Songoftheday 9/12/13 - I found my happiest days when you came to see your grandma in May, I bumped into you by the corner store I told you that you sure looked good...

Michael Jackson - "Farewell My Summer Love"
from the album Farewell My Summer Love (1984)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #38 (two weeks)
Weeks in the Top-40: 3

Today's Song of the Day is by the hottest act of the 80's, Michael Jackson, who by the summer of 1984 had ended his amazing string of seven top-10 hits from his nine-track mega-successful album Thriller, ending with the title track which went to #4 in March of that year. With a vacuum of demand for Jackson music while he was between solo albums and before his next project with his family (coming up really soon here), his former record label Motown released a compilation of unreleased recordings he made with them between 1971 and 1973, remixed and revamped to sound "current". The title track from Farewell My Summer Love, originally laid down during the sessions for his Get it Together album for the Jacksons, was written by Kenny St. Lewis, and released just in time for the season...

"Farewell My Summer Love", even though it was a "oldies"-style release, did really well (no surprise, considering the artist), reaching the top-40 on the American pop and soul charts (#37) in June of 1984. The easy-going track even did better on the adult-contemporary radio panel, peaking at #20 on Billboard's format chart. But by far the single did the best in England, topping out at #7 there, doing better than his last four singles from Thriller.

While the record was in no way in the league as the Thriller hits, as a period piece, it's quite enjoyable, with a nice flashback to Michael's more "innocent" and earnest years as a singer. And it plays nice and breezy coming out of radio speakers on the beach.

(Click below to see the rest of the post)


...and here's the original mix of the record from 1973...

Up tomorrow: Who're you gonna call?