“Beat It” is a song by Michael Jackson from his sixth studio album, Thriller (1982). It was written by Jackson and produced by Jackson and Quincy Jones. Jones encouraged Jackson to include a rock song on the album. Jackson later said: “I wanted to write a song, the type of song that I would buy if I were to buy a rock song… and I wanted the children to really enjoy it—the school children as well as the college students.” It includes a guitar solo by Eddie Van Halen.
And while Van Halen didn’t appear in the track’s successful video, he did join Michael once more to play “Beat It” on an early stop on The Jacksons’ Victory Tour at Texas Stadium in Dallas on July 14, 1984.
When initially contacted by Jones, Van Halen thought he was receiving a prank call. “I went off on him. I went, ‘What do you want, you f-ing so-and-so!,’” Van Halen told CNN in 2012. “And he goes, ‘Is this Eddie?’ I said, ‘Yeah, what the hell do you want?’ ‘This is Quincy.’ I’m thinking to myself, ‘I don’t know anyone named Quincy.’ He goes, ‘Quincy Jones, man.’ I went, ‘Ohhh, sorry!’”
Having established that the call was genuine, Van Halen used a Hartley–Thompson amplifier borrowed from guitarist Allan Holdsworth and recorded his guitar solo free of charge. “I did it as a favor,” the musician later said. “I was a complete fool, according to the rest of the band, our manager and everyone else. I was not used. I knew what I was doing—I don’t do something unless I want to do it.” Van Halen recorded his contribution following Jones and Jackson arriving at the guitarist’s house with a “skeleton version” of the song. Fellow guitarist Steve Lukather recalled, “Initially, we rocked it out as Eddie had played a good solo—but Quincy thought it was too tough. So I had to reduce the distorted guitar sound and that is what was released.”
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