Hear The Demo Version Of Michael Jackson’s Hit ‘Thriller’ [Video]

When Micheal Jackson was preparing to enter the studio to record what became the greatest selling album of all time, 'Thriller', some of the songs sounded dramatically different.

One of those was the title track, which was not about ghouls and demons and love found watching horror movies, but was instead an ode to lying out under the stars called 'Starlight'.

The song was written by Rod Temperton, and had many working titles prior to be changed to 'Thriller'. He recalled the story in an interview with Britain's Telegraph newspaper:

Originally, when I did my Thriller demo, I called it Starlight. Quincy said to me, 'You managed to come up with a title for the last album, see what you can do for this album.' I said, 'Oh great,' so I went back to the hotel, wrote two or three hundred titles, and came up with the title 'Midnight Man'. The next morning, I woke up, and I just said this word... Something in my head just said, this is the title. You could visualize it on the top of the Billboard charts. You could see the merchandising for this one word, how it jumped off the page as 'Thriller'.

Some of the lyrics from the lyrics from the original version include:

We need some starlight starlight sun
There ain't no second chance we got to make it while we can
You need the starlight some starlight sun
I need you by my side you give me starlight starlight tonight yeah

They're out to get you there ain't no .. you're acting like a fool
Love can possess you and make you see that ..
High in the night this magic's gonna keep us close together, yeah
We'll start to fly cause this is the beginning of your life
This is the night

I think you can see why he changed them.

Would the album had done as well if it was entitled 'Starlight', hard to say, because the opening single, 'Billie Jean' had already carried the album to new heights before the title track was released, but we would have been deprived of the classic video starring Michael and Playboy playmate Ola Ray, featuring those dancing zombies.

And where would we all be without the chilling spoken word ending by the ghoulish late Vincent Price? Worse off, I would imagine.