in the same sentence. You do realize you are waxing poetic about a pedophile don't you? Or in the words of Howard Stern, "Mike, if you LOVE children so much , where are the little girls?"— bird11- Didn't Michael and Nancy Reagan share the same psychic?— Think for myself
Will, I gotta give you credit. This post was very well written. It's even more amazing to realize that you wrote that while your eyes were probably swollen near shut from crying for six hours straight. It must have been an emotional, traumatic evening for you last night. Take the weekend off to recover and gather yourself for the Cronkite post coming next week.— Mr. Smith
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- I too was born in 1959 and lived through the disastrous Carter years, having been 1 year too young to vote for Ford. When RR came on the seen I prayed to God that I would live to vote for him in the fall election against the bumbling boob from Plains. My wish came true and the world is a much better place thanks to his leadership. I too grew up listening to WABC and Cousin Brucie. Where did you go wrong Will????????????— WriteWinger
- I actually clipped to watch the clip and I had kind of forgotten just what an phenomenal talent Jackson was. Say what you will about his personality, he was a prodigy and genius on the level of a Marley, Hendrix, Dylan. Oh, and birdie, that makes two jokes about people who just died in two days. Say classy there, bud, stay classy.— Talking point sleuth
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- 8 year olds, dude.— RG
Is there any truth to the rumor that soon to be ex-Governor Sanford screamed "thank you Jesus" and did the moonwalk when he heard this news yesterday?— one_eyed_jack- I really don't understand the reverential treatment Michael Jackson is getting. The man committed the most horrible crime imaginable--he molested children. Ironic that the man who was obsessed with clinging to his childhood would deprave children of experiencing their own. And yet, that part of his life is dismissed as having acted in "irresponsible ways" because he wrote good music? When Mumia finally dies and goes to hell, will we lament the loss of a prolific journalist and writer who just happened to act in an irresponsible way in 1981?— Captain Awesome
- Only the lame brain neocons can work in a Mumia reference in talking about Michael Jackson. The guy was uber talented. Unfortunately, he was also messed up.— Think for myself
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