This is a very accomplished piece of song writing by Michael Jackson, reminding us that he didn't just cherry pick material from others, he really was a true master. The chord progressions are unusual and complex, changing key subtly and confidently like a modal jazz composition. I approach it by keeping it clean for the intro, following Jackson's melody line. I then explore with piano and light acoustic guitars. The hook gets a typical jazz technique of playing octaves for the line. The solo is then restrained to keep the song's beauty. The middle eight gets a guitar solo with a tougher tone. It's a joy to play over by following the key changes.
Originally this track a 1987 ballad by Michael Jackson featuring a duet with Siedah Garrett, and was the first single released from his seventh album, Bad. The song was written by Jackson, and co-produced by Jackson and Quincy Jones. It reached #1 on the Billboard Hot 100, R&B and adult contemporary charts.
The song became the first of five consecutive number-one Hot 100 singles from the Bad album. It was Jackson's second number-one song on the AC chart (his first, coincidentally, had also been a duet: 1982's "The Girl Is Mine" with Paul McCartney). It was released without an accompanying music video.
The presence of Garrett on the track was a last-minute decision by Jackson and Jones, after Jackson's first two choices for the duet, Barbra Streisand and Whitney Houston, both decided against participating. Garrett, a protégé of Jones's who co-wrote another song on Bad, "Man in the Mirror", did not know that she would be singing the song until the day of the recording session.
