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"Superfly Sister"

Date range assessed by the fact that “in the summer of 1990, Michael finally decided to shelve the Decade project in favour of an album of new material, due to an avalanche of song ideas… When young producer Bryan Loren began working with Michael, he hoped to return to the ‘organic’ feeling of Off the Wall and Thriller. The pair recorded more than 20 songs together, including ‘Men in Black’, ‘Superfly Sister’, ‘Verdict’, ‘Call it Off’, ‘Truth on Youth’, ‘Stay’, ‘Fever’, ‘Serious Effect’, ‘To Satisfy You’, ‘Work That Body’, ‘She Got It’ and ‘Seven Digits’... By late 1990, Michael had been working on new music for 18 months, but he still wasn’t satisfied with the sound of some of the material… Michael identified another young producer, Teddy Riley, as the man who would be able to bring that sound to the project… Michael chose to include the sexual ‘Superfly Sister’ [in the ‘Blood on the Dance Floor’ album], which was recorded with Bryan Loren during the Dangerous sessions.” (Mike Smallcombe, “Making Michael”)

Bryan Loren, co-writer, “Myspace” blog (July 11, 2009) (archived)

We actually did the finishing work on ‘Superfly Sister’ from ‘Blood On The Dance Floor’ a few years after I’d already done the track, as this was a song that I started writing during the ‘Dangerous’ sessions. Which made me feel it was always possible that we might revist some of the other music we’d started all that time ago.

Chris Cadman’s “Michael Jackson the Maestro”

‘That song has always been one of my favourites,’ said Loren, recalling Superfly Sister. ‘Michael and I produced it fifty-fifty. Michael wrote the lyrics by himself but I came up with the title. I remember giving Michael a tape with the basic track, from there we wrote the melody together. A few days later, Michael came back with the lyrics to the song, and we basically recorded it right away.’

Personal “Facebook” post, from Chris Cadman’s “Michael Jackson the Maestro”

I got the title for Superfly Sister from one of my favorite Heatwave songs, Super Soul Sister.

The groove on this track is a little left of center. But, that's what I wanted to do with Michael. I wanted to get outside of the box. Much of the material we never got to finish was written along the same thread. He wrote the lyric and recorded most of his vocals in one day. He was, as I'm sure most would imagine, very proficient and a quick study in the studio. We worked very well together. And we always had a great time. That huge handclap in the breaks before the chorus?

A sample (with almost no effect on it) of Michael in the bathroom at Record One Studios.