“Every time we recorded it, he cried.”
That’s how Quincy Jones, the producer who made “Off the Wall” and later “Thriller” with Michael Jackson, remembered one song in particular. It was a slow, sad ballad called “She’s Out of My Life.” It’s about a man who has lost the woman he loves and can’t stop thinking about where it all went wrong.
Michael didn’t write it. A songwriter named Tom Bahler did, after a painful breakup of his own. And it wasn’t meant for Michael at all.
Quincy had been holding on to the song for Frank Sinatra.
Then, in the late 1970s, a young Michael asked Quincy to produce his next solo album. Quincy thought about that ballad sitting on his shelf. He wanted to hear Michael, who was just 20, sing something with real adult feeling in it. So instead of saving it for one of the most famous voices in the world, he gave it to Michael.
The songwriter reportedly wasn’t sure at first. He’d pictured someone older, a man who had lived a little. Quincy talked him into it.
Then they went into the studio, and something kept happening.
Michael would sing the whole song beautifully. But every time he got to the end, the feeling caught up with him. Quincy would look up, and Michael would be in tears.
They stopped. Quincy’s idea was simple. They’d take a break and come back in two weeks, when maybe the song wouldn’t hit him so hard. It didn’t work. Two weeks later, the same thing happened all over again.
Michael later wrote about it in his own book, “Moonwalk.” He said the words suddenly had a strong effect on him, and that he’d been letting so much build up inside.
So Quincy had a choice to make about that final line. You can hear exactly what he decided.
Michael sings “She’s Out of My Life”
This film was made around the time the album came out, with Michael sitting alone on a stool and a single spotlight behind him. The man who directed it reportedly said he was worried Michael was going to break down for real while they were filming.
Listen closely to the very last few seconds. Quincy decided to keep it. The catch you hear in Michael’s voice on that final line is real, and it stayed on the record.
“She’s Out of My Life” came out as a single in April 1980. It went to No. 10 in America and No. 3 in Britain. With it, Michael became the first solo artist ever to land four Top 10 hits in the US from a single album.
He kept singing it on stage for years after that, on tour after tour. Fans still say it’s one of the most honest songs he ever recorded.
And it almost belonged to Frank Sinatra.