MattyJam;4077899 said:
It should be interesting to hear Chicago 1945 which is supposedly another song which morphed into SC. It seems SC had a number of early versions and working titles. And to think, MJ said he almost didn't include it on the final album. Can you imagine hearing a song of SC's calibre as an outtake in 2015?
Chicago 1945 is not early version of Al Capone or Smooth Criminal. It is completly different song, it was stated by Steve Porcaro.
"After the Thriller album came out, during the Victory tour (or maybe right before it) Porcaro submitted a few grooves to Michael. Sometime later MJ called Steve and told him that he wanted to do something with one of them. Apparently, he had gone to the library and read on Chicago of the 1930s-40s, and that’s how he came up with an idea for the song. He and Porcaro met and recorded nine straight vocal takes for what would become “Chicago 1945.”
Of course, it’s impossible to describe music in text, but here are five things you need to know about “Chicago 1945”:
– The song is completed musically an vocally and perfectly releasable as is;
– It has no connection to “Al Capone” or “Smooth Criminal” (another myth) – a completely different and separate song;
– The lyrics tell a story about (three?) girls who went out at night and disappeared;
– It’s a catchy song. Not the level of greatness of “Billie Jean” or “Beat It,” but a solid groove. The hook (“Never to be found again… never to be found again”
was stuck in my head for 3 days after we had heard it;
– As the song was playing, I was trying to find another MJ song to compare it to. The closest I could come up with was “Behind the Mask” – the song is in the same tempo, and even the composition seemed somewhat similar to me. Although I think “Chicago 1945” is sung in a lower key – Michael’s voice is not as resonant as in “BTM.”
The sad thing is that everybody could have heard it by now if only the record label had been willing to do right by it. Porcaro was approached about the song for Xscape album, but he didn’t give his permission to use it. “It seems songs are going straight to remix these days,” he told us. It was obvious this approach didn’t sit well with him. And while a fan in me would have loved to be able to buy the song and have it in my collection, I felt nothing but respect for Porcaro’s position. I thought that as a musician and a songwriter, he must understand how much the integrity of a song means to the artist. And as a colleague of Michael, he undoubtedly knows how much Michael cared about his compositions. “Less is more” was a principle he, too, cited as very important for MJ and Quincy. “Chicago 1945” is a great song that certainly doesn’t need any “contemporizing” and deserves to be heard and appreciated in its own right."