Relief Songs

Throughout his musical career, Michael Jackson wrote and/or composed songs, - as well as in collaboration with other musicians or his siblings - material in tune with his other related endeavors exposing and/or tackling critical world issues and concerns, and the peaceful, unified means and solutions through which they can be alleviated or solved.

Here are some of them – the list including songs from the Jackson 5 earlier albums:

"We Are The World"; "Heal The World"; "I’ll Be There"; "Beat It"; "Black Or White"; "Be Not Always"; "Hallelujah Day"; "Man of War"; "Man In The Mirror"; "The Lost Children"; "Cry"; "We Are Here To Change The World"; "We Can Change The World"; "Will You Be There"; "HIStory"; "Money"; "Earth Song"; "Keep The Faith"; "Shout"; "What More Can I Give"; "Will You Be There"; "Can You Feel It"; "Another Part Of Me"; "We’ve Had Enough"; "Living Together"; "The Eternal Light"; "Children’s Holiday" and "People of the World" (written and composed by Michael Jackson for a Japanese group); "Bless His Soul"; "Jam"; "Why You Wanna Trip On Me"; "Black Or White"; "Little Susie"; "On The Line", "Hold My Hand", or songs yet unreleased, such as "A Baby Smiles"; "To The World"; "Little Girls"; "Lonely Man"; "Lonely Bird"; "There Must Be More To Life Than This" (a leaked duet with singer Freddie Mercury); "Crack Kills"; "I Don't Live Anymore"; "I Forgive You"; "He Who Makes The Sky To Grey (written in 2005 by Jermaine Jackson and Prince Sheik Abdullah of Bahrain); "Do You Know Where Your Children Are?"; "All My Children"; "Children's Hour"; "I Love You More"; "Adore You"; 'Days In Gloucestershire"; "I Am A Loser", 'I Was The Loser"; "Thank Heaven", ""Pray For Peace", "The Innocent Man" (most likely reworked on); "Light The Day" or "The World Is No Church" (written by Jackson and Grammy-Award winning record producer and songwriter, Walter Afanassief ) . The last nine mentioned songs are said to have been worked upon with songwriter Bradley Buxer just months before the entertainer's passing and have been transferred to Michael Jackson's Estate.

Jackson's videos (i.e.: "Beat It"; "Can You Feel It" (with the Jacksons); "Beat It"; "Man In The Mirror"; "Heal The World", "Earth Song", "Childhood" or "Cry") come in support of the lyrical themes, and are renowned for their potent visual message and effects.

Here is what the singer-songwriter has to say with reference to some of his relief-oriented songs.

"Moon Walk" Autobiography (1988) Excerpts:

On single "Can You Feel It" (with the Jacksons):

"[...] The song was a celebration of love taking over, cleansing the sins of the world."

On song "Heartbreak Hotel":

"Heartbreak Hotel" had revenge in it and I am fascinated by the concept of revenge. It's something I can't understand. The idea of making someone "pay" for something they've done to you or that you imagine they've done to you is totally alien to me. The setup showed my own fears and for the first time being helped quell them. There were so many sharks in this business looking for blood in the water."

On single "Beat It":

"The lyrics of "Beat It" express something I would do if I were in trouble. Its message - that we should abhor violence - is something I believe deeply. It tells kids to be smart and avoid trouble. I don't mean to say you should turn the other cheek while someone kicks in your teeth, but, unless your back is against the wall and you have absolutely no choice, just get away before violence breaks out. If you fight and get killed, you've gained nothing and lost everything. You're the loser, and so are the people who love you. That's what "Beat It" is supposed to get across. To me, true bravery is settling differences without a fight and having the wisdom to make that solution possible."

On charity single "We Are The World":

"I think that "We Are the World" is a very spiritual song, but spiritual in a special sense. I was proud to be a part of that song and to be one of the musicians there that night. We were united by our desire to make a difference. It made the world a better place for us and it made a difference to the starving people we wanted to help."

"We collected some Grammy Awards and began to hear easy-listening versions of "We Are the World" in elevators along with "Billie Jean." Since first writing it, I had thought that song should be sung by children. When I finally heard children singing it on producer George Duke's version, I almost cried. It's the best version I've heard."

On single "Man In The Mirror":

"Man in the Mirror" is a great message. I love that song. If John Lennon was alive, he could really relate to that song because it says that if you want to make the world a better place, you have to work on yourself and change first. It's the same thing Kennedy was talking about when he said, "Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country." If you want to make the world a better place, take a look at yourself and make a change. Start with the man in the mirror. Start with yourself. Don't be looking at all the other things. Start with you. That's the truth. That's what Martin Luther King meant and Gandhi too. That's what I believe."

Excerpts From An Audio Recording - cca 1995:

On single "Heal The World":
"Heal The World is one of my favorites of everything I’ve ever recorded, because it’s a public awareness song, and it’s something that I think that would live in the hearts of people for a long time; because it’s about something that is very special, and something that is very innocent, and something that is very important: literally, healing our planet of its wounds and its suffering. And it’s one of my favorite things to do when we’re on tour, because on stage we blow up this giant, inflatable Planet Earth, right on stage, and we have all these children from all different countries and they dress in a different national attire, and we sing this song. And it’s amazing to look out in the audience, and you literally see like two hundred thousand people holding up candles and singing the song. It’s a very spiritual experience and I really enjoy it."

On single "Earth Song":

"I remember writing Earth Song when I was in Austria, in a hotel. And I was feeling so much pain and so much suffering of the plight of the Planet Earth. And for me, this is Earth's Song, because I think nature is trying so hard to compensate for man's mismanagement of the Earth. And with the ecological unbalance going on, and a lot of the problems in the environment, I think earth feels the pain, and she has wounds, and it's about some of the joys of the planet as well. But this is my chance to pretty much let people hear the voice of the planet. And this is "Earth Song". And that's what inspired it. And it just suddenly dropped into my lap when I was on tour in Austria."

On single "They Don't Care About Us" - excerpt from "Making HIStory" photobook:
"[...] It's a public awareness song. It’s a protest kind of song […]"

On song "The Lost Children" - excerpt from "News Of The World":
"I'm saying there are souls out there that are lost. People who have disappeared and have never been found again. I remember when I was a little kid, I was in a department store with my mother. I was no more than five, I think. I turned around and she was gone. I’ll never forget the feeling. I felt my world was ending. So, imagine really, really being lost. It’s like Armageddon of the brain."

On charity song "What More Can I Give", consequently to the 2001 terrorist attacks - excerpt from "Rolling Stones" magazine:

"I’m not one to sit back and point the finger and say, 'Oh I feel bad for what happened to them'. I want to do something, to give, to help those who lost their parents, who lost their mothers and their fathers. Those are our people. Those are our children. Those are our parents. I want the whole world to sing ("What More Can I Give"), to bring us together as a world, because a song is a mantra, something you repeat over and over. And we need peace, we need giving, we need love, we need unity."

* "Can You Feel It" video - (1981) (spoken intro): „In the beginning, the land was pure. Even in the early morning light, you could see the beauty in the forms of Nature, so all men and women of every color and shape would be here too. And they would find it all too easy sometimes not to see the colors and to ignore the beauty in each other. But they would never lose sight of the dream for the better world that they could unite and build together in triumph.”