Thriller (Michael Jackson album) name had merchandising potential. Wanting a notable person to recite the closing lyrics, Jones brought in actor Vincent Price, an acquaintance of Jones' wife; Price completed his part in two takes. Temperton wrote the spoken portion in a taxi on the way to the recording studio. Jones and Temperton said that some recordings were left off the final cut because they did not have the "edginess" of other album tracks. Songs recorded by Jackson for consideration included "Carousel" (written by Michael Sembello), "Got the Hots" (written by Michael Jackson and Quincy Jones), "Nite Line" (written by Glen Ballard), "Trouble" (aka
Thriller (Michael Jackson album) ongoing backlash against disco made it necessary to move in a different musical direction from the disco-heavy "Off the Wall". Jones and Jackson were determined to make a rock song that would appeal to all tastes and spent weeks looking for a suitable guitarist for the song "Beat It". Eventually, they found Steve Lukather of Toto to play the rhythm guitar parts and Eddie Van Halen of the rock band Van Halen to play the solo. When Rod Temperton wrote the song "Thriller", he wanted to call it "Starlight" or "Midnight Man", but settled on "Thriller" because he felt the