Michael Jackson’s lyrics tell a hard story

Jackson was a cultural radical who broke through racial barriers on MTV and shattered the old rock clique of white men with guitars. But his politics were more personal than collective, avoiding confrontation as surely as the guy in "Beat It." In "Man in the Mirror," from the 1987 "Bad" album, he worries about "the kids in the street/with not enough to eat," and concludes that the answer is to "take a look at yourself and then make a change." He would later call to "Heal the World," although doesn't say how beyond making sure that "you care enough."

Scandal and chaos only made him look harder, at himself, and at others: The boasts of "Invincible" and "Untouchable," the rage of "Tabloid Junkie" and the taunts of "Threatened." In the self-evident "Privacy," the world is a trespasser peeking through his window: "Ain't the pictures enough, why do you go through so much," he asks. "To get the story you need, so you can bury me."

Ballard, who has written for Alanis Morissette and George Strait, among others, says the passionate performer was a "remarkable songwriter" who "absolutely" felt his songs' lyrics.

"I don't think there's any question that that was just falling out of his creative, unpremeditated self. ... He tapped into his `whatever' and he was using it like an artist should and sort of creating these characters — maybe they're him, maybe they're not," he says. "You get distance from it. (The lyrics) just really have this kind of compelling, mysterious, very cool air about them, in addition to being really hot at the center with these grooves."

You could heat a country on all the energy spent wondering what happened to Jackson in the second half of his life and what eventually killed him. But he explained himself well in the trembling "Childhood," set to Hollywood strings and to a melody lost and forlorn as an orphaned boy.

That song "was probably the most autobiographical of all his amazing lyrics," says Grammy-winning songwriter Carole Bayer Sager, who co-wrote "That's What Friends Are For" with Burt Bacharach.

"Have you seen my childhood?" Jackson wonders, his voice light and high. "Before you judge me, try hard to love me/The painful youth I've had."

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