Michael Jackson's latest inspiration: poet Robert Burns? :: Books Culture Music News :: Articles

Michael Jackson’s career is taking yet another inexplicable turn as news of his most recent project hits the public. According to friend and contributor David Gest, Jackson spent the last year recording an album, using the poetry of Scottish national bard Robert Burns as lyrics.

Gest, who was once married to Liza Minnelli, told the Daily Record, “Our favourite poet in the world is Robbie Burns. Michael and I were originally going to do a musical on his life with Gene Kelly directing and Anthony Perkins as executive producer—but they both died.”

Poems that made it into the collection include “Ae Fond Kiss” and “Tam O’Shanter.” Gest apparently did a Burns-themed tour of Scotland during the research process, where he cited the highlight of his trip: "I felt like I was a little kid looking for all those things Burns wrote about and the curator let me lay on the bed Burns slept in at his family home. The alarm went off. It was really surreal because Michael and I think of him as one of the most brilliant minds ever."

David Baird, president of the Southern Scottish Counties Burns Association reported that he was “incredulous” at this news. He’s happy that an artist is bringing Burns’ work to a modern audience, but fears that the attempt will make the venerated cultural icon “look silly.”

"The idea of turning Burns's tunes and songs, which he carefully collected, into 'show tunes' just kind of grates a wee bit," he told the BBC.

Burns has been a popular topic in UK news recently, as Scottish nationalists and academics were outraged when Newsnight journalist Jeremy Paxman dismissed the poet as “no more than a king of sentimental doggerel” in his introduction to the new edition of Chambers Dictionary.

Robert Burns lived in the late eighteenth century and is most familiar to the American audience because he penned the New Years’ anthem "Auld Lang Syne," our version of which is, of course, translated. Burns originally wrote in Scots, defined by the Scottish Language Centre as the “traditional Germanic language of Lowland Scotland and the Northern Isles.”

We can ponder the translation dilemma, together with the prospect of Michael Jackson trying to replicate Scots pronunciation in song, while enjoying what is reportedly his next undertaking: the celebrated Highlands tune “A Red, Red Rose.”

O my luve is like a red, red rose
That's newly sprung in June;
O my luve's like the melodie
That's sweetly played in tune.
As fair art thou, my bonny lass,
So deep in luve am I;
And I will luve thee still, my dear,
Till a' the seas gang dry.
Till a' the seas gang dry, my dear,
And the rocks melt wi' the sun;
I will luve thee still, my dear,
While the sands o' life shall run.
And fare thee weel, my only love,
And fare thee weel, awhile!
And I will come again, my love
Tho' it were ten thousand mile.