Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough

Jackson wrote it, and said the melody came to him so strongly that he found himself humming it as he walked through the Jacksons' home in Encino. His brother Randy played the melody on piano. His mother Katherine, a devout Jehovah's Witness, was shocked by the lyrics and thought the title could be taken as a reference to sex. Jackson told her it was not and could mean whatever people wanted. Greg Phillinganes said in a 2016 talk that he suggested the bridge, and Quincy Jones backed his account. Many pressings of the single list both men as composers.

The recording has a six-piece horn section, strings arranged by Ben Wright, two guitars, keyboards, bass, drums and percussion, and it opens with a spoken passage by Jackson. It introduced the falsetto and the vocal hiccups that became part of his sound. Epic released it on 10 July 1979. It reached number one on the Hot 100 for a week, number three in the UK, and number one in Australia, New Zealand, Norway and South Africa. It won Jackson the 1980 Grammy for best male R&B vocal performance. Nick Saxton directed the video, Jackson's first as a solo artist, in which he dances in triplicate. Nelson George wrote that the argument for Jackson's greatness in the studio begins with this song's arrangement.

Live

Jackson sang it on the Jacksons' Destiny and Triumph tours, in the Bad Groove interlude of the Bad tour, and in an Off the Wall medley on the HIStory tour. It was also planned for the This Is It concerts.