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"Girlfriend"

Date range confirmed in Mike Smallcombe’s “Making Michael” (“The main sessions began in early December of 1978… Another song Michael and Quincy chose to record was written by Paul McCartney. [(“Girlfriend”)]... Michael was forced to leave the studio in January 1979 to begin rehearsing with his brothers for their forthcoming Destiny Tour, which was due to kick off in the German city of Bremen on January 22.”)

Michael Jackson, “Melody Maker” magazine (March 1, 1980)

“There’s a great coincidence that happened on that album. You know, the Paul McCartney song I did, ‘Girlfriend’? The first time I met Paul McCartney was on the Queen Mary, and then I met again at a party he throw at Harold Lloyd’s estate here in L.A. Him and Linda came up to me and said, ‘We wrote you a song’ and they started singing, “Girlfriend, da-da-dee-dee-dee-dee.” I said, ‘Oh, I really like it, when can we get together?’ So he gave me his Scotland number and the number in London, but we never got together on the whole thing. The next I noticed it he had the song on his “London Town” album. Then one day I went to Quincy’s house and he said, ‘You know what’s great a song for you? This McCartney song called “Girlfriend”.’ I just flipped out.”

Michael giggles at the symmetry of success.

“Paul McCartney sent me a telegram not too long ago raving over how much he loved mine better than his, and now I’m going to be doing some things on his next album. We’ll write a couple of songs together as a team – that’s one of my next projects after the Jacksons album in March. If I sing, that’ll be nice, but that’s up to him because it’s his album.”