Leave Me Alone

THE STORY BEHIND ' Leave Me Alone '

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This song is unique because it wasn't on the original vinyl album, it was the "hidden" gem that incentivized fans to buy the new CD format. The story below details the "Wacko Jacko" rumors that inspired the lyrics, the groundbreaking collage video, and Michael’s war against the tabloids.

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When Bad was released in 1987, the music industry was in the middle of a technological revolution. Vinyl records and cassette tapes were still the standard, but the Compact Disc (CD) was trying to take over.

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To encourage fans to buy the more expensive CD players and discs, record labels started adding "CD Exclusive" bonus tracks. "Leave Me Alone" was Michael’s incentive. If you bought the LP or cassette, the album ended with "Smooth Criminal." But if you bought the CD, you were rewarded with this angry, infectious funk masterpiece as Track #11. It was a brilliant marketing move that helped push the CD format into the mainstream.

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To understand the lyrics of "Leave Me Alone," you have to understand the media storm of 1986-1987. This was the era when the tabloids turned on Michael Jackson. They stopped treating him like a musician and started treating him like a circus freak.

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Three specific rumors dominated the headlines, all of which Michael satirizes in the music video: Tabloids claimed Michael tried to buy the skeletal remains of Joseph Merrick (The Elephant Man) to display in his home.

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2. A photo surfaced of Michael sleeping in a hyperbaric oxygen chamber. The press claimed he slept in it every night to defy aging and live to be 150. (In reality, he was just testing it out for a burn center he had donated to).

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4. Rumors spread that he had built a religious shrine to Elizabeth Taylor in his bedroom.

Michael was hurt and furious. He felt trapped by these lies. "Leave Me Alone" was his first direct counter-attack. It was the precursor to later angry songs like "Scream" and "Tabloid Junkie."

 

A Double Meaning On the surface, the lyrics sound like a standard breakup song. Michael sings about a girl who is "playin' with his life" and how he "don't want it." "There was a time I used to say / Girl I promise that I'll never let you go / But then you had to go and spoil it..."

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However, most critics and fans agree that the "girl" in the song is a metaphor for the Media or the Public. The relationship between Michael and the public had soured. He had given them everything ("promised I'll never let you go"), but they had "spoiled it" with invasion of privacy. When he screams "Leave Me Alone" in the chorus, he isn't shouting at an ex-girlfriend; he is shouting at the photographers camped outside his house.

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Musically, "Leave Me Alone" is dense. Produced by Michael and Quincy Jones, it features layer upon layer of vocal harmonies. Michael stacked his own voice dozens of times to create the chorus, giving it a thick, wall-of-sound effect.

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The synthesizer groove has a "vintage" quality to it. Unlike the sharp, digital sounds of "Bad" or "Smooth Criminal," this track has a rolling, almost psychedelic feel. The chord progression is relentless, looping over and over to create a sense of paranoia and claustrophobia, mirroring Michael’s mental state.

 

A Masterpiece of Animation While the song was a hit, the music video is what made it legendary. Directed by Jim Blashfield, the video uses a surreal style of animation called "collage stop-motion."

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Blashfield took photographs of Michael and objects, cut them out, and animated them frame-by-frame. The result is a bizarre, dreamlike carnival. In the video, Michael rides a rollercoaster through a landscape of his own rumors:

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• He dances with the Elephant Man’s bones (mocking the rumor).

• He sleeps in the oxygen tank (mocking the rumor).

• He sees a shrine to Elizabeth Taylor (mocking the rumor).

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The video ends with a powerful image inspired by Gulliver’s Travels. Michael is a giant, tied down to the ground by tiny ropes (representing the press). Eventually, he stands up, breaking the ropes and destroying the carnival city that was built on top of him. It was a visual declaration of independence.

 

The video was so innovative that it won the Grammy Award for Best Music Video, Short Form in 1990. Ironically, despite winning 8 Grammys for Thriller, this was the only Grammy Michael Jackson won for the Bad album (which many critics felt was snubbed in the major categories).

 

"Leave Me Alone" was released as a single in Europe and Australia, where it became a massive #1 hit (specifically in the UK and Ireland). It was not released as a commercial single in the US, but it received heavy airplay on MTV.

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The song marks the end of Michael’s "innocent" phase. Before this song, he was the polite, shy superstar. With "Leave Me Alone," he drew a line in the sand. It showed a harder, more cynical side of Michael that would become more prominent in the 90s. It stands as a funky, defiant middle finger to the tabloid press.