If Drink Don't Kill Me, Her Memory Will (The 100 Most Depressing Songs of all Time!)

99.     Song;  BEN

          Who’s to Blame; Michael Jackson

          Worst Lyric: “I’m sure they’d think again, if they had a friend like Ben.”

          Chart Position; U.S. (no1) U.K. (no.7)

          Heartbreak Rating 0/10 – It’s hard to get distraught over a piece of vermin.

Only the late Michael Jackson could make a love song about a rat and get away with it. Let’s face it, the king of pop has had a flair for the peculiar most his adult life, so it shouldn’t really have come as a surprise when he wrote an ode to a big dirty rat in the early seventies.

Multi-talented but a flawed genius, Jackson had been performing professionally for almost half a decade before topping the charts for the first time as a solo artist in 1972 with “Ben”. It would be used as the theme song to the film of the same name.

“Ben” was actually a sequel to the movie “Willard” – a 1971 low budget flick about a killer rat which starred 157 year old Ernest Borgnine (he’s been around since our Lord’s time, so he was probably only about 96 making this movie.)

The most disturbing thing about the king of pop however was not the numerous trails he faced, the skin pigmentation that changed him from black to white, or the fact he was a walking advertisement for the salvation army in the way he dressed, no, it’s the fact he never wrote a song as tender and loving about a woman the way he does about a filthy piece of vermin.

“Billy Jean” was a tramp, whilst “Dirty Diana” was, well, dirty.

Not a rat though, as the lyrics confirm.

When you’re starting a song by saying “Ben the two of us need look no more, we both found what we’ve been looking for”, you know the next 3 minutes are going to be just as disturbing.

Michael goes on to say Ben’s been running here and there, feeling he’s not wanted anywhere (and this surprises you Michael!)

“Most people want to turn you away, so I don’t listen to a word they say” (you will when rabies kicks in), and on and on until Jackson does everything but take out an engagement ring to make this creepy union complete.

Despite the disturbing lyrics and the possible union of man and rat, “Ben” was a huge hit for the then 14 year old American. Already a superstar in his family outfit, “Ben” topped the U.S. Billboard charts in August of 1972, whilst breaking the top ten in the U.K a month later.

 It gave the Indiana born child protégé the first of 13 solo number 1 hits and would be the launching pad for a monumental solo career which would see him sell over 750 million records worldwide.

Not bad for a career which started by professing his undying love for a rat.

Useless Trivia No.962 – The art cover on the original pressings of “Ben” depicted Jackson above a crowd of people fleeing a large army of rats. Motown removed the cover as they reckoned it might scare off young listeners and their parents.

These days just a picture of Michael (minus the rats) would have the same effect.