Peak
1
Weeks
32
Score
5,585
Chart Year
1983
The music video for "Beat It" helped establish Jackson as an international pop icon.[9][39] The video was Jackson's first treatment of black youth and the streets. Both "Beat It" and "Thriller" are notable for their "mass choreography" of synchronized dancers, a Jackson trademark.[40] The video, which cost Jackson $150,000 to create after CBS refused to finance it,[36][41] was filmed on Los Angeles' Skid Row—mainly on locations on East 5th Street[42]—around March 9, 1983. To add authenticity to the production but also to foster peace between them, Jackson had the idea to cast members of rival Los Angeles street gangs Crips and Bloods.[43] In addition to around 80 genuine gang members,[41] the video, which is noted for opening up many job opportunities for dancers in the US,[44] also featured 18 professional dancers and four breakdancers.[45] Besides Jackson, Michael Peters, and Vincent Paterson, the cast included Michael DeLorenzo, Stoney Jackson, Tracii Guns, Tony Fields, Peter Tram, Rick Stone and Cheryl Song.[39][46][47] The bar location shown in the latter part of the first minute of the video was also featured 13 years earlier in the gatefold and on the back cover of the Doors 1970 album, Morrison Hotel.[48] Coincidentally, the name of that skid row bar, the Hard Rock Café, was also the inspiration for the London original of the famous chain of restaurants begun in 1971.[49] The video was written and directed by Bob Giraldi, produced by Ralph Cohen, Antony Payne and Mary M. Ensign through the production company GASP. The second video released for the Thriller album, was choreographed by Michael Peters who also performed, alongside Vincent Paterson, as one of the two lead dancers. Despite some sources claiming otherwise, Jackson was involved in creating some parts of the choreography.[43] Jackson asked Giraldi, at the time already an established commercial director but who had never directed a music video,[50] to come up with a concept for the "Beat It" video because he really liked a commercial Giraldi had directed for WLS-TV in Chicago about a married couple of two elderly blind people who instead of running from a run-down neighborhood all the other white people had fled from, chose to stay and throw a block party for all the young children in the area. Contrary to popular belief, the concept of the video was not based on the Broadway musical West Side Story; in reality, Giraldi drew inspiration from his growing up in Paterson, New Jersey.[43] The video had its world premiere on MTV during prime time on March 31, 1983;[51][52] neither "Beat It" nor "Billie Jean" were, as is often claimed,[52][53] the first music video by an African-American artist to be played on MTV.[54] Soon after its premiere the video was also running on other video programs including BET's Video Soul, SuperStation WTBS's Night Tracks, and NBC's Friday Night Videos. In fact, "Beat It" was the first video shown on the latter's first ever telecast on July 29, 1983.[55] The video opens with the news of a fight circulating at a diner. This scene repeats itself at a pool hall, where gang members arrive and the song begins to play. The camera cuts to Jackson lying on a bed as he contemplates the senseless violence. Jackson notices rival gangs and leaves. Michael Jackson dons a red leather J. Parks brand jacket and dances his way towards the fight through the diner and pool hall. A knife fight is taking place between the two gang leaders in a warehouse. They dance battle for an interlude of music until Jackson arrives; he breaks up the fight and launches into a dance routine. The video ends with the gang members joining him in the dance, agreeing that violence is not the solution to their problems.[39] The video received recognition through numerous awards. The American Music Awards named the short film their Favorite Pop/Rock Video and their Favorite Soul Video. The Black Gold Awards honored Jackson with the Best Video Performance award. The Billboard Video Awards recognized the video with 7 awards; Best Overall Video Clip, Best Performance by a Male Artist, Best Use of Video to Enhance a Song, Best Use of Video to Enhance an Artist's Image, Best Choreography, Best Overall Video and Best Dance/Disco 12". The short film was ranked by Rolling Stone as the No. 1 video, in both their critic's and reader's polls. The video was later inducted into the Music Video Producer's Hall of Fame.[36] The music video of the song appears on the video albums: Video Greatest Hits – HIStory, HIStory on Film, Volume II, Number Ones, on the bonus DVD of Thriller 25 and Michael Jackson's Vision.
