What do you do when one of the best-loved musicians of your childhood morphs into a bizarre, apparently mentally-disturbed accused child molester? We asked a handful of students about their favorite MJ song, and whether his ongoing child-molestation trial taints the experience. The consensus, perhaps predictably, was “no.” For some reason, “Beat It” appears to be Harvard’s favorite Jackson song—is it because of the song’s alienation fantasy or sexual innuendo?

Timothy S. Galebach ’06

“I hear ‘Beat It’ and I still get excited, maybe it’s because it was in Zoolander a couple of years back. We’ve all been so used to him being so weird for so long, like, since I was born. I always thought it was just assumed that he was a pedophile.”

Alp Gunduz ’07

“I like ‘Beat It’. I really don’t remember the names of any other songs...if you’re a non-native [English] speaker, you’re more likely to remember the words if they’re repetitive. When I was in kindergarten we used to dance and jump around to Michael Jackson. In Turkey [where I grew up] he’s just taken as a joke…as long as he doesn’t touch my child, I don’t care.”

Laura E. Stafford ’07

“I liked ‘Beat It’ –it’s a good dance song. The trial doesn’t really enter my mind because it seems like there’s a big disconnect between what he was in the eighties and who he is now. I don’t know why people care so much about him now, I guess it just seems so bizarre that it’s drawn people in.”

Jamie Renne Smith ’08

“I used to be a big ‘Billie Jean’ fan, but ‘Beat It’ has been growing on me. I think it’s because it’s easy to snap to, and the whole dancing-as-fighting thing...About the trial...I’m not one to say that being inappropriate makes you a criminal. I just always thought he was an asshole because of the way he bought the rights to the Beatles’ catalog.”