Photo: Eddie Van Halen | By Daniel Griffiths, Music Radar / Yahoo | The Beat It solo’s tortuous tale of how it was magicked into reality is only ever half told. Van Halen wasn’t first choice for the gig, debate rages over what remuneration Van Halen received for his input, and how – preposterously – he would wind up fighting with himself for the number one spot. There are speakers bursting into flames, an unexplained knocking sound and just who did buy those two packs of beer?
Here for the first time is the full twisting story of how the track was made, recorded and solo’d and then entirely re-recorded to make Eddie’s work the centre-piece miracle that still elicits joy and praise over 40 years later. But first, let’s turn back the clock.
The year was 1982 and still hot from Off The Wall, Jackson and team – legendary producer Quincy Jones, super-engineer Bruce Swedien and Brit songwriting genius Rod Temperton – put the band back together for its sequel. An album that would go on to be the biggest-selling album of all time – Thriller.
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In his autobiography Q, Jones says “Michael was writing music like a machine. He could really crank it up. In the time I worked with him he wrote three of the songs on Off the Wall, four on Thriller and six on Bad. At this point on Thriller I’d been bugging him for months to write a Michael Jackson version of My Sharona [the spikey new-wave hit by The Knack that had proved a hit on both sides of the Atlantic].
“One day I went to his house and said, “Smelly [Jones’ affectionate nickname for Jackson], give it up. This train is leaving the station.” He said, “Quincy, I got this thing I want you to hear, but it’s not finished yet. I took him to the studio inside his house. He called his engineer and we stacked the vocals on then and there. Michael sang his heart out. The song was Beat It.”
“I wanted to write the type of song that I would buy if I were to buy a rock song,” Jackson told Ebony in 1984. “That is how I approached it, and I wanted the children to really enjoy it – the school children as well as the college students.”
Jones loved the new track and moving the sessions to Westlake Studios A and B on Santa Monica Boulevard West Hollywood, set about giving the demo the full treatment alongside trusted engineer Bruce Swedien.
Engineer Bruce Swedien on the making of Michael Jackson’s Thriller: “I went in when Eddie Van Halen was warming up and I left immediately. It was so loud – I would never subject my hearing to that kind of volume level!”
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This is what reading HISTORY makes it fun! Read the whole story here:
https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/incredible-story-eddie-van-halen-081125607.html
The Incredible Story of Eddie Van Halen’s Beat It solo: “I’m thinking to myself, “OK, ABC, 1, 2, 3 and me? How’s that going to work?”
