Introduction:
Michael Jackson’s “This Is It” carries a story that stretches far beyond its posthumous release. Behind the song stands a surprising creative connection—one that links the King of Pop to Paul Anka, the legendary songwriter and performer whose career began more than half a century earlier.
When audiences first encountered “This Is It” in 2009, the circumstances surrounding the song immediately gave it a special significance. Released after Michael Jackson’s death, it became associated with the final chapter of an extraordinary career. Yet the history of the composition actually began decades earlier, during a collaboration that few listeners would have expected.
The story reaches back to 1983, when Jackson and Paul Anka worked together on the song. At that time, Jackson was already becoming one of the most important figures in popular music, while Anka represented an entirely different generation of American entertainment.
Anka had first become famous as a teenager with “Diana,” the 1957 hit that established him as a major young star and songwriter. His career subsequently evolved across generations, encompassing songwriting, recording, performing, and collaborations with some of the most influential artists in popular music.
That made his connection with Jackson particularly fascinating.
The two musicians came from dramatically different musical eras, yet their creative paths crossed while working on a composition that would remain largely unknown to the public for years. What began as a collaboration in 1983 eventually resurfaced under circumstances neither artist could have anticipated.
More than two decades later, “This Is It” returned to the spotlight following Jackson’s death in 2009.
The timing transformed the song’s meaning. Listeners were no longer hearing it simply as another recording associated with Michael Jackson. It had become part of a posthumous body of work, inevitably viewed through the lens of an artist whose career had ended unexpectedly.
Yet behind the emotional response was an intriguing piece of musical history: the song had been created when Jackson was still alive and working alongside a songwriter whose own career stretched back to the earliest days of the rock-and-roll era.
The story did not end with Jackson’s release.
In 2013, Paul Anka revisited the composition by including “This Is It” on his album “Duets,” this time adding his own vocals. His interpretation created another chapter in the song’s remarkable journey, bringing Anka’s voice directly into a piece of music he had helped create decades earlier.
Suddenly, one composition connected three distinct moments in popular music history.
There was the original collaboration in 1983, when Jackson and Anka first worked on the song. There was the 2009 release that introduced it to a new generation in the aftermath of Jackson’s death. And then there was Anka’s 2013 return to the composition, three decades after their original creative encounter.
Few songs possess such an unusual timeline.
“This Is It” therefore stands as more than a Michael Jackson recording. It is also a reminder of how musical collaborations can outlive the circumstances in which they were created. A song can remain dormant for years, cross generations, and eventually acquire meanings its creators could never have predicted.
For Jackson, it became part of his final musical legacy. For Anka, it became a bridge between his remarkable early career and a later chapter of his artistic life.
And for listeners, the song offers an unexpected meeting point between two generations of musical history—Michael Jackson and Paul Anka, connected by a composition that took thirty years to reveal the full story behind it.