Every October the same spooky song slips back onto the radio. You know the one. A jumpy little beat, a worried voice, and then that big nervous chorus about feeling like somebody is following you everywhere you go.
People have been singing along to it for more than forty years. Almost none of them know whose voice is carrying that chorus.
It’s Michael Jackson.
The song is “Somebody’s Watching Me,” and it came out in January 1984, right when Michael was the most famous person on the planet. It shot up to No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100. The only record keeping it from the top spot that winter was “Footloose.”
Here’s the strange part. Michael isn’t the billed singer. The name on the record is Rockwell.
One setup line before you hit play, because this is the chorus you already know by heart.
The 1984 music video, with Michael Jackson on that famous chorus
So who was Rockwell? His real name was Kennedy Gordy, and his father was Berry Gordy, the man who founded Motown and signed the Jackson 5 back when the brothers were kids. Kennedy didn’t want people saying he landed a record deal because of his famous dad. So he picked a stage name and kept his last name quiet.
That’s also how he knew the Jacksons so well. He grew up around them.
One afternoon Rockwell played the demo for the Jackson family at their house. Michael loved it right away, and he couldn’t stop pulling his brothers and sisters into the room to listen. Years later Rockwell told Rolling Stone exactly how Michael ended up on the track.
“I performed it about eight or nine times. Michael says, ‘Hey Rebbie! Hey Janet! You gotta hear this song Kennedy did.’ Every time we stopped the song, Michael called three more people down. Afterwards, Michael pulled me to the side and says, ‘Kennedy, I gotta talk to you for a second. Who are you going to get to sing background vocals?’ I said, ‘Why don’t you do it?’ It worked just like that.”
So it was Michael who brought up the backing vocals, and Rockwell just handed them to him.
Michael’s brother Jermaine is on the song too. He had his own tie to Rockwell. Jermaine was married to Rockwell’s sister Hazel.
There’s one more piece that makes the whole thing sweeter. Berry Gordy had heard an early version of the song and brushed it off. Then one day it came on the radio while father and son were together.
Rockwell remembered it like this. “all of a sudden, ‘Somebody’s Watching Me’ comes on and my father goes, ‘Aw, man, you did it! You did it, man!'”
Rockwell sat down and told the full story in his own words, and it’s worth hearing from the man himself.
Rockwell looks back on the song and working with Michael
Next time that chorus comes on this Halloween, listen close. That’s the King of Pop, hiding in plain sight on somebody else’s hit.