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"Streetwalker"

Date of recording confirmed in Joseph Vogel’s “Man in the Music” (archived) (“Jackson began the song with Bill Bottrell in July 1986… They returned to it that fall at Westlake Studio. By that time Jackson had written the lyrics and recorded a full vocal.”)

Michael Jackson, 1994 Deposition

Lawyer: Did your song “Dangerous” evolved of any previous song that you had composed?

MJ: Yes. I wrote the song for the “Bad” album called “Streetwalker” and it had driving bass melody, strong driving bass lick. [cough ] Sorry. That bass lick was taken by my engineer , cause I was kinda frustrated with this song in general. So he took the bass and put new cords to the bass melody, which is what inspired the song “Dangerous”.

...Well, usually when I write the songs I get I… I vocally, I orally use a melody into a tape recorder. And for instance with the song “Streetwalker” which has a driving bass lick that I just spoke about, which I’ll have a tape recorder and I’d just sing the bass part into that tape recorder. And for “Streetwalker” the bass melody went a [sings] And I’ve taped that bass lick and put the chords of the melody over the bass lick. And I… And that what inspires the melody or the other sounds that I’m hearing in my head, but that is the bass lick and I use the moog and a bass guitar to create that sound that I’m hearing in my head.

L: Mr. Jackson, by the way who is the engineer that took “Streetwalker” stripped it down to the bass, the bass lick.

MJ: Billy Bottrell.

...Okay, like I said before, I wrote the song “Streetwalker” and I wasn’t completely satisfied with it, I was frustrated that, you know, it wasn’t exactly what it should be. I have a lot of songs like that like kinda unfinished. And I… So I gave the song to Billy and he fooled around with it, he put some drum sounds and put it through, you know, computers and things. And he gave the tape back to me with the bass lick, the drums and everything on it. And I’d listen to it quite often and I liked what I’ve heard but it didn’t really have a melody yet, a vocal melody.

Mike Smallcombe, Making Michael

When Michael and Quincy were choosing the final tracklist, they had difficulty deciding between ‘Streetwalker’ and ‘Another Part of Me’, a song that was originally written for Captain EO. There was space for only one more song; Michael wanted ‘Streetwalker’, whereas Quincy preferred ‘Another Part of Me’.

Ultimately, it didn’t make a difference to Michael as he had written both of them, but a decision had to be made. Unable to agree, Michael and Quincy held a meeting with Frank DiLeo. When DiLeo heard ‘Streetwalker’ he remained in his seat, yet when ‘Another Part of Me’ was played he began to dance. “DiLeo helped me get ‘Another Part of Me’ because he started shaking his butt on it,” Quincy said. “I said [to DiLeo], ‘You’re not helping Michael at all’!” ‘Another Part of Me’ came out on top, and Matt Forger’s 1986 Captain EO mix was remixed for the album by Bruce Swedien.

...In 1988, as promised by Frank DiLeo a year earlier, Michael rehired musician and engineer Bill Bottrell. At this stage, Michael wasn’t entirely sure of the concept of his next project – he was still engaged in the Bad campaign, so Bottrell simply began experimenting at Smoketree Studio in the San Fernando Valley, while Michael was away on tour. It was here where Bottrell began experimenting with an unused song from the Bad sessions, ‘Streetwalker’.

“While Michael was on the Bad Tour he called and asked me to work on ‘Streetwalker’, which we had demo’d at Hayvenhurst and Quincy had produced for Bad, but which didn’t make the album,” Bottrell said. “So I was at Smoketree, all set up, starting from scratch on ‘Streetwalker’ and I fooled around with sounds and samples.”

Using ‘Streetwalker’ Bottrell wrote the music for another song Michael would eventually record. He made a simple demo and then sent it to Michael, who liked it but wasn’t sure what to do with it. “I wasn’t completely satisfied with it, I was frustrated that it wasn’t exactly what it should be,” Michael said. “I have a lot of songs like that, that are kinda unfinished. So I gave the song to Billy, and he fooled around with it, put some drum sounds [on it], and put it through computers and things, and he gave the tape back to me, with the bass lick, and the drums, and everything on it. And I would listen to this quite often, and I liked what I heard, but I didn’t really have the melody yet, a vocal melody.” Eventually, the melody would come.

Bill Bottrell, studio engineer, “Gearslutz” forum (July 20, 2009) (archived)

There was also "Streetwalker", a true orphan, I made that track while MJ was on tour for Bad. Holed up at Smoketree for a couple weeks, played all the stuff, and my friend Jasun Martz came and played the blues harp solo, when I sent it in Michael said, "Billy that harmonica is ignorant!" (and not in a good way) I wrote the whole thing off until noticing a week ago that they released it! As is.