Remember the Time

"Remember The Time" was the second single released from Michael Jackson's highly anticipated album Dangerous, the follow-up to Bad four years earlier. The song was written and composed by Teddy Riley, Michael Jackson and Bernard Belle. It was an attempt at connecting Riley's smooth New Jack Swing sound with Jackson's more earthy R&B. It's a pretty anodyne breakup song, with Jackson asking an ex-lover (over and over) to remember the special times they had together.

This won the 1993 Soul Train Award for Best Male R&B Single. Jackson, who was laid up with a severely twisted ankle, gave a memorable performance of the song at the awards show in a chair.

The lavish video, set in ancient Egypt, was directed by John Singleton and starred Eddie Murphy, Magic Johnson, and the Somali fashion model Iman, who married David Bowie in 1992. In the video, Iman plays the object of desire, and while Jackson had leading ladies in previous videos, including "Thriller" and "The Way You Make Me Feel," this was the first time he shared a kiss on screen. Jackson always seemed a bit reluctant to kiss in public; at the 1994 MTV Video Music Awards he tried to placate fans by very publicly kissing his new bride, Lisa Marie Presley. Magic Johnson's private struggles had just become public. Director Singleton remembered to Rolling Stone: "Magic Johnson was going through his thing where he'd just revealed he had HIV. Michael said, 'We have to put Magic in this video.' I'll always remember that."