Beat It (versions)

Starting a new kind of post on this site: music that helps with the targeting situation, in my opinion. Most will be YouTube links. The criterion is whatever lives at the intersection of something I keep coming back to and something that does work on the inside of this experience that I can't do for myself unaided. Some will be obvious; some won't.

Michael Jackson's "Beat It" is one of the most direct hold your ground when bullies come at you songs in popular music — no one wants to be defeated. The original (below) makes the anti-escalation message palatable as a #1 pop hit; the covers gathered after it transpose the same lyric into registers the polished version glides past — some that slow it down into resolve, some that speed it up into fight-energy, some that step off the intensity axis entirely.

Original — Michael Jackson, 1982

The source. From Thriller (1982), with the 1983 music video that turned an LA back-alley knife-fight setup into choreography — actual gang members and dancers in the same frame, the threat-confrontation literally converted into something else in real time. The lyric in its most-recognized form: no one wants to be defeated, it doesn't matter who's wrong or right. The original's particular trick is making the anti-escalation message palatable enough to be a #1 hit — the kind of cultural-level alchemy the covers below can't quite replicate even when they reach registers the polished version doesn't.

Darkwave cover — female vocalist

The first version I put forward when this post went up. Slowed down into a brooding, female-vocal arrangement that, for me, lands harder than the bouncy pop version. The original asks you to dance the threat away. The darkwave version asks you to stand still and stare it down — same lyric, opposite physical posture.

Heavy metal AI cover — Records4Fun

An AI-generated heavy metal version — algorithmic transposition rather than a human reinterpretation, which is its own register worth naming as it shows up. The song already had Eddie Van Halen's guitar solo doing real work in the original arrangement; this version takes that already-rock-coded element and pushes it all the way into proper metal. Where the darkwave cover slows the song down into resolve, this one speeds the aggression up into combat-ready energy. For the days when the honest response is not stillness but actual fight.

8-bit Mega Man style remix — Chips 'N Cellos

Chiptune treatment of the song in the style of NES-era Mega Man — the 1982 song reframed as the soundtrack to an 8-bit underdog who keeps respawning against impossibly bigger bosses and never gets to give up. A different register from the darkwave and metal versions: instead of asking the lyric to land with weight or fury, this one asks it to land with the lightness that lets you keep going. Game music for the long-haul ground-the-bosses-down attitude. Same lyric, different posture — sometimes lightness is the move.

All of these are alchemy. Whichever one fits the day is the one that fits the day. More versions as they come up.