Hall & Oates vocalist Daryl Hall recently spoke about meeting Michael Jackson while recording a charity song and stated that Jackson confessed he stole one of his songs to write ‘Billie Jean.’
Daryl Hall is mainly known for his work with his band Hall & Oats. Aside from the work he has done with the band, he also established a solo career during which he released five albums. Hall released six singles that became number one in the US charts, and one of those popular singles is ‘I Can’t Go for That (No Can Do),’ released in 1981.
When Michael Jackson released his hit single named ‘Billie Jean‘ from his sixth studio album, ‘Thriller,’ in 1982, the song gained huge success. It reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100, topped the Billboard Hot Black Singles chart within three weeks, and became one of Jackson’s fastest-rising number one singles. Due to its popularity, rumors about the song being stolen started swirling around.
While some resembled the song to the Jon and Vangelis song ‘State of Independence,’ many thought it also had an uncanny resemblance to Hall & Oates song, ‘I Can’t Go for That (No Can Do).’ The song’s originator, Daryl Hall, revealed an unknown truth about his single and Jackson’s legendary hit in a recent appearance on the Out of the Box show.
He stated that the worldwide known popstar Michael Jackson came to him during the recording of ‘We Are the World’ in 1985. Jackson told him that he stole ‘Billie Jean’ from ‘No Can Do.’ Hall was perfectly okay with the situation and was nice because he thought it was alright to be inspired, especially because two songs don’t sound similar, according to Hall.
Hall’s encounter with Jackson follows:
“Yeah, that was true too. That happened at the ‘We Are the World’ session. You know, he came up, and he said, ‘Hey man, I hope you’re okay with that. I stole ‘No Can’t Do’ for ‘Billie Jean.’ And I said, ‘It doesn’t sound like ‘No Can Do’ to me, sure, no problem!’ But he was really nice about it.”
‘We are the World’ was a charity song from the USA to Africa written by Michael Jackson and Lionel Richie. They collaborated with 45 singers to create the song and reached considerable success by becoming the eighth best-selling physical single of all time. Michael Jackson spilled the secret when these well-known singers came together, but Hall was not mad about it.
You can watch the full interview and listen to the songs below.
