You’ve probably sung it in the car. Maybe on a dance floor too, loud and a little off key.
“Annie, are you OK?”
It’s one of the most famous lines Michael Jackson ever sang. “Smooth Criminal” came out in 1988 on his “Bad” album, and that question has been stuck in people’s heads ever since. In the song, something has happened to Annie, and Michael keeps asking if she’s all right.
But who was Annie? Was she an old girlfriend, or someone Michael read about in the news?
The answer comes from a man who was in the room. Matt Forger was a recording engineer who worked on “Smooth Criminal” with Michael and producer Quincy Jones. An engineer is the person who runs the recording equipment and helps shape how a song sounds.
Forger sat down with interviewer Anthony Marinelli on his podcast and told the story. You can hear him explain it himself here.
Michael’s engineer Matt Forger explains where “Smooth Criminal” came from
So here’s the answer.
Annie was never a real woman. She was a CPR dummy.
“Annie is the name for if you take a CPR class,” Forger said. “Annie is the mannequin that you practice the process of CPR, so you’re not doing it on a human being.”
If you’ve ever taken a CPR class, you’ve probably met her. The doll was first sold as Resusci Anne, and in North America lots of people know her as “CPR Annie.” She was built in 1960 by a Norwegian toymaker named Asmund Laerdal, at the request of a doctor named Peter Safar.
And the famous line comes straight out of the lesson. Before you do anything else in a CPR class, you check whether the person can respond.
Forger explained it this way. “The principle of giving CPR is, here is someone in distress.” Then, “The first thing you need to do is evaluate, well, are they breathing?”
That’s the moment you lean over the doll and ask if she’s OK.
So how did Michael end up thinking about CPR at all? Forger says the Jacksons were offered CPR lessons while touring. They were on the road so much that someone suggested the whole group learn it.
“That catchphrase sort of stayed in his memory,” Forger said.
It’s a great reminder of how Michael’s mind worked. He could hear a plain phrase from a safety class and turn it into a hook millions of people would sing for decades.
Forger isn’t the first to share the link. Spike Lee’s 2012 documentary “Bad 25” first made the Annie and CPR doll connection public. The Canadian Red Cross even wrote about it on its blog: “Turns out Annie is based on the CPR doll, originally called Resusci Anne, or Annie.”
Now that you know, give the song another listen. It’s hard to hear that chorus the same way again.
Michael Jackson’s official “Smooth Criminal” video
And the next time you’re in a CPR class and the instructor tells you to check on the dummy, don’t be surprised if somebody in the room starts humming.