Eddie Van Halen played the guitar solo on "Beat It." He did it as a favor for Quincy Jones and was not paid, unless you count the two six-packs of beer brought into the studio. Eddie connected to Quincy through Ted Templeman, who was Van Halen's producer and friends with Jones. It was good timing because Eddie's bandmates were out of town, so they couldn't give him any static for taking on another project. He figured nobody would ever know it was him on the record. According to Eddie, he had the engineer restructure the song to accommodate his solo, then blasted out two takes. Jackson showed up after the second take and was thrilled that Eddie cared enough about the song to rework it. Eddie told CNN: "He was this musical genius with this childlike innocence. He was such a professional, and such a sweetheart." When Van Halen's 1984 album rose to #2 in America for three weeks in March 1984, it was held off the top spot by Thriller. Part of Jackson's legacy was his crossover success with white audiences, something many Motown artists achieved, but Jackson took to a new level. He was the first black artist to get regular airplay on MTV, and this song helped expand his audience further by bringing in some of the Van Halen listeners. "Beat It" was a key track in Jackson's rise to superstardom. Jackson wrote this song. He came up with it when his producer, Quincy Jones, encouraged him to write something like "My Sharona," which was a huge hit for The Knack in 1979. (Confirmed in Q: The Autobiography of Quincy Jones.) The lyrics are about life on the streets and gang activity, something Jackson was very detached from. He was schooled by tutors his whole life and became a star at a young age, so his interpretation of "two gangs coming together to rumble" was based on the celluloid interpretations that he'd seen, specifically West Side Story, which used gangs as musical art. West Side Story was a 1957 musical that was made into a popular movie in 1961. Starring Natalie Wood and Rita Moreno, the film won several Academy Awards, including Best Picture. Some of the first dialogue heard in the movie - in a scene where some gang members have encroached on rival territory - is the emphatic line, "beat it." The lyric, "Show me how funky and strong is your fight" is often misheard as something you can't say on the radio. That line also has the distinction of being misquoted on one of the most popular sitcoms of the era, when Mallory on Family Ties (Justine Bateman), demonstrating her idea of good music to her hippie parents, sings, "Show me what's funky, show me what's right..." About 2:45 into the song, there is an audible knocking noise just before Eddie Van Halen starts his guitar solo. Rumors were that an angry and drunk Eddie made the noise, that he was telling the assistant producer to f--k off, or that it was the sound of his guitar tremolo being bent. The truth is more mundane, as it was an intentional sound created by Michael Jackson banging on a drum case. On the Thriller credits, Jackson is listed on "Beat It" as "Drum Case Beater." Michael Jackson is quoted in Rolling Stone magazine's Top 500 songs issue as saying of this, "I wanted to write the type of rock song that I would go out and buy. But also something totally different from the rock music I was hearing on Top 40 radio." This won 1983 Grammy Awards for Record of the Year and Best Rock Vocal Performance. The music video for this song was one of the most popular and memorable of the MTV era. Jackson became the first black artist to get regular airplay on the network when "Billie Jean" went in rotation. When the clip for "Beat It" was delivered, both videos were in hot rotation for much of the summer of 1983. It was Bob Giraldi who directed the clip, which featured real gang members. Giraldi, who later directed the infamous Pepsi commercial where Jackson's hair caught fire, said in the book I Want My MTV: "Everybody says 'Beat It' was taken from West Side Story. It's not true. I had no idea what West Side Story was. My inspiration was the streets of Paterson, New Jersey, where I'm from. I listened to the song over and over, and realized it was about all the Italian hoodlums I grew up with - everybody trying to be tougher than they are, but really, we're all cowards at heart." Giraldi adds that Jackson asked to use members of the rival gangs Bloods and Crips as extras in the video, which they did. He says that on the first day of shooting, things got a little tense, so Giraldi had them shoot all scenes with the gang members on the first day. When Jackson reunited with his brothers for two shows at Madison Square Garden, Slash from Guns N' Roses played guitar during the performance of this and "Black And White." Weird Al Yankovic did a parody of this song called "Eat It." Rick Derringer played the guitar solo on his version. Yankovic also did a video for his song where he appeared dressed like Jackson but with a voracious appetite. Yankovic says that Michael Jackson had a great sense of humor and gave him permission to do the parody. This gave him validation with other artists who had a hard time declining a parody when Michael Jackson said yes. Members of the group Toto played on this: Steve Lukather on lead guitar, Steve Porcaro on synthesizer, and Jeff Porcaro on drums. These guys were seasoned studio pros and had the hot sound - the album Toto IV