Friday 26 April 2013

Did you know?... The story of "Behind the mask"

"Behind the mask" was one of the unreleased songs on the last Michael Jackson´s record, and that´s the reason many people thinks it´s written by him, big mistake.

This song was originally written in 1978 by  Ryuichi Sakamoto for his techno pop band "Yellow Magic Orchestra" almost instrumental, with no lyrics at all except some at the chorus.

How this track got his way to Michael Jackson? Thanks to Greg Phillinganes, keyboardist than during the 80's was playing with many artists like Eric Clapton or Michael Jackson. He released his own version with some lyrics that sounded like this:

When touring with Eric Clapton, Greg Phillinganes used to sing that song, and Eric Clapton decided to record his own version, that you can listen in this video with Mark Knopfler and Elton John:




Michael Jackson also recorded his version when working with Greg Phillinganes, but never got to release it. After his death, as usual with the music industry, many unreleased material sees the light of day, like his own version of "Behind the mask"