Michael Jackson tribute: "On My Own" by Steve Wallis, inspired by Jacko's "Earth Song"

The media coverage (BBC & Guardian) I've seen of Michael Jackson's death has ignored perhaps his most important legacy. After making his name and selling hundreds of millions of records with love songs, he decided to use his fame for a purpose - trying to influence the world politically on issues he cared about, particularly with "Earth Song" (but also with "Black or White" which was rather ironic due to changes in his skin colour!)

Jarvis Cocker famously interrupted Jacko's performance of "Earth Song" at a Brit Awards ceremony, alleging that Jacko was acting as a Messiah. Maybe Jacko thought his song would have a massive effect in terms of saving the world. It is tempting to regard yourself as a son/daughter of God if you are playing that role - I know from experience!

In tribute to Jacko, and to publicise his political role overlooked by many, I made this new recording of my song "On My Own", which includes lines influenced by "Earth Song", the day after his death (26 June 2009) on my mobile phone in Platt Fields, Manchester, England. The sound quality of my phone isn't brilliant, and my singing voice is better when accompanied by music (with my band Galaxia or Red Day), but it'll do.

"On My Own" is dedicated to an Indian activist living in New York, Priya Reddy (sometimes known as "warcry"), who I met at the 2005 Earth First Gathering in England. I wrongly suspected she was a political prisoner in a psychiatric institution she had compared to Auschwitz concentration camp - this version of the song corrects that disinformation.

You can read the lyrics at http://red-day.net/lyrics/on-my-own-4.html

For more of my musical poetry, go to http://socialiststeve.in/poetry.htm

You may also like to visit my MySpace page at http://myspace.com/galaxiasteve

Category:

Music

Tags:

• Michael Jackson
• Jacko
• Earth Song
• Les Miserables
• On My Own

[LaParker87]

STFU!

[Cazzawaw]

Learn to sing, pedo worshipper.