I Just Can’t Stop Loving You, ballad signed Michael Jackson, in duet with singer Siedah Garrett… Barbra Streisand and Whitney Houston were initially approached to sing with him. This was the first single from thealbum Bad, released in July 1987. Michael Jackson was then at the top, he knew that this song was going to go around the world, and for its launch in France, he had recorded a French version of this song…
Producer Quincy Jones asked a Belgian friend, Christine decroix, to translate the text. She had never done that and the result was pretty catastrophic, starting with the title that became I don’t want the end of us… Proof that Michael Jackson did not understand our language well: he had validated the text, and if you look closely, in the album booklet Bad he thanked the translator with an enigmatic “Gros bisous zouzou” …
The result was still considered disappointing, so that this French version never came out. It was not until the 25 years of the album Bad to discover it in a reissue … It’s the only song where you can hear Michael Jackson in French. We can tell he’s walking on eggshells. At the same time, he had also recorded a version in Spanish…
