While Eddie Van Halen's performance on Michael Jackson's 70 million-selling Thriller album (specifically on its third single Beat It) is well known, Toto guitarist Steve Lukather's contributions to the album have been less celebrated: Lukather actually played guitar and bass guitar on Beat it, and also played on the album's fifth single, Human Nature (co-written by his bandmate Steve Porcaro), and on its first single, The Girl is Mine, featuring Paul McCartney. But if Lukather has never truly been given the recognition he deserves for his sterling work on one of the biggest albums of all time, the experience did at least lead to him fulfilling a boyhood dream, namely playing a Beatles song with Paul McCartney.
Lukather was involved with Thriller from the first recording sessions, at which The Girl Is Mine was written.
"I was so thrilled to be there," Lukather told Vulture in 2024. "Being in that room and then watching Paul and Linda McCartney come in was magical. The song's a bit silly, but the hang was unbelievable."
