Enter two important friends.

A number of pivotal people attend an industry reading of Jackson’s graduatethesis musical, Only Children, based on Frank Wedekind’s play Spring Awakening—crucially, he meets actor John-Andrew Morrison and director Stephen Brackett. Jackson would later ask Brackett to direct his concerts at Joe’s Pub and the West Bank Cafe and Morrison to be in those shows, specifically to sing a piece called “Periodically.” The partial ballad is based on a voice-mail that Jackson’s mother left for him on his 26th birthday as well as comments she’s made over the years about how homosexuality is a sin. It’s dramatized in the song as such: “All of these Hollywood homosexuals/Lance Bass, Doogie Howser, T.R. Knight/Stickin’ their things up each other’s buttholes/I’m tellin’ you, son, that it just ain’t right!” Aside from the actor names, the lyrics remain largely unchanged. Morrison, now Tony nominated for Best Featured Actor in the musical, still does not know why Jackson cast him as his mother, but having listened to her voice-mails, he has a special understanding of her: “Even though she was fussing at him, what I heard in her voice was this deep, deep, deep love for her child. That was always important to me to convey.”