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“Muscles”

Date of “Silk Electric” album release is confirmed on “AllMusic” (archived)

Michael Jackson, from August 20, 1982 interview:

JACKSON: I just wrote, produced, and edited her next single, "Muscles."

COLACELLO: Did you write the lyrics, too?

JACKSON: Lyrics, music—I just finished that and it should be coming out at the end of the month.

COLACELLO: Where do you find the time to do all this writing?

JACKSON: On airplanes. I was coming back from England working on Paul McCartney's album (May 1981), zooming along on the Concorde, and this song popped into my head. I said, "Hey, that's perfect for Diana!" I didn't have a tape recorder or anything so I had to suffer for like three hours. Soon as I got home I whipped that baby on tape.

Michael Jackson, 1988 (Moonwalk):

“People often think the lyrics you're singing have some special personal significance for you, which often isn't true. It is important to reach people, to move them. Sometimes one can do this with the mosaic of the music melody arrangement and lyrics, sometimes it is the intellectual content of the lyrics. I was asked a lot of questions about ‘Muscles,’ the song I wrote and produced for Diana Ross. That song fulfilled a lifelong dream of returning some of the many favours she's done for me. I have always loved Diana and looked up to her. Muscles, by the way, is the name of my snake.”

Bill Wolfer, keyboardist, “Invincible” magazine (November 2014) (mirror) (archived mirror)

“Invincible”: You’ve worked on the Diana Ross "Silk Electric" album and more particularly on "Muscles". Could you please tell us more about your feelings about working with Diana Ross, anecdotes with Diana and Michael during this session, the recording work and stages of the creation process?

Bill Wolfer: Michael called me, told me he was producing a song for Diana Ross, and could I come play some synthesizer. Of course, I was happy to do it, I’d been a fan of hers from way back. Sadly, she wasn’t at the studio that day. It was Michael and I, the engineers, and Michael’s assistant, Nelson Hayes, and Muscles, Michael’s enormous boa constrictor. Yes, the song was inspired by, and named for his pet snake. For most of the session, Muscles was sleeping in this big pillow case, but then Michael got him out, and asked me if I wanted to hold him. This snake was so big and heavy, it took both Michael and Nelson to lift it up and drape it around my shoulders. It must have weighed close to seventy pounds. After a minute, the snake started squeezing my neck, getting a tighter grip on me. I told Michael, "Get this thing off of me!" They laughed, and took him off. They thought it was very funny, I wasn’t so sure.

As far as the work that day, I was coming in after the basic tracks had been laid, and overdubbing some synthesizer parts. As always, it was fun to work with Michael, but I remember that snake more than anything else.