Michael Jackson's biggest selling UK single was a song about the environment

By Mary Vincent - Follow on Twitter @MaryVincent

Earth Song was Michael Jackson's biggest selling single in the UK – over a million copies sold and six weeks at the top of the charts. The video was among the most expensive ever made which starts with a lush rainforest then shows Jackson walking through a damaged landscape, including images of dead elephants, trees falling, smoke stacks, captured dolphins, seal clubbing, and hurricane winds.

Here's what Jackson said about the song:
"I remember writing Earth Song when I was in Austria, in a hotel. And I was feeling so much pain and so much suffering of the plight of the Planet Earth. And for me, this is Earth's Song, because I think nature is trying so hard to compensate for man's mismanagement of the Earth. And with the ecological unbalance going on, and a lot of the problems in the environment, I think earth feels the pain, and she has wounds, and it's about some of the joys of the planet as well. But this is my chance to pretty much let people hear the voice of the planet. And this is 'Earth Song'. And that's what inspired it. And it just suddenly dropped into my lap when I was on tour in Austria."
The Earth Song video is below, and the full Guardian article is here.