“I Am My Brother’s Keeper:” Jermaine the Lyricist
I never realized how accurate teen magazines were.
Back in the day, I was a casual reader of such light fare, with its glossy photos of smiling young heartthrobs and breathless discussions of favorite colors, shoe sizes, and the girls they like. I thought it was just hype, fodder to entice the teen girl to buy the next issue. My recent research into Jermaine, the teen heartthrob of the Jackson 5, however, disabused me of my cynicism. I found numerous nuggets of useful information, such as Jermaine’s poetry writing hobby. Several articles mentioned this passion, and like a true writer, he jotted ideas and rhymes into a note pad.
Jermaine’s devotion to writing continued as he matured from teen idol to adult solo artist. Soon after his 1975 split from the Jackson 5, for example, Jermaine mentioned to a Blues & Soul reporter how much he enjoyed writing “She’s The Ideal Girl” for the Motown produced film Mahogany. He looked forward to developing his abilities further: “the songs I wrote come out naturally and they’re usually based on personal experiences or situations I’ve seen or felt.” Yet, as I will show, Jermaine’s personal strikes universal chords. His lyrics connect with many of us.
Throughout the late 70s and 80s, Jermaine wrote and co-wrote numerous critically acclaimed songs such as You Like Me Don’t You from the 1980 Motown album Jermaine, which he showcased during the 1984 Jackson Victory Tour and I Wanna Be Closer, for the R&B standout group, Switch, on the eponymously named album he co-produced in 1978. Other admirable lyrics are I’m Just Too Shy from the 1981 Motown album, I Like Your Style, and the dance number Come to Me (One Way or the Other) from his 1984 Arista album Jermaine Jackson. Jermaine’s creativity extended beyond romantic tunes with his socially conscious There’s a Better Way from the 1982 Motown album Let Me Tickle Your Fancy.
However, there are no lyrics that impacted me more than those he co-wrote with Elliot Willensky, “I Am My Brother’s Keeper” from his 1981 album I Like Your Style. I teared up when I first read them but sobbed when I listened to his performance. The lyrics reveal Jermaine’s undying love for his brothers, even though they no longer performed together (“While I was out there on my own, I loved you constantly…”). Written in 1980, the lyrics specifically reference the 5 years of separation marked by the brothers’ move to Epic. (“It’s been five years or more since we sung our song…”).
As Jermaine notes in his memoir and later interviews on this song’s creation, the brothers frequented his dreams: they mount the stage, and he counts-in the song: “and a 1, 2, 3.” He never reaches four, awakens with a start, and realizes that only melancholy memories remain. Known for wearing his heart on his sleeve, Jermaine relates the emotional pain he experienced and the “tears he cried.” His memoir is more explicit: “The sense of detachment and loneliness was profound. I didn’t feel like I had lost my right arm; I felt like I had lost every limb. I had Hazel, of course, but the brotherhood was intrinsic to who I was and everything I knew. When it was ripped away, I felt something tear.” And the tremendous loss extended into the verses he co-wrote in a 1986 piece, “Lonely Won’t Leave Me Alone:” “Why do I seem to be caught up inside a dream; All my life, it’s always been my shadow and me.”
“I Am My Brother’s Keeper” recounts an intense, personal loss Jermaine faced, and these lyrics center upon his early inspiration: personal experience or situations he saw or felt. But, why would a song about an event I didn’t share so affect me? Moreover, why did the people I shared these lyrics with tear up right along with me? A second close read revealed the answer. None of us have walked in Jermaine’s shoes, but the story he relates is a shared one. Growing up and into our adult lives. Alone. No longer can we stay in the warm cocoon of our childhood homes, surrounded by our siblings and parents, those who truly know us. We must forge our own paths forward, and the road is replete with pain and loss.
This longing for home emerges as a theme in many musical genres. I have always interpreted the second movement of the Dvorak’s New World Symphony this way. The first allegro movement expresses excitement with the wide-open spaces of a new land, and the musical innovations of African American spirituals. I see this movement expressing the initial excitement of newness, akin to the feeling that one has when first stepping into the adult world. “Wonderful,” was Jermaine’s answer to Mike Douglas’ question about his married life, just weeks from his “wedding of the century” to Hazel Gordy, days after his nineteenth birthday.
Homesickness, though, creeps in the second largo movement, with its Bohemian folk music motifs, a nostalgic tribute to home. Dvorak did eventually return, but as Thomas Wolfe said so long ago: “you can’t go home again.” Roger and Hammerstein’s “Edelweiss” evokes such sentiment, for instance. Performed by Captain Von Trapp in the Sound of Music, the song signifies his farewell to his Austrian birthplace after the Anschluss, the Nazi invasion of his homeland. He must depart, but at least the small, white flower remains, his comforting link to the past (Edelweiss, edelweiss, bless my homeland forever). Similarly, the Iraqi national anthem, “Mawtini,” in Ilham al Madfai’s capable hands, expresses a yearning for a land to which he can never return. Like Captain Von Trapp, war has inextricably transformed his country into an unrecognizable place (“will I see you safely comforted and victoriously honored….my homeland, my homeland”).
So, Jermaine tells a well-worn tale of yearning, hope and ultimately resignation. Even if our family, like Jermaine’s, remains supportive, it is never the same. We, here in the West, are jolted into adulthood, experiencing an abrupt shift from our families of origin to our new marital or work lives. However, the shock is exacerbated if one tracks a path completely different from theirs. None of us had the choice thrust on our 20-year-old selves to stay with Motown under his father-in-law’s tutelage or move on to Epic with one’s father and brothers. But many of us have made life choices that our families disapproved of, or worse condemned. Jermaine notes in his memoir that his brothers refused to speak to him for months, and he endured bouts of anxiety and seemingly endless depression. Fortunately, he had his mother’s support and advice to “just give it time.”
In my case, my family refused to speak to me for five years after I converted from Catholicism to Islam, so long that I despaired of ever speaking to them again. When they finally invited me back into the fold, nothing was the same, as I imagine was the case with Jermaine. Which leads me to my final two articles about Jermaine, my connection to him as my Muslim brother. Here is the link to the first.
If there is one essay I would most like Jermaine to read, it is this one. If you know him, pass it on. Did he imagine that so many would see themselves in such a personal song? I would love to know.
Until next week!