I thought of the critic’s note about Michael Jackson a couple weeks later, when I was eating breakfast at a diner and “I Want You Back” by the Jackson 5 came on. I bopped a little on my stool, I couldn’t help it. It was exactly as my critic friend had said—I found it hard to resist the pull of the music, borne on the air. And yet the moment was ruined too. I was placidly forking hash browns and all the while feeling like something terrible was (sort of) happening. That’s how the stain works. The biography colors the song, which colors the sunny moment of the diner. We don’t decide that
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