It almost feels silly to ask, but are you familiar with both Michael Jackson's 1982-3 hit "Billie Jean" and, from about ten years prior, Steely Dan's "Do It Again"?

The previous question may seen random, but if you patronized certain dance clubs and/or listened to certain radio stations, the latter likeliest in the soul/urban contemporary format, in 1983, you may recall one or more medleys of the two aforementioned songs. In that year, the Italian group Club House hit the lower reaches of Billboard Magazine's US pop singles Hot 100 chart (far below the top 40), and made the top 15 of a few European nation's pop charts...and the mid-30's in New Zealand... with "Do It Again/Billie Jean." Around the same time, a remake of that medley by Detroit's Slingshot topped the same trade publication's disco/dance club play chart and landed in the top 25 of its soul/r & b/Black singles listing. At least one more Jackson/'Dan remake, by Serbian/Montenegrin-led studio aggregation Brooklyn Express, was issued the same year. Do you recall having heard any of these records?

The existence of this medley (or these medleys. really, as attentive listening reveals some differences) begs a bevy of questions, from me, anyway. For example...I have, but have you ever heard any Steely Dan song performed by Steely Dan on a radio station or in another context catering primarily to an African-(North) American audience?

Though the royalties Jackson and 'Dan's principal members would have earned from these records would have been far eclipsed by the money their own music made--especially the former in '83--they doubtless neither minded the extra deposits to their bank accounts. But I can find no writing about how any of these men felt about their artistry having been repurposed as it was. Were you in any of their position, do you think you would have had have mixed, at best, feelings about your work being used in ways the users got permission to use but in ways substantially removed from how you originally intended it?

Lastly, let's consider the sense--or lack it it?--the songs comprising this mash-up make paired together. Melodically, I'd call the combination pretty ingenious. Lyrically, however, the older song's about the perils of violence (or revenge), women, and money; the newer tune is a fictional account, said Jackson, of a man denying siring a child out of wedlock. I argue that, depending on which lyrics from one song are juxtaposed with lines from the other, the medley creates a plausible, maybe even poignant, meta-commentary or internal conversation. My guess is that the members of the groups recording these pieces had no greater goal than to make a hit dancefloor banger, but I'm open to being disabused of that impression. Does the collision of "Do it Again" and "Billie Jean" make any narrative sense to you?