The Truth About Michael Jackson's Stranger In Moscow

A ballad about a man merely trying to have his voice heard while by being crucified by the press.

“Stranger in Moscow” exemplifies Michael Jackson not as ‘The King of Pop,’ but simply as a man in a foreign land disconnected from the world.

“Stranger in Moscow” was written in a hotel room in Moscow, possibly between September 13–16, 1993, while Michael was on his Dangerous World Tour. The song would be released as the final single off the HIStory album in November, 1996. It is perhaps Michael’s most personal song, as his lyrics are direct and in the first person.

“Stranger in Moscow”

“I was wandering in the rain
Mask of life, feelin’ insane
Swift and sudden fall from grace
Sunny days seem far away
Kremlin’s shadow belittlin’ me
Stalin’s tomb won’t let me be
On and on and on it came
Wish the rain would just let me”

The opening verse speaks of a “mask of life,” a clear reference to isolation and despair which so often accompanies fame and fortune. Michael’s “fall from grace” refers to how the pop-star would be ridiculed, victimized and deemed a criminal by the press once the allegations of child abuse broke in 1993.

Up until this point, Michael was at the height of his success and in the midst of his record-breaking Dangerous World Tour. In response to the allegations, Michael recorded a statement from his Neverland Ranch which was televised worldwide on December 22, 1993. Of the media’s damaging treatment Jackson stated:

“I will say I am particularly upset by the handling of this mass matter by the incredible, terrible mass media. At every opportunity, the media has dissected and manipulated these allegations to reach their own conclusions. I ask all of you to wait to hear the truth before you label or condemn me. Don’t treat me like a criminal, because I am innocent.”

Michael has always had an indifferent relationship with the media. As he would suggest later in his career, “The bigger the star, the bigger the target.”

In an interview with Barbara Walters in Paris, 1997, Michael declared he disliked the name ‘Wacko Jacko’ — a name the mainstream and tabloid press often used from the mid 1980s:

Wacko Jacko — where’d that come from? Some English tabloid. I have a heart and I have feelings. I feel that when you do that to me. It’s not nice. Don’t do it. I’m not a wacko.

However, with the allegations directed at Michael in the summer of 1993, the media now had ammunition for a full character assassination despite the fact a police officer stated to the LA Times:

“No evidence (medical, photographic or video) could be found that would support a criminal filing.”

The media before 1993, were already invasive of Michael’s privacy, relationships and his changing physical appearance, as Michael suggested in “Leave me Alone”, but once the allegations were in the public domain, the mainstream and tabloid media went on the attack:

The New York Post on its front-page declared, Peter Pan or Pervert? August 23, 1993.

Newsweek on its cover page questioned of Michael, Is He Dangerous or Off the Wall? September 6, 1993.

Time stated, Michael Jackson: Who’s Bad? September 6, 1993.

As the remainder of the Dangerous World Tour was canceled, Michael retreated from the public eye in late November of 1993, in an attempt to end his drug dependency. Michael released an audio statement to the press:

“I was humiliated, embarrassed, hurt and suffering great pain in my heart. The pressure resulting from these false allegations, coupled with the incredible energy necessary for me to perform caused so much distress that it left me physically and emotionally exhausted. I became increasingly more dependent to the painkillers to get me through the days of the tour."

However, the media gave no sympathy to Michael whose emotional and physical health was at risk. Instead, the embattled star became the subject of taunts and ridicule:

The Daily Mirror held a “Spot the Jacko” contest which offered readers a vacation to Disney World. News of the World ran the headline, Hunt for Jacko the Fugitive. The Sunday Express headline read, Drug Treatment Star Faces Life on the Run.

How Does ‘It’ Feel?

In the chorus of “Stranger in Moscow,” Michael repeatedly asked the listener, “How does it feel?” What Michael is referring to is a question he has been asked so many times:

How does it feel to have the biggest selling album of all time? How does it feel to be admired by so many? How does it feel to be wealthy and famous? How does it feel to be so talented? How does to feel, Michael asks, “When you’re alone and you’re cold inside.”

“Here abandoned in my fame
Armageddon of the brain
KGB was doggin’ me
Take my name and just let me be
Then a begger boy called my name
Happy days will drown the pain
On and on and on it came
And again, and again, and again…
Take my name and just let me be”
Michael suggests it all means nothing when you feel isolated, disconnected and alone.

“Just Let Me Be”

Deemed a criminal, a forsaken man, Michael repeatedly asks the media to separate his celebrity persona from his true self. Michael is asking for privacy and for the public and media to understand that behind his image he is a man.

“Stranger in Moscow” concludes with lyrics spoken in Russian. The lyrics spoken by an unnamed individual lend to the feeling of paranoia, despair, fear and isolation of “Stranger in Moscow”, a ballad about a man merely trying to have his voice heard while by being crucified by the press.

Credits: MJ Beats

Singers Invoke Feelings From Handel’s Messiah In New Song

Although “More Than Wonderful” by written by Lanny Wolf is not new, it has been given a makeover that takes it beyond what it was.

Lyn Liechty and David Whitley have joined forces to create a powerful recording of this song that captures an amazing depth of emotion. The music comes alive for the listener. The duo plans to release their song on Nov. 15 in time for Christmas music season.

"More Than Wonderful," is a Christian song that celebrates the glory and love of Jesus Christ. Liechty and Whitley have managed to take this song to new heights. The masterful orchestration and arrangement by Emmy Award-winning composer Lendell Black provides sweeping strings, powerful drums, and flawless piano and keyboards. Liechty and Whitley blended their vocal performances with masterful expression and dynamic emotion. They arrange their vocal lines to weave around each other and come together in a blaze of strength and passion. The listener is left with what can be described as a powerfully moving experience, creating an almost tangible connection to the Holy Spirit. These vocals and emotions remind listeners of the same emotions found in Handel’s Messiah.