was one of the best sellers of 1982. The US Department of Transportation used this in messages to discourage drunk driving. In exchange, Jackson was invited to the White House where he met President Reagan. Jackson showed up in his sequined suit and sunglasses, which made for an interesting photo with the president. Fall Out Boy recorded this in 2008 for their album ****: Live in Phoenix. Their version, which hit #19 in the US, was first performed this during the 2007 MTV Music Video Awards. Excluding tracks that sample any of Michael Jackson's songs, it became the second highest-charting remake of a Jackson song in Hot 100 history. The highest-ranked cover of a Jackson original was SWV's 1993 medley of "Right Here/Human Nature," which peaked at #2. In this cover of "Beat It," John Mayer joined Fall Out Boy, performing Eddie Van Halen's part on lead guitar. Fall Out Boy released a video for the song that contained many allusions to Michael Jackson and the original video. Quincy Jones said that when he called Eddie Van Halen to play the guitar solo, "I said, 'I'm not going to tell you what to play, the reason you're here is because of what you do play…' So that's what he did. He played his ass off." Eddie's signature sound, which is evident on the solo, incorporates tapping on the fretboard. He built his own guitars and developed his own style, so getting him on "Beat It" meant the song would have a guitar section distinct from anything heard outside of a Van Halen record. It also brought his innovative technique to the ears of pop fans. "The technique of tapping the fingerboard had been around for decades, but it was sparsely practiced, and almost always as a novelty," Guitar Player editor Jas Obrecht explained. "Eddie brought finger tapping into mainstream rock'n'roll. He spread the gospel of tapping even further with his solo on Michael Jackson's 'Beat It,' which was heard by millions of people around the world. And credit where credit is due: the distinctive rhythm guitar on that song was played by Steve Lukather." Eddie Van Halen recalled: "Everybody (from Van Halen) was out of town and I figured, 'who's gonna know if I play on this kid's record?' I didn't want nothing. Maybe Michael will give me dance lessons someday." (Source of above two quotes Q magazine August 2009). This was featured in the 1989 film Back To The Future 2. According Rod Temperton, who wrote the title track to Thriller, a mystery blaze broke out in the control room as Eddie van Halen played his guitar solo. "Eddie was playing and the monitor speakers literally caught on fire," recalled Temperton to
They told him, "Don't you ever come around here Don't want to see your face, you better disappear" The fire's in their eyes and their words are really clear So beat it, just beat it You better run, you better do what you can Don't want to see no blood, don't be a macho man You want to be tough, better do what you can So beat it, but you want to be bad Just beat it, beat it, beat it, beat it No one wants to be defeated Showin' how funky and strong is your fight It doesn't matter who's wrong or right Just beat it, beat it Just beat it, beat it Just beat it, beat it Just beat it, beat it (ooh) They're out to get you, better leave while you can Don't want to be a boy, you want to be a man You want to stay alive, better do what you can So beat it, just beat it (ooh) You have to show them that you're really not scared You're playin' with your life, this ain't no truth or dare They'll kick you, then they beat you Then they'll tell you it's fair So beat it, but you want to be bad Just beat it, beat it, beat it, beat it No one wants to be defeated Showin' how funky and strong is your fight It doesn't matter who's wrong or right Just beat it, beat it, beat it, beat it No one wants to be defeated Showin' how funky and strong is your fight It doesn't matter who's wrong or right Just beat it, beat it, beat it, beat it Beat it, beat it, beat it Beat it, beat it, beat it Beat it, beat it, beat it Beat it, beat it, beat it Beat it, beat it, beat it, beat it No one wants to be defeated Showin' how funky and strong is your fight It doesn't matter who's wrong or right Just beat it, beat it Beat it, beat it No one wants to be defeated Showin' how funky and strong is your fight It doesn't matter who's wrong or right Just beat it, beat it, beat it, beat it No one wants to be defeated Showin' how funky and strong is your fight It doesn't matter who's wrong or right Just beat it, beat it, beat it, beat it No one wants to be defeated Showin' how funky and strong is your fight It doesn't matter who's wrong or right Just beat it, beat it Beat it, beat it
| Week | Chart Date | Position | Points |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Feb 26, 1983 | 78 | 48 |
| 2 | Mar 5, 1983 | 65 | 61 |
| 3 | Mar 12, 1983 | 44 | 82 |
| 4 | Mar 19, 1983 | 24 | 102 |
| 5 | Mar 26, 1983 | 15 | 111 |
| 6 | Apr 2, 1983 | 14 | 112 |
| 7 | Apr 9, 1983 | 10 | 116 |
| 8 | Apr 16, 1983 | 5 | 121 |
| 9 | Apr 23, 1983 | 2 | 124 |
| 10 | Apr 30, 1983 | 1 | 125 |
| 11 | May 7, 1983 | 1 | 125 |
| 12 | May 14, 1983 | 1 | 125 |
| 13 | May 21, 1983 | 2 | 124 |
| 14 | May 28, 1983 | 3 | 123 |
| 15 | Jun 4, 1983 | 6 | 120 |
| 16 | Jun 11, 1983 | 6 | 120 |
| 17 | Jun 18, 1983 | 11 | 115 |
| 18 | Jun 25, 1983 | 11 | 115 |
| 19 | Jul 2, 1983 | 16 | 110 |
| 20 | Jul 9, 1983 | 24 | 102 |