Everyone's got that one song that, for a little while, defines them. The song that gets put on loop so many times that your friends complain, the song that you play at every dance party, the song you sing note for note. For most of us, that song at one time or another has probably been a Michael Jackson song. For me, for pretty much all of college, it was "I Want You Back."

I maintain to this day that it's the perfect pop song, a melancholy ballad about heartbreak wrapped up in syncopated hand claps and the wailing voice of an 11-year-old. It's reading too much into it to hear predictions of his later pain in that "All I neeeeeeeeed," but from the very beginning The Jackson Five relied on its youngest member's precociousness, his people-pleasing intensity and the suggestion that something more was lurking beneath the surface.

When that darker stuff came forward, Jackson became split into the two personas-- the consummate entertainer and the spooky man-child-- that defined him until his death. I grew up in the 90s, simultaneously choreographing dances to "Heal the World" and passing on rumors about what he did with little boys in bed. The two sides never seemed incongruous, or made it so I couldn't love Thriller and worry about what went on at Neverland Ranch. Much as Jackson created his own niche in the 80s, becoming one of the first real crossover star between races, he always existed in a separate zone for me, where nothing he did could trump the sound of everyone cheering when his songs came on at a party.

I wrote on Twitter earlier today that, in a way, we lost Michael Jackson a long time ago. He's lived his life in private ever since that circus of a 2003 trial, and hasn't made a significant contribution to pop culture since the 90s. As glimpses of his face from paparazzi photos indicated further transformation, it seemed clear that Jackson was retreating into the hermetic world he began creating for himself in the 80s. True, he was planning a summer concert tour this summer, but it seemed unimaginable even before today that he would be anything but a shadow of the icon people would pay to see.

Here's my other favorite Michael Jackson story. Immediately after graduating college, wrapping up that period in my life that, in all honesty, may have been defined by "I Want You Back," my best friend and I took a road trip to Nova Scotia. At a garage sale in Truro, we picked up two Michael Jackson biographies-- one authorized, one not-- and spent the entire trip alternating between reading aloud to each other in the car and singing along to "Man in the Mirror." It's a memory that defines us, that we share constantly with other people, and that probably millions of other people have related to some other Michael Jackson song, album, or video. We weren't unique in the way we incorporated that strange, mysterious cultural figure into our trip-- but Lord knows he was unique in his ability to inspire that devotion.

There will never be another Michael Jackson. There are a million reasons, from the declining ubiquity of radio play and MTV to the simple fact that a bizarre series of cultural and family events created the boy who gave up so much on the stage, there was nothing left for him in his own life. It's hard to believe Jackson representing a fallen era-- he was only 50-- but he really may be the last of the radio stars, the musical figures so ubiquitous that we all remember the color of the sequined glove he wore on his left hand.

The year I was born, Thriller was the #1 album. I've never known a Michael Jackson who wasn't a little cracked. But I've always had, and will always treasure, "I Want You Back" and "Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough" and "Billie Jean" and "PYT" and a dozen other songs that took that cracked, genius man to create. It was only a brief period of his life that he really shone so brightly, but it's still hard to name anyone who has given us so much.