I've never stopped playing the albums, never stopped listening to the words. I am 43 now and when Shabooh came through my MTV back in 82, is when I became addicted. Compare all you want. Michael was a stark and unique individual. He didn't just wear his heart on his sleeve, he tore it out and held it there for us to take a little piece of. His presence on stage, his words and his voice as instrument, all instantly moved me. I was 20 in 82, on the verge of conquering my own little world, my bounds limitless. INXS became the soundtrack to my life. Songs of people relating, the most poignant of two people relating. I think about a song like Mediate and I think how one song can link so many types of human beings, and The Stairs, and how humanity is one large living breathing body, where we all are connected to each other, however lightly or remotely. Connected. We should never have let one so eloquent and passionate about his relationship to his loved ones and to his fans and his world, slip though our fingers.
I've moved on, but no other music has affected me the way INXS has, no other voice has filled my head and felt so much like my own. I've battled my own set of demons in my time and survived them, and now have a wife and 3 lovely teenage daughters to thank for getting me through. Michael's voice and words, captured on disk, preserved for all time, still get through, still make my heart soar. Keep me young. I can't say I will never stop envying that soul who slid through my TV set in 1982 and found a place in my heart back then. Who I dreamt of trading places with many times in those 15 years. Every time I grab the microphone on karaoke night in a small smoke filled bar, I think I should've taken that chance when I was 16 and my friends thought I had an OK voice. But I was too shy to expose myself, expose my heart, my soul like that. Like Michael did. But staying who I did, allows me to keep on enjoying his art, and enjoy it, God-willing, for a very long time.
Thank you Michael. You are always by my side.
Ron Barras Jr.
Philadelphia
I've moved on, but no other music has affected me the way INXS has, no other voice has filled my head and felt so much like my own. I've battled my own set of demons in my time and survived them, and now have a wife and 3 lovely teenage daughters to thank for getting me through. Michael's voice and words, captured on disk, preserved for all time, still get through, still make my heart soar. Keep me young. I can't say I will never stop envying that soul who slid through my TV set in 1982 and found a place in my heart back then. Who I dreamt of trading places with many times in those 15 years. Every time I grab the microphone on karaoke night in a small smoke filled bar, I think I should've taken that chance when I was 16 and my friends thought I had an OK voice. But I was too shy to expose myself, expose my heart, my soul like that. Like Michael did. But staying who I did, allows me to keep on enjoying his art, and enjoy it, God-willing, for a very long time.
Thank you Michael. You are always by my side.
Ron Barras Jr.
Philadelphia