The untimely death of Michael Jackson led to something I never thought would happen again in my lifetime — I heard the song “Ben” on the radio.

Is it odd that one of my all-time favorite songs is a soft, slow ballad that is an ode to a rat written for a sequel to the 1970s horror movie “Willard?”

Is it a teensy bit creepy that I still know all the lyrics that I learned at age 8 when I played it over and over on my record player, including the ones that say: “Ben, the two of us need look no more; We both found what we were looking for?”

OK, yes. Very creepy.

That’s why no one plays it on the radio anymore. But since Michael died suddenly Thursday, his songs are being played everywhere you turn, including “Ben.”

And I can remember sitting in front of the TV waiting for the premier of “Thriller,” back when MTV still played music videos.

Everyone, at one time or another, was has sung or danced to Michael Jackson songs — dance teachers still make routines for every recital my daughter’s been to — and people like to remember simpler times before M.J. was a paler imitation of himself and people didn’t wonder about alternate meanings when they listened to songs like “Ben” and “Pretty Young Thing.”

Still, I wish Farrah’s death had not been overlooked in all the hoopla.

She didn’t even get one night of retrospectives with men talking about their recollections of the poster with the famous red bathing suit and women recalling how as girls they pretended to be Jill Munroe and got out their squirt guns and shot their big brothers — the bad guys — right between the eyes … oh, was that just me?

Any-hoo, she was an Angel and everything and deserved a little attention.

Not that she didn’t get a little nutty herself in later years.

That’s what celebrity does to you.

None of them are normal; it comes from living in a place like LA-LA land and never eating good, nutritious foods like cheeseburgers and fries.

I am sympathetic toward celebrity types but I have learned they can change on a dime.

Take my good buddy, Billy Bob Thornton.