Money was tight for the Jackson family in Gary, Indiana, in the 1960s, and as a little kid Michael Jackson may actually have seen kids starving in the street. Jackson founded the now-defunct Heal the World Foundation in 1992, and since his death has been recognized for a legacy of charitable giving. In 1985, Jackson's "We are the World," recorded with Lionel Richie and a slew of other stars, served as the centerpiece for a large fundraising effort against poverty in Africa. Jackson donated proceeds from sales of the "Man in the Mirror" single to a camp for children with cancer, and ticket sales from one of the shows on the Bad tour went to an organization working against child abuse.
And whatever his other motives may have been, Jackson was known for being active in his charitable giving and involvement with social justice. The "Man in the Mirror" video makes it clear that Jackson wanted to connect the song explicitly in fans' minds with themes of racial justice, civil rights, and the problems of poverty. A child star with the Jackson 5 from 1969 on, Jackson had become, by the late 1980s, "The King of Pop": he was a superstar about as high profile as any singer, ever. It's hard to know what's inside a man's soul, but there's no question that the Jackson family, and especially the superstar Michael, was well situated to make social statements. So did Jackson mean it when he said it was time to look in the mirror and make that change?
There's no denying the earnest message of "Man in the Mirror": improve yourself, improve the world… or "be the change you wish to see in the world," if we want to borrow the common bumper-sticker phrasing (which is actually, of course, a famous saying of Mahatma Gandhi's).īut how sincere, really, was Michael Jackson in singing this ballad of social change? After all, MJ didn't pen the words the song was actually written by backup singer Siedah Garrett and producer Glen Ballard. It features a montage of clips of children in Africa, Adolf Hitler, the Ku Klux Klan, Martin Luther King Jr., the Kent State shootings, Mother Teresa, Mahatma Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, Lech Wałęsa, kids in Graduation, and other historical figures.From its very first line, "Man in the Mirror" isn't very subtle in delivering its social message: it's time for each of us to "make a change" in the world we live in. Larry Stessel who was Video Commissioner at Epic Records at the time was the Executive Producer. Don and Michael Jackson developed the idea for the video. The "Man in the Mirror" music video was directed, produced and edited by Don Wilson.
The song was remixed for the soundtrack of Jackson's tribute tour Immortal. The song peaked at number 21 in the UK Singles Charts in 1988, but in 2009, following the news of Jackson's death, the song peaked at number 2. It was nominated for Record of the Year at the 31st Grammy Awards. The vocal range is A♭3–C6."Man in the Mirror" topped the Billboard Hot 100 for two weeks, becoming Jackson's tenth number-one single on the chart, and was certified 3x Platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). Arranged with a gospel choir, the song is played in the keys of G major and A♭ major at a tempo of 100 bpm. It was released in February 1988 as the fourth single from his seventh solo album, Bad (1987). "Man in the Mirror" is a song recorded by Michael Jackson, with lyrics and music by Glen Ballard and Siedah Garrett, and produced by Jackson and Quincy Jones.