A lady on the train this morning had music blaring out from her MP3 and I felt pretty annoyed until I realised what she was playing and that she was crying, writes Charlie Cashdan.

The unmistakable beat of ‘Thriller’ drifted into my ears as my fellow passenger wiped the tears from her wet cheeks.

Her music choice and sadness were in memory of Michael Jackson who suffered a cardiac arrest last night and died after attempts to revive him failed.

My annoyance faded away as I listened to the music and reflected on the passing of pop legend.

The first album I ever bought was Michael Jackson’s ‘Bad’.  I was only a kid and my Nan gave me some birthday money which I used to buy the ‘Bad’ cassette and a Walkman to play it on from Woollies!

You see, whatever you think of ‘The king of pop’ in light of all the strange behaviour and allegations over the last decade, he has left a fantastic musical legacy which has been the soundtrack to several generations.

Thriller remains the best selling album of all time achieving 41 million worldwide sales.

Listen to those songs now and do they sound dated?

To me they remain strangely timeless.

As a child born in the late 70’s Jackson’s music brings back so many memories for me, from the girl at school who was obsessed with him to my friends dressing up like skeletons and dancing to Thriller in the school dance gala.

I had forgotten about ‘Bad’ being my first album until I heard the news this morning and remembered how excited I was about buying it and sitting on the bus playing it on my  new Walkman from Woollies.

How sad and strange to think that my Nan has long since passed away, cassettes are a thing of the past, Walkmans have been replaced by Ipods and MP3s and now Michael Jackson himself has gone.

The world has changed so much and Jackson’s death feels to me like a big final line being draw under the 80’s and 90’s, an end-of-an-era type moment.  It makes me feel old to be honest, or rather just reminds me that I’m a proper grown-up now and that world of dancing skeletons and getting Birthday money from your Nan is long gone.

But the music still remains, as that lady on the train reminded me, and it may well stay with us forever.