CHICAGO -- Superstar Michael Jackson sang, clapped and drummed a witness stand in court Thursday in a $5 million suit brought by a musician who says he -- not Jackson -- wrote the hit song 'The Girl Is Mine.'
'Yes, I wrote 'The Girl is Mine,'' Jackson told a six-member jury hearing the copyright infringement suit against CBS Records by Fred Sanford, 32, of Schaumburg, Ill.
Sanford said he wrote a song in 1981 called 'Please Love Me Now,' and gave a recording of it to a CBS Records promoter in March 1982. He said he was told the tape would be sent to California for possible use by CBS recording artists.
But he said 'Please Love Me Now' was stolen from him and turned into 'The Girl Is Mine.' Jackson is not a defendant.
Jackson's interior decorator testified in the courtroom jammed with spectators and reporters that she heard Jackson humming the tune from 'The Girl is Mine' while she was working at his California mansion in 1981 and that Jackson told her he was writing a duet to be recorded with Paul McCartney.
Sanford, who testified he tried to find out what happened to his song after giving CBS the tape, said he first heard 'The Girl is Mine' on a television program in December 1982.
Jackson, who was brought into the courtroom from a back entrance to avoid the throngs of people waiting to catch a glimpse of him, said he did not know the date the song was conceived.
'I don't have a good memory for dates,' Jackson, wearing a red-and-white checkered shirt with a white collar and no tie, told the jury and U.S. District Judge Marvin E. Aspen.
But he said the song from the album 'Thriller' was inspired by music producer Quincy Jones.
'It started with Quincy Jones asking me to write a song about two guys courting the same girl, and I thought about it and I came up with 'The Girl Is Mine,'' Jackson said.
'I woke up one morning and I had the melody and I put it on tape,' Jackson said.
'Thriller' was recorded for Epic Records, a branch of CBS, and has sold 30 million copies for $100 million, making it the largest selling record in history.
Jackson sang verses of 'The Girl is Mine,' clapped and drummed beats on the podium of the witness stand and CBS attorneys played demonstration tapes of the song for the jury. Two Jackson songs never recorded were also played as Jackson rocked and bounced in the stand.
Jackson, who said he does not read music, testified after taping the melody he added words and then instrumentation to the song.
'You don't write the song,' he said. 'The song does what it wants to do. Let the song tell you where it wants to go. You just don't force it. It works, or happens, without you really trying to think about it.'