This recording has everything listeners could want. It was done in Dolby ATMOS by two of the best in ATMOS mixing and mastering, Grammy Award-Winner Rob Russell of Sweetwater, and the Grammy Award-Winner Dale Becker. The extra special touch of the ATMOS mix puts listeners seemingly inside the song with the music and vocals enveloping all around them.

“It is a deeply moving and beautifully emotional recording, and is a must for everyone to experience,” said Liechty. “My prayer is this song will find its way to those who need to hear it. There is a healing effect to it. I think we all could use that in these challenging times.”

The song is available via download on all major music platforms in Dolby ATMOS and standard versions. The duo also is looking for radio stations to air the song.

EVIL🔞: "Gloomy Sunday" The Song That Caused Suicides

If you're under 18 then this isn't for you

“Gloomy Sunday,” came to existence during one of history’s bleakest moments. Written in 1933 by Hungarian pianist and composer Reszõ Seress against the backdrop of the Great Depression and an increasing fascist influence in Hungary, and originally recorded in 1935 by Pál Kalmár, the song is something of a plea for mercy as humanity is at its worst. Seress’ original published lyrics were titled “Vége a világnak,” or “The World Is Ending,” and reflected a growing sense of horror and despair at the state of the world. A key sample lyric translates to “Meadows are coloured red with human blood/There are dead people on the streets everywhere,” just to give a frame of reference for the level of darkness that Seress’ composition harbored. No wonder it’s been blamed for anywhere between 17 and over 100 suicides.

To hear “Gloomy Sunday” is to be blanketed in tragic beauty. The song’s minor key melody is at once incredibly catchy and ominously dark, crafted to evoke a sense of despair that transcends language. While Seress’ song became an international hit, eventually being recorded by Billie Holiday in what’s now probably the most famous version of the song, one need only hear the emotion in Kalmár’s gently aching voice to know the pain behind the verses. (Not to mention the vintage crackle of the nearly 90-year-old song gives it a particularly ghostly quality.) Yet its origins stem from something as simple as a breakup, Seress having written the song after the end of a relationship. That the song delved so deep into such harrowing personal feelings initially proved to be an obstacle for the songwriter in his attempt to have it published. One publisher reportedly said, “there is a sort of terrible compelling despair about it” about his reluctance to publish the song.

And yet, in spite of this, “Gloomy Sunday” eventually became a hit. More than that, it became a standard, recorded in many languages by countless artists, including Billie Holiday, Sinead O’Connor, Mel Tormé and Sarah Vaughn. But to hear the lore about the song, it’d seem to have some kind of sinister power over the people who hear it. It’s not even corporeal, but it has a massive body count. Some of the various accounts of its supposed, morbid misdeeds include: a shoemaker whose suicide note quoted the song; a girl in Vienna drowning while holding its sheet music; a man who shot himself after telling loved ones the song wouldn’t leave his head; a woman in London who overdosed while listening to “Gloomy Sunday”; sheet music was found in the apartment of a shopkeeper in Berlin who hanged herself—the list goes on, and those are only the apocryphal accounts that have managed to live on in the near-century since the song came into being. It’s a merciless fiend of a song, almost supernatural, like the video in The Ring you see before you die. Which, perhaps, makes my repeated listens to the song over the past week ill-advised. If it did, in fact, cause the carnage attributed to it.

Because of the epidemic of suicides in the aftermath of the song’s release, and possibly because of it, Hungarian authorities supposedly discouraged broadcast of the song. A more extreme version of the song was that it was banned, and an even more extreme one yet was that it was even banned in the US and UK, where its popularity spread. None of this, at least according to Snopes, can be corroborated, but it’s entirely understandable if broadcasters and the government were a little on edge because of what they were hearing. And to be fair, it is a mournful song. Gloomy, even! It’s not at all surprising to hear that deathrock icons Christian Death later covered it or, for that matter, doom metal band Pallbearer, whose version is actually quite stunning. But it does take a certain frame of mind to hear this song and not feel a sense of dread. “Terrible compelling despair” doesn’t seem at all exaggerated in describing the song, though that doesn’t mean it’s bad. It’s quite pretty, and its earliest versions, particularly in the original Hungarian, are utterly haunting.

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In some sense, the monstrous stories about “Gloomy Sunday” wreaking havoc seem to be a distraction from the genuine sadness surrounding the song. The landscape in which it was released was one of the darkest of the 20th century, as prosperity declined and iron-fisted hateful authoritarians rose. And we’re in a landscape now, globally, that mirrors the era in too many ways. And Hungary, up through the ’80s, had one of the highest suicide rates of any country in the world, which suggests that “Gloomy Sunday” was merely a reflection of the despair that surrounded it, rather than its cause. Most tragic of all, however, Seress himself dying after jumping off of a building in Budapest in 1968, which makes it the sole concrete connection among all of the stories out there. (There is also a story about the woman who broke up with him, initially inspiring the writing of the song, dying herself after hearing it, though there’s no evidence or documentation of this, just secondhand telephone games with the dead.)

Given all the baggage that “Gloomy Sunday” carries, it’s a song that’s easier to analyze than enjoy. Can one simply listen to a song that’s supposedly such a powerful, overwhelmingly dark presence without context. Can it be enjoyed for what it is? It can, possibly. But with the flood of information that’s already been disseminated, there’s more context than song, at this point. In 2019, it can’t be separated from its reputation as “The Hungarian Suicide Song,” for better or for worse. To hear it, however, it’s impossible to shake the lingering eerie feeling that it leaves with you. Beware of its hitchhiking ghosts.

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