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"You Are My Life"

Date range confirmed in Mike Smallcombe’s “Making Michael” (“In mid-September”)

Mike Smallcombe, “Making Michael”

In mid-September, the recording of Invincible took a late, unexpected twist. At the very last minute, Michael decided to alter the tracklist by recording a new song, ‘You Are My World’, which John McClain had written together with Carole Bayer Sager and Babyface. Once the ballad was played for Michael, he fell in love with it and wanted it to be included on the album. Sager admitted her surprise. “I was shocked when I heard he was using it, I thought by then the album was shrink wrapped and ready to go,” she said. But Michael only had a few days to record the song – it had to be mastered by the end of the week in order to be included on Invincible.

Engineer Jon Gass recalls the last minute rush. “On the Monday afternoon I got a call from the Babyface camp, asking if I could mix the song,” he said. “We had such a tight deadline, because we had to go to mastering at 8am on the Thursday morning. So I went to Babyface’s personal studio in Los Angeles, Brandon’s Way, but there was nothing I could do. They were still cutting everything, including the musical track and the vocals. The next day I started getting some bits and pieces, drums, bass, acoustic guitar; basic stuff that Babyface had been playing. On the Wednesday the strings, arranged by Bill Meyers, were recorded at Capitol Studios. Later that night, at around 1am, I finally got Michael’s vocals.”

Although Gass was in the same building as Michael, he rarely saw him as he was recording in another area of the studio. “He liked his privacy when he was recording,” Gass said. “With the album going to mastering only a few hours later, I only had seven hours to mix the song, do or die. It is tough when you get the vocals that late and have so little time. It was a long night!” At 7am the next morning, the mix was complete.

“At 8.30am I got a personal call from Michael, he thanked me for staying up all night and doing the mix, and he was very grateful,” Gass recalls. “He is the only artist I ever got a call from like that. He was happy with the mix, and said it was brilliant. He really loved that song and was so happy it could get done and go on the album.”

Michael changed the lyrics from ‘You Are My World’ to ‘You Are My Life’, and received a writing credit in the process. The song wound up replacing the Teddy Riley track ‘Shout’ on the final tracklist.