Was "Billie Jean" Lifted?

Rolling Stone’s Michael Jackson issue is out, and the magazine has posted online several reminiscences of the star by other artists. Weird Al Yankovic’s is clear-eyed (he credits Jackson’s refusal to let him parody “Black or White” for reviving his own career); John Singleton’s is touching (the last line: “I will love him forever”); Stevie Nicks’s is short and spacy. One of the more interesting memories comes from Daryl Hall, who says that when he was recording “We Are the World” Jackson approached him and admitted to stealing from a Hall and Oates song for “Billie Jean.” Hall says that he told Jackson that he had stolen the bass line, too, and that creative borrowing was fair play. The song in question, of course, is “I Can’t Go for That (No Can Do),” from the 1981 album “Private Eyes.” It became Hall and Oates’s fourth No. 1 single and was heavily sampled by rappers, most famously, De La Soul, on “Say No Go.” But was it really the basis for “Billie Jean”? You be the judge.