MICHAEL JACKSON may be best known for his voice and epic dance moves, just like the Moonwalk, many might not have realised he also wrote an excellent deal of his biggest hits.

Michael Jackson was truly a person of the many talents when it came to the humanistic discipline. He was taught to sing and dance as a toddler, making him the breakout star of his family band The Jackson 5. As he continued to excel in music, he also grew in one among his other talents: songwriting.

Michael Jackson did indeed write his own music, but not like all ordinary musician.

In fact, he composed whole songs in his head, before he even attempted to notate them.

From court documents reported by NME, Jackson said: “The lyrics, the strings, the chords, everything comes at the instant sort of a gift that's iron out into your head and that’s how I hear it.

“I’ll just sing the bass into the tape machine,” before he sang snippets of a melody.

He added: “I’ll take that bass lick and put the chords of the melody over the bass lick and that’s what inspires the melody.”

During this case, which saw songwriter Crystal Cartier take Jackson to court for plagiarism over his song Dangerous, Jackson even beat-boxed in court to point out how he writes his songs, explaining his writing process.

He explained further how he came to write down the song Billie Jean: “Listen, you’re hearing four basses on there, doing four different personalities, and that’s what gives it character, but it takes tons of labor.”


In the end, the judge ruled in favour of Jackson and his co-writers, Bill Bottrell and Teddy Riley, due to lack of evidence for Cartier’s claim.

Michael also claimed to seek out songs just ‘came to him’ in unexpected ways, as was recently posted on his Twitter.

As posted, Michael once said: “Songs come at the strangest times. I might be walking through a park and it’ll just hit you. ”

In his book Rhythm of the Tide, sound engineer Rob Hoffman described what it had been like working with Jackson, and the way he approached his songwriting.

He said: “One morning MJ came in with a replacement song he had written overnight.

“We called during a guitarist, and Michael sang every note of each chord to him.

“’Here’s the primary chord, first note, second note, third note. Here’s the second chord first note, second note, third note’, etc etc.

“We then witnessed him giving the foremost heartfelt and profound vocal performance, sleep in the room through an SM57.”

Sometimes, Michael would even enlist his siblings to assist him make music, as he often seen on the album Off the Wall.

On special edition discs, Michael appears together with his sister, Janet, as he's trying to record a demo of Don’t Stop Til You Get Enough.

They are at their home, and while siblings are messing around with instruments, Janet is becoming irritated together with her brother, and fans can hear them arguing as they ready themselves to record the song.

These home demos show how, even when he was young and living reception, Michael was thinking up music.

While songs like Thriller and Dangerous weren't written by him, or were only co-written by him, he solely wrote a number of his most loved songs like Billie Jean, Beat It, Wanna Be Startin’ Somethin’ and therefore the Way you create Me Feel, among others.

It has been estimated that Michael wrote quite 100 songs in his lifetime.