The Greatest Night in Pop, a new documentary that chronicles the recording of the 1985 charity single “We Are the World” is now streaming on Netflix, and it’s a must-watch for fans of ’80s music. Not only does it feature fantastic archival footage of some of the biggest pop stars of the era, but it’s also full of fun anecdotes—like that time Michael Jackson’s pet snake got loose in his home, and terrorized poor Lionel Richie.
Richie and Jackson were hired to co-write a song, to raise money to help fight famine in various African countries. Richie—who is now 74, and who produced the Netflix doc—got word from song producer Quincy Jones that he and Jackson had just a few weeks to write the song, because they hoped to record just after the American Music Awards, when many artists would be gathered in Los Angeles. Richie recalls going over to Michael Jackson’s home in California in January 1985. But the songwriting session was interrupted by an unexpected visitor—Jackson’s boa constrictor, who, apparently, had been loose in the house.
“Out of the corner of my eye, I see some albums falling over,” Richie says in the documentary. “And I hear [imitates hissing noises]. I look over my shoulder—there’s the biggest fricken’ snake.”
Here, Richie launches into a fairly solid MJ impression, complete with a mispronunciation of his own name. “Michael’s going, ‘There he is, Lion-el. Oh my God.’ He lost the snake in the room! ‘He came when he heard us singing, Lion-el, and he wanted to meet you, he wants to say hello to you.'”
Richie, however, very much did not want to say hello back to the snake. “I was like, ‘I gotta out here, quick!’ I am screaming like it’s—this is the end. I saw this horror movie, and it’s not good for the brother!”
Talk about a difficult work environment. Luckily, despite the presence of Jackson’s giant snake slithering around, the two songwriters were able to finish a draft of “We Are the World.” The song was recorded during an all-night session on January 22, 1985, in a room full of 40 or so of the biggest pop stars of the time, including Stevie Wonder, Paul Simon, Kenny Rogers, Tina Turner, Billy Joel, Diana Ross, Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan, Ray Charles, Cyndi Lauper, and more. The snake, thankfully, did not make an appearance in the recording studio.