6 Billie Jean

(Pop/Ballad)

Words and music by Michael Jackson

4/4 time signature/Key A minor/Tempo moderately bright

Single released January 3^rd 1983 (USA 1 UK 1)

(Instrumentation)

Synthersizers/Guitar/Bass/Drums

Song structure

Verse 1x2/Bridge/Chorus/verse 2x2/Bridge/Chorus

The song is from Michael’s troubled experiences he had with girls, who were sometimes proclaiming that they were carrying Michael’s child running to the press and try sell their story or even stalking him and writing to him telling him how his child was doing because of their love towards him was so strong or more like feelings out of control. Lines from the song “Billie Jean is not my lover, she’s just a girl who claims that I am the one” which is self explanatory and “For forty days and forty nights the law was on her side” singing about the court battle to prove he wasn’t the father to her child. The music video was set in a street and everywhere he walked the floor lights up and he pulls off all his trademark dance moves e.g. spinning around, grabbing his crotch and doing the moonwalk.

Starts with drums playing crochet beats alternating bass and snare drums on the beat, there is a shaker putting sixteenth notes on top. The bass has a slightly distorted sound on the low notes, playing the main riff using quavers. The synthesizer is playing short quaver on the beat of one and off the beat of two, the main vocal is very clear and easy to listen to and follow the songs story about a girl who claims they are lovers which is a lie, at the end of the vocal lines through the verses Michael adds lib with trade mark “whoos” and “he he” in a high pitch. In the chorus the electric guitar becomes more prominent playing funky syncopated lines after the vocal sings “Billie Jean is not my lover, she is just a girl who says I’m the one” the bass still keeps to the same line.

Guitar solo is very similar to the verses but comes right up front and central in the mix using sixteenth note rhythms with the use of muted and fretted notes. The only time the bass changes is in the bridge and plays the root notes while trumpets play small five note phrases that ascend and descend.