Did Michael write his own songs?

Michael Jackson Forum

I remember when Michael said on a 20/20 interview that he thought up his songs in his "magic tree" and that he also practiced his dance moves outside as well.
Recently though, i have heard some ground shaking rumors that prove that Michael may have not written his own songs.

Rod Temperton wrote songs such as 'Lady in my life', "Rock with you', 'Pretty young thing', 'Human nature', and 'Wanna be starting something'.

I was wondering if it could be possible that Michael Jackson didn't write all of his songs in his earlier career.

quote:

Moral indignation is jealousy with a halo -- H.G. Wells

His only hits besides Black or White from 1990 until now was written by others including R. Kelly, Teddy Riley, Dallas Austin, Floetry and others.
I think he should find other people to work with when it comes to writting new songs, because when MJ writes music now its all about him being mistreated or some well-meaning 'heal the world/we are the world' songs that come out incredibly cheesy. He did colab with a few others for some nice R&B ballads on Invincible besides Butterflies.....but they never saw the light of day on Top 10 American radio charts.

Temperton wrote "Rock With You", "Burn This Disco Out", "Off The Wall", "Baby Be Mine", "Thriller" and "Lady In My Life" (among other unreleased tracks). That's a well known fact, due to him actually being credited for the songs.

Michael Jackson most certainly didn't write many of his songs early in his career, due to the fact that he was 5 when he first hit the spotlight. He did, however, write "Wanna Be Starting Something", "Billie Jean", "Bad", "Don't Stop Till You Get Enough", "Working Day and Night", "The Girl Is Mine", "Beat It", "The Way You Make Me Feel", "I Just Can't Stop Loving You", among a bunch of the other tracks he wrote. Since Quincy Jones produced those, and has spoken often about the writing and production of many of the songs, there's no reason to think MJ didn't write them himself (also there are many demo recordings that basically prove it too).

More Recently though, he has had a few hits he's written himself, including "Stranger In Moscow", "They Don't Care About Us", "Who Is It", "Will You Be There", "In The Closet", "Earth Song" and "Childhood". Just nothing from his last album that was released as a single was written by him (solely).

Don't forget "Ben", he wrote that about his pet rat.

See, that's the thing, he didn't write Ben but I've heard people say that before you.

Now I'm craving some MJ tunes. I'm going to celebrate his freedom over some vintage MJ and jesus-juice.

Dang, that's a good idea. But I don't have any Jesus Juice, I'll have to settle for some Homer Juice *cracks open a Duff*

There's a marketing campaign for MJ to get rich again:

"Jesus-Juice"

Well... maybe that wouldn't be such a great idea...

"People always told me be careful of what you do
And don’t go around breaking young girls’ hearts
And mother always told me be careful of who you love
And be careful of what you do ’cause the lie becomes the truth"

I think people just find it funny to say he wrote a song about being friends with a rat. What a weirdo. The thing is, the song is from the movie Ben (the sequel to Willard), so not only did he not write it, but if he had been asked to write it he didn't really have much control over what the song was to be about anyway.

But it SOUNDS like it was written about a rat:

Ben, you're alway running here and there

I never knew it was from a movie though. You learn something new every day.

No, the movie and song are about a rat. Funnily enough, its kind of a horror movie as well...

Did Michael ever actually have a pet rat?

I don't know...... probably. He had a pet everything else, didn't he?

I mean did he have one back when he was five? That might also explain where the myth that he wrote the song came from, if he did own a rat back then, you know?

Nah, I have no idea. But he was like 14 when he sung Ben. A lot of kids own rats before the age of 14, so he may have.

Was he 14? I thought he was about 8 or 9.

This thread is really teaching me things