I did not attend, nor did I watch the broadcast of, the Michael Jackson memorial yesterday. I do live in Los Angeles, and it's not that I wasn't a fan, or that I wasn't touched in any way by his death. "Thriller" was the number one album when I was a tot, and of course I owned it. As I grew up and my musical spectrum broadened, I realized the brilliance of the Jackson 5 and the MJ album, "Off the Wall." After "Thriller," though, Jackson slowly morphed into a different man. Questions were asked, people wondered, speculated, shook their heads.
"How tragic."
"How horrible"
"How despicable."

I write music for a living. I started writing songs before I got my first crappy job in the mall. I'm not sure "writing" is the proper term for what I do, though. Despite my being a cerebral person, when the muse strikes, it's anything but. I am a mere conduit for the melody, chord progressions, counter melody, harmony, whatever is in my head, flowing through my arms and fingers, and out onto which ever instrument I have my hands upon. Certain lyrical phrases pop into my head. I may not know where they come from at the time. Often it's easy to flesh the ideas out. Sometimes it's more of a struggle. Sometimes I'll know right away what the song is about, what event in my life inspired it. Sometimes it takes years. And with some, I still don't know.

I did not attend the Michael Jackson memorial. LA is difficult enough to get around as it is, let alone when there are media circus events blocking off large areas of the city, and as media circuses go, this Memorial must have ranked among the most covered in history. Plus, I don't much care for celebrities tearing up, talking about how the deceased, "like , affected me, like sooooo much, y'know?" Funerals should be private, though I do understand the need for people to feel a part of the passing of such an icon. Bullshit or not.

So I did not attend , nor did I watch the Michael Jackson Memorial. But I saw the video of Stevie Wonder's performance at the Staples Center for the occasion.  Stevie Wonder is a genius. Somehow he wasn't catapulted to the pop stardom that Jackson was, but the songs that man writes are beyond this earth. My friend who was in attendance said that Wonder brought the house down. People were bawling. He played two songs. The first, "I Never Thought You'd Leave in Summer," Stevie wrote for Michael to sing when he was just a lad. What eerie prescience. He segued into "They Won't Go When I Go." This song, written by Wonder in 1973, is ineffably beautiful, sad, and dirgy. It gave such heft to an already weighty event. Before he started playing, Wonder said he hoped he wouldn't have lived to see this day, outliving Michael. When he played "They Won't Go....," it came straight from his heart...no, from his gut...or maybe through his mind, his body the same way it did when he first wrote it. And I wonder if now, if it is apparent that this was exactly the moment for which he wrote it in the first place.