Ben — A Love Song to a Rat — Michael Jackson

THE FACT

Michael's first solo #1 single, at age fourteen, was a tender ballad — sung directly to a killer rat. Ben was the title song of the 1972 horror sequel to Willard, about a lonely boy who befriends a colony of murderous rodents. Michael loved the song so much he kept his own pet rats for years.

WHAT MOST DON'T KNOW

The song was written by Don Black and Walter Scharf, and was first offered to Donny Osmond — who turned it down because he was on tour and couldn't make the recording session. Berry Gordy gave it to Michael, who recorded the vocal in one take. The Academy Award nomination for Best Original Song made fourteen-year-old Michael the youngest male solo artist ever nominated for an Oscar in that category at the time. The track stayed at #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 for a single week before being knocked off by Chuck Berry's My Ding-a-Ling. Michael later said in his autobiography that he found the unlikeliness of the love song's subject 'the whole point — it's about loving who you love, not about looking right'. He kept rats, snakes and a llama at the Hayvenhurst family compound through his teens.

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THE MOMENT

Michael Jackson — Ben (Live, 1972) — His first solo #1 — a fourteen-year-old singing to a film about killer rats.

SOURCES

Ben (song) — Wikipedia ↗