One Day in Your Life

Michael Jackson was still a teenager when he walked into Motown Studios in Los Angeles in December 1974 to record a ballad that would become his first solo number one in the United Kingdom. The song, written by Sam Brown III and Renée Armand, first appeared on Jackson's 1975 album Forever, Michael, his final studio album with Motown. An initial UK single release that year went nowhere.

Five years later, everything changed. Jackson had left Motown for Epic Records and scored massive hits with Off the Wall. Motown, still holding the rights to his early catalog, assembled a compilation album also titled One Day in Your Life and re-released the song as a single in the US on March 20, 1981. The move was pure business, but the result was surprising. While the single only reached number 55 on the Billboard Hot 100, it caught fire across the Atlantic. It spent two weeks at number one on the UK Singles Chart in June and July 1981, also topping the charts in Ireland and charting strongly in South Africa. By year's end, it was the sixth best-selling single of 1981 in the UK.

The track itself is a lush, string-laden ballad that showcases Jackson's youthful, earnest vocal style. Critic Robert Christgau called it a romantic ballad credible on its own terms. A cover version by Johnny Mathis had charted in the US and Canada five years before Jackson's version became a hit. The song has since appeared on numerous compilations including Anthology (1986), Gold (2008), and NOW That's What I Call Legendary (2023). [edit]