Michael Jackson’s Bahrain Lost Songs

The most expensive Michael Jackson song was never finished and you will never hear it. According to the Guardian, Sheikh Abdulla bin Hamad al-Khalifa, the second son of the king of Bahrain, spent a total of $7m on Michael Jackson back in 2005, and $2.2m solely on the Hurricane Katrina charity single he attempted to write with the pop star. However, as this is often the case with Michael Jackson, the story ended up with a lawsuit.

In 2005, when he was defending himself against charges of molesting 13-year-old Gavin Arvizo, Michael Jackson had become the shadow of himself. His brother Jermaine, who was a regular in Bahrain after he converted to Islam in 1989, introduced Jackson to Abdulla who was a big fan, and the king of pop ended up spending almost a year in Bahrain. At the time, his health was deteriorating, and his reputation in the US was at the image of his health and finances: a complete disaster. Jackson, who had not changed his over-the-top spending habit, had a staggering $272.5 million personal loan that was costing him $4.5 million in monthly interest. Meanwhile, he was offered everything in his adopted country: the best producers, songwriters, and instrumentalists were brought to Bahrain at Abdulla’s expense, a state-of-the-art recording studio was built, a new company 2 Seas Records was created…

However, nothing was enough. Jackson continued to be in a serious depressive state, he was even hiding, ashamed of his weight loss, and his private life was a mess, fighting no fewer than 47 lawsuits at the same time. Despite all the efforts to put the star back on his feet, Jackson left the country and never came back. He never turned up for the last recording session and the song ‘I Have This Dream’ was never completed.

This was not even the only song in the work. In November 2008, when Abdulla sued Jackson in London’s high court, two other Abdulla-co-written songs, ‘Light the Way’ and ‘He Who Makes the Sky Gray,’ were mentioned in the case. We will very probably never hear them: it’s a loss for die-hard fans but something tells me these Michael Jackson’s Bahrain lost songs are the best thing that could have happened to the king of pop’s legacy.