Did you know …
…
that “Thriller” went through quite a bit of trial and error and quite a few
rewrites before it became the song that was finally presented to the public in
late 1982? If you listen to one of the previous versions of the song, a demo
called “Starlight” (see www.youtube.com/watch?v=E_kimWJ7128), you’ll appreciate
why Rod Temperton (a song-writing veteran who has written for all the greats,
including Donna Summer, Aretha Franklin, Herbie Hancock, Mariah Carey) decided
to scrap his initial lyrics, which were rather generic and lacked a clear
central message, in favour of something more unique.
Genius last-minute lyrics
The
lyrics he then came up with for “Thriller” are full of strong imagery,
immediately conjuring a vivid picture in the listeners’ minds. Temperton puts
us right in the middle of this horror scenario (using direct address, “you”),
and waits until the 3rd verse to let on that we are in fact just watching a
horror film (“I’ll save you from the terror on the screen”). The directness of
the lyrics is what makes them so accessible. Temperton doesn’t challenge us
with hidden meaning, allegory, juxtaposition, metaphor or the like. He doesn’t
try to make the song more than it is – with a satisfying result.
If
I could be so bold as to voice one minor gripe (how dare I?): The bridge
section (“Night creatures call …”) stands out musically – the harmonies
suddenly shift, the triplets in the vocal melody make this part smoother and
more lyrical compared to the rhythmic verse and chorus. Which is why the horror
imagery (“night creatures”, “dead”, “jaws of the alien”) doesn’t feel right to
me in this part. I’d have seen this bridge as an opportunity to introduce the
idea of cuddling in front of the TV screen. In fact, I quite like the lines
from Starlight: “Light up the world / Let the love start / Take charge of this
masquerade”. As it stands, the music in this section gives the creepy lyrics a
kind of sweetness, effectively rendering them harmless. Then again, perhaps it
was Temperton’s intention to tone down the scariness here – to prepare us for
the subsequent revelation that it’s all just happening on the screen?
THAT iconic bass hook
Musically,
being intrigued by songs that have long, virtually unchanging sections, I
wanted to find out how much of the song is made up of the famous bass hook that
characterises the entire song. If you take just the main body of the song –
Intro/ Verse 1/ Chorus/ Verse 2/ Chorus/ Bridge/ Verse 3/ Chorus (excluding the
coda with Vincent Price’s legendary “rap”) – which makes up 117 bars, and count
the number of bars built on the bass hook, you’ll find they make up 77% of the
song! But thanks to the harmonic and melodic development, we don’t feel that
the song ever gets boring or monotonous. Also, thanks to Quincy Jones and the
world-class musicians playing on the track (I especially love David Williams’s
tastefully restrained guitar lick, which adds so much density and rhythmic
depth in all the right places), “Thriller” is a prime example of when to add
and when to leave out small details that can make all the difference.
Conclusion
Back
to “Starlight”: If I look at my copy of “Thriller” (the album) and mentally
replace the song “Thriller” with “Starlight”, it changes the entire feel of the
album. “Starlight” would have been no more than a catchy, but inconsequential
interlude on an album whose makers intended it to be edgy. But in a moment of
sheer brilliance, Temperton came up with a title that would go on to define an
album, a year, a decade, a generation, the artist himself. German version here: http://zartbitter.co.at/kultur/unter-der-lupe-thriller-von-michael-jackson/
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