Song #59: Michael Jackson - "They Don't Care About Us"

Song #59: Michael Jackson - "They Don't Care About Us" (1995)

HIStory: Past, Present, and Future: Book I

"Kick me, kike me, don't you black or white me!"

Michael Jackson is a unique artist in my book because even his most mainstream hits - "Bad," "Beat It," and "Wanna Be Startin' Somethin'?" register as some of my top favorite songs by the man himself. However, the two that I've picked for this special blog series register as my absolute favorites. The first one on the deck is "They Don't Care About Us," a criminally underrated track that may serve more significance now than it did when it was recorded and released in 1995.

For starters, there are two versions of the song, one that was filmed in Rio De Janeiro, Brazil, emphasizing on the country's poverty and extreme poor, and another music video shot in prison and directed by Spike Lee. Both songs appear to be different in tone in some parts and bear different lyricism, with my favorite video being the one shot in prison. I feel that the prison video emphasizes the meaning of the song in a much stronger manner, and actually winds up putting a cold but recognizable identity to the song and its meaning.

The song concerns an angry, frustrated Jackson, who - in the prison version - is bearing a blue jumpsuit among dozens of other inmates with hulking guards at every corner. Jackson sings about how he has encountered a whirlwind of awful media attention, with the allegations of sexual abuse popping up in the media two years before this song's release, among the fact that the police and politicians of America don't seem to care anymore about the wellbeing of its people.

Agree or disagree with what Jackson is saying, this is a powerful song, clearly sung with rage and complete and total dissatification with "the system" and "the man" by Jackson. Unfortunately, "They Don't Care About Us" ranks as one of Jackson's least popular songs, never charting big, and receiving controversy for the alleged "antisemitic" comments Jackson makes in the song, from people who didn't understand the song and simply didn't want to. The personal effect this song on me is thin, being that I never lived in poverty - blessedly so - and never had to go through any strict or crippling oppression - again, blessedly so. However, this song falls in my second category for choosing songs for this blog, which is picking songs that, I feel, lack adequate recognition and deserve to be more acknowledged than the treatment they got so far. 

Give "They Don't Care About Us" (the prison version) a listen, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=97nAvTVeR6o