He assesses the options - an "unplugged" album of his hits, a reunion with Thriller producer Quincey Jones, or teaming up with a new, cutting edge producer.
The industrial and French revolutions, which produced anxiety on a vast scale, saw De Quincey on opium, Coleridge on laudanum and Davy, in his chemical laboratory, giggling and whooping helplessly as he sniffed nitrous oxide gas.
If George W. Bush follows his father to the presidency, becoming only the second son to pull off that trick (John Quincey Adams, son of John Adams, was the first), it could foreclose Jeb's own chance of entering the White House.