think of connection

Ads

When I Think of You (Janet Jackson song)

"When I Think of You" is the third single from Janet Jackson's third studio album, Control (1986). The Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis-written and -produced song is about a person who finds relief and fun in a lover. They only need to think of that special person to be content. It is Jackson's first number one hit on the Billboard Hot 100, and also became a top ten hit in the United Kingdom as well.

The song was also resurrected in 1995 for the U.S. commercial "Runaway" CD single, featuring David Morales' Extended Classic House Mix '95 and a mix by the Heller & Farley Project.

Music video

The music video finds Jackson going around a neighborhood. Each location she visits has the same mysterious man that is in different costumes that says a brief statement to her and then vanishes as she turns around. The director of "When I Think of You", Julien Temple, would later direct Jackson's "Alright" video, and both videos have a similar style. "When I Think of You" has only five cuts. The video is quite similar to the opening segment of Temple's 1986 film Absolute Beginners, which stars David Bowie and Sade. The style is that the video is assumed to be one long take, but in fact it is five smaller takes. Although fluid in nature, obvious mistakes can be seen in the edits, especially when she comes out of the back door of the club, and a photographer takes her picture. The flash acts as an edit, but the people in the background are in quite different positions before and after the flash.

The Dance Remix was used for the video. The video was made available on iTunes Store on February 1, 2007. Jackson would later repeat the same type of format for her video "Rock with U" from Discipline.

Chart performance

The single became Jackson's first number-one hit on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. When "When I Think of You" hit number one, it made Janet and her brother Michael Jackson the first, and so far, only siblings to both have solo number one hits on the Hot 100. At the time she was 20 years old, making Janet the youngest artist since Stevie Wonder to top the Billboard Hot 100. The single was the thirty-second biggest Hot 100 single of 1986. It was the forty-seventh biggest Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Singles & Tracks single of 1986 and the twenty-second biggest Hot Dance Music/Club Play single of 1986.

Charts

Chart (1986)	Peak position
Australian ARIA Singles Chart	51
Belgian Singles Chart	8
Canadian Singles Chart	6
Dutch Singles Chart	3
German Singles Chart	36
UK Singles Chart	10
United World Chart	1
U.S. Billboard Hot 100	1
U.S. Billboard Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Singles & Tracks	3
U.S. Billboard Hot Dance Music/Club Play	1
U.S. Billboard Adult Contemporary	10
U.S. ARC Weekly Top 40	1