The Girl Is Mine (with Paul McCartney)

This is a duet with Paul McCartney, one of three he and Jackson recorded together. As Jackson told it in his autobiography Moonwalk, when he first met McCartney in the '70s, Paul told him that he wrote a song for him called "Girlfriend." McCartney used the song on his 1978 album London Town, and Jackson included it on his 1979 Off the Wall album. The pair connected again when Jackson called McCartney on Christmas Day 1980 asking, "Do you wanna make some hits?" Jackson flew to London in the fall of 1981 where they wrote "Say, Say, Say" and began recording the song with producer George Martin. In December, with Jackson and Quincy Jones ready to start work on the "Thriller" album, they visited McCartney at his ranch in Tucson, Arizona and started working on a song Jackson wrote called "The Girl Is Mine," an experience Jones says was a lot of fun, as the song seemed tailor-made for the pair. They recorded the song together in April 1982 at Westlake Studios in Los Angeles, which was home base for the Thriller sessions. Around this time, they finished work on "Say Say Say," shot a video for the song, and recorded another duet called "The Man." "The Girl Is Mine" ended up on Jackson's Thriller album, released in November 1982; "Say Say Say" and "The Man" went on McCartney's album Pipes of Peace, released in October 1983. Jackson and McCartney remained good friends until 1985, when Jackson bought the publishing rights to most of The Beatles' songs, causing an intractable rift in their relationship. McCartney taught Jackson about publishing rights when they got together in 1981, and Jackson used this wisdom, along with his Thriller profits, to buy the songs McCartney coveted. Jackson said it was "just business," but McCartney saw it as a betrayal.

This was the first single released off the Thriller album. Although it was one of the weakest songs, it was released first because it was guaranteed airplay thanks to McCartney's contribution, and if they didn't release it first, radio stations would play it anyway and wear it out. Also, it was the first song completed for the album, which they were still working on. At the time, many big albums contained a song with a prominent guest vocalist to attract attention. Released ahead of the album, this song gave no indication that Thriller would become the best-selling album of all time.

The lyrics are mostly friendly banter about who has dibs on the girl. The song was a very safe choice as the first single, since it was very conventional and easy to understand. Jackson was afraid that if he released an edgy song like "Billie Jean" or "Beat It" first, people wouldn't give the album a chance.