Living with WYBT. An Experiment

Category: Michael Jackson | 7 Comments | Posted 16:18

Indeed. I've been listening to WYBT for over 12hrs now. Actually I cheated, I switched it off at 10am and back on at 2pm cuz I couldn't fall asleep again. I did sleep with it from 4am to 8.30 tho. Anyway, here are some incoherent thoughts I wrote down this morning, after I'd woken up...

24hrs to the sound of WYBT.

It's an experiment, started about 5hrs ago. I guess I'll hate the song by the end of this. WTF. I fell asleep to the sound of WYBT, I woke up by the sound of WYBT. It was weird the moment it changed from jumbled noise to a recognisable song. I woke up around the end of the "singing part" & "realised" what it was shortly before the spoken part.

When you listen to it on headphones, it's like he speaks directly inside your head. Kinda spooky. So, some 19hrs to go. Or however long my 2 sets of batteries will last me. I wouldn't mind listening to Who Is It now, but must go through with my experiment. *lol* OK back to sleep.

It's hard to fall asleep. No more random thoughts. Maybe the song is just too intense for background noise purposes. I just can't help actively listening to it, and moving along to the beat. It didn't affect my sleep and my dreams though. And WTF are the lyrics to the Beethoven part?

Oooh the perfection of his voice! And the amazingness of the lyrics! He's so open and vulnerable in this song, you feel so close to him. Is that why we all love it? God, how much I love him, despite everything. And how much I owe him too. Pretty much all of my life is MJ. I wonder if I will ever turn my back on him. Some fans become so overly critical and disgusted of him once they "overcome" their obsession. I wonder why. Does the MJ obsession represent something in them that they want to erase?

I wish I could remember how it was to first listen to WYBT, the way I do with Speechless. Then again I didn't know much English in 1991 so much of the magic and the genius was lost on me. I remember listening to Dangerous on the bus ride home from buying it in town, and how it felt familiar and comforting, but I doubt I got as far as WYBT then. So I have no idea what my "first time" was like. Nor do I remember when WYBT became my favourite song. It used to be Leave Me Alone.

It's weird how as a kid I used to think MJ was a puppet on a string - i.e. I didn't believe he wrote his own songs, I thought the credits were fake. I couldn't grasp the idea of so much genius I guess. *lol* Honest tho - this song is pure fucking perfection!

This song is like the hymn of MJ fandom (and so eerily premonition-ary before 1993). I always fall back on these lyrics for my banners / signatures / general fan declarations. Is it the fan song? And does he actually address it to us? Exclusively?

Isn't it interesting how the spoken part ends on an optimistic note - "in the promise of another tomorrow" - so what's wrong with today? What was wrong when he wrote it? Apart from the usual? And isn't it interesting now - when fans all seem to be moaning about how there's nothing happening, only negativity - is there still gonna be "another tomorrow? Or will we live in an perpetual yesterday? Not that I care. Someone who created a Dangerous album deserves eternal reverence even if he never creates anything again.

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End incoherent thoughts. So I've done some research about the Beethoven part. It's about half way through the final movement (of the 9th symphony), and the lyrics are as follows:

Ihr stürzt nieder, Millionen?
Ahnest du den Schöpfer, Welt?
Such ihn überm Sternenzelt!
Über Sternen muß er wohnen.

I've found some translations online, I've combined the parts I like best from the different ones:

Do you come tumbling down, you millions?
Do you sense the creator, O world?
Seek Him above the firmament!
For he must dwell above the stars.

Right, will now get lunch (ahem, at 20 past 4), then amble down to the petrol station (yes that's right, I will walk!) to get an appointment for my Lara's check up, and to buy my Spiegel mag. All the while listening to WYBT.