BrianWilkins.org
November 7, 2021
“Come Back To Me” was #2 for two weeks, as it couldn’t overtake “Vision of Love” by Mariah Carey (which frankly isn’t even in my top five Mariah songs). The final week for “Come Back To Me” on the Billboard Hot 100 was October 20, 1990, when it was #90. That’s a little over 31 years ago – my sophomore year in high school.
The video was filmed in Paris, in November 1989. “Miss Jackson’s” love interest in the video is Mexican songwriter and director René Elizondo Jr. They secretly married on March 31, 1991. In fact it is said to be Elizondo’s hands covering Janet Jackson’s breast on the September 1993 cover of Rolling Stone magazine.
Elizondo directed and co-wrote several Janet Jackson videos and songs during their marriage. The couple divorced in 1999.
Janet Jackson introduced herself to Generation X as Penny Gordon Woods in Season Five of “Good Times” in 1977. Miss Jackson was 11 years old. Willona (Ja’Net DuBois) adopted Penny to free her from the abuse from her biological mom.
Of course Janet Jackson was also Willis Jackson’s (Todd Bridges) girlfriend Charlene DuPrey in “Diff’rent Strokes.”
Janet Jackson became a mega-star in the mid-1980s. Her 1986 album Control produced five Billboard Hot 100 top five hits, including her first #1 hit, “When I Think Of You” (nothing else seems to matter). It hit #1 on October 10, 1986. The laugh/giggle at the 3:38 mark still moves me.
The Rhythm Nation 1814 album (1989) produced four #1 hits – “Love Will Never Do,” “Escapade,” “Black Cat,” and “Miss You Much.” A total of seven songs from the album, including “Come Back To Me,” reached the top 5.
Every red-blooded young man loved Miss Jackson (“if you’re nasty”) in the late 1980s and early 1990s. “Come Back To Me” is one of those memorable odes that can and will never happen again because of the social dynamics of the Western world since the turn of the century.
“All my life I’ve waited,
To see your smile again,
In my mind I hated,
Not able to let go,Come back to me,
I’m beggin’ you please,”