remembering the king of pop

This may seem like an unlikely choice for a "memorial" but at the ripe old age of 8, this song rocked my face off. Free Willy came out the day before my eighth birthday, and I remember getting it on VHS that following Christmas. The feature presentation was preceded by this video, and I used to dance to it a lot with my brother.

Now that I'm a mature adult with 5 kids, mortgage payments and a Twitter account, I can see that Michael Jackson had one of the largest influences on western music since the British Invasion - and that Free Willy is hardly where that influence comes from (this is just track 11 on Dangerous). However, in the world of Ben Rucker, killer whales impossibly jumping 30 feet into the air following a dramatic key change is the definition of influence.

Salana... Eyuong... Ayessis!