A change is gonna come

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A change is gonna come
Sam Cooke
publication February 1964
length 3:10
Genre (s) Soul , R&B
Author (s) Sam Cooke
Label RCA Victor
album Ain't That Good News
Cover versions
1965 Otis Redding
1967 Aretha Franklin

A Change Is Gonna Come is a song by the American soul singer and songwriter Sam Cooke . The title originally appeared in February 1964 on the album Ain't That Good News and was released as a single in a slightly modified version on December 22 of the same year - a few days after Cooke's death . It is considered the anthem of the civil rights movement and Cooke's best composition.

background

The song is a statement against racial segregation

On October 8, 1963, Sam Cooke called a hotel en route to Shreveport , Louisiana to make reservations for himself and his wife, Barbara. Upon arrival, a nervous receptionist told them there were no more free beds. Cooke called for the manager while his wife tried to get him to leave with the warning "They'll kill you". The singer reportedly replied, "They ain't gonna kill me, because I'm Sam Cooke" (They won't kill me because I'm Sam Cooke). After successfully persuading Cooke to leave the hotel, he and his entourage drove off, honking their horns and cursing. The police met them at a downtown motel and arrested them for violating the peace . The next day, the New York Times ran the headline “Negro Bandleader Held in Shreveport” (Negro bandleader held in Shreveport). In 2019, Mayor Adrian Perkins officially apologized to Cooke's family for the incident and posthumously awarded the singer the Key to the City .

Also in 1963, Cooke heard Bob Dylan's Blowin 'in the Wind for the first time and was amazed that such a pointed song on the subject of racism in the USA could come from a white artist. At the same time, he was ashamed of not having written a song of this kind himself, with the ulterior motive of not scaring off his largely white fan base. He soon added the Dylan song to his live repertoire.

production

After Christmas 1963, Cooke invited his friend and sponsor JW Alexander over and played a first version of A Change Is Gonna Come for him on guitar . Both were eager to record the song in the studio, Alexander saw something very personal and highly political in it. He cautioned Cooke, however, because of the seriousness of the substance of a lack of commercial success. According to the biographer Peter Guralnick , the composition was easy for Cooke, as if he had written the song for someone else - even though it is probably his most complex song. The song is both personal, but also tells the story of a generation and a people.

Cooke passed the song on to his arranger René Hall without special requests, only with the request to give it the right instrumentation . For the first time, Hall was given full artistic freedom over a Cooke composition and arranged it in the style of a film score with lush, symphonic string instruments . According to his own statements, he put a lot of work into the end product to satisfy Sam Cooke, known as the "control freak". The original drummer John Boudreaux was intimidated by the orchestral arrangement and had to be replaced by Earl Palmer, who happened to be present . The recording in the RCA Studios in Hollywood on January 30, 1964 was supervised by the producer duo Hugo & Luigi and was completed after the "almost perfect" eighth take. Luigi Creatore was very pleased with the result and considered it one of his best works.

composition

The individual verses of the song are accompanied by slightly different musical arrangements. In the first movement horns dominate , which are supposed to create a melancholy mood, in the second movement the string instruments come to the fore. The bridge is characterized by the use of timpani .

Sam Cooke incorporated personal experiences of racist treatment in Shreveport, Memphis and Birmingham into the text to draw attention to the problems of the African American population. In the penultimate stanza he literally asks a brother for help, who immediately turns his back on him ("And I say brother help me please / But he winds up knockin 'me / Back down on my knees, oh"). According to JW Alexander, these lines are a metaphor for "the establishment ". At the end of each stanza the following lines are repeated:

It's been a long, a long time coming
But I know a change gonna come, oh yes it will

It's been a long, long time coming,
But I know there will be a change, oh yes, definitely

publication

7-inch single (December 1964)

Cooke's new manager Allen Klein saw the song as a statement and was so excited that he convinced the singer to promote it in place of his current single, Ain't That Good News . Klein organized a string section for the performance from RCA and Cooke first performed the song publicly on February 7, 1964 on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson . NBC had the performance recorded with the note It's a Long Time Coming , but did not save the tape. Klein and JW Alexander each sensed a milestone in Cooke's career, but two days later his appearance was overshadowed by that of the Beatles at Ed Sullivan .

Due to the complex arrangement and ominous nature of the song, Cooke never performed it live in his life. His protégé Bobby Womack thought the song would sound “like death”, not fatal, but “spooky”. Cooke agreed, justifying his reluctance to perform again.

In December 1964, A Change Is Gonna Come was prepared for a single release ten months after the album was released. The verse and chorus before the bridge had to be cut out for radio airplay . On December 11, 11 days before publication, Sam Cooke was shot dead in a Los Angeles motel . The title was commercially moderately successful and reached number 31 on the Billboard Hot 100 and number nine on the R&B Singles Charts in March 1965 .

reception

A Change Is Gonna Come was soon picked up by the civil rights movement and is retrospectively considered Cooke's best composition. The Rolling Stone chose the title in 2005 at number twelve of his list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time , Pitchfork 2006 to third place in the top 200 songs of the 1960s. The National Public Radio called the song "one of the most important in the era of the civil rights movement" and received him in a list of the 300 most important American music of the 21st century. In 2007 the title was entered into the National Recording Registry for safekeeping in the Library of Congress because of its cultural significance .

After his victory in the 2008 presidential election , Barack Obama alluded to supporters in Chicago with the words “It's been a long time coming, but tonight change has come to America”. Bettye LaVette and Jon Bon Jovi performed the song as a duet at its inauguration ceremony. Beyoncé sang A Change Is Gonna Come live twice in 2013, the first time in London as part of an equality event for men and women and the second time in Detroit as part of her Mrs. Carter Show World Tour . For both performances, she received critical acclaim from publications such as Rolling Stone , Daily Telegraph and Spin . Other cover versions of well-known artists are by Otis Redding (1965), Aretha Franklin (1967), The Band (1973), Solomon Burke (1986), Patti LaBelle (2004 live at the concert on the occasion of the Nobel Peace Prize ), Bill Frisell (2008), Greta Van Fleet (2017) and Celine Dion (2019 live as a tribute to Aretha Franklin). The original was used by Spike Lee in his film Malcolm X , among others .

The song was also used as a sample for rappers like Ghostface Killah (1996), Ja Rule (2003), Papoose (2006), Lil Wayne (2007), Charles Hamilton , Asher Roth and BoB (2009). The hip-hop duo Capone-N-Noreaga used an excerpt of the song for the intro of their album The Reunion .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Peter Guralnick : Dream Boogie. The Triumph of Sam Cooke. Black Bay Books 2005, ISBN 978-0316013291 , p. 526 (English).
  2. ↑ Negro bandleader hero in Shreveport. In: The New York Times , October 9, 1963, p. 29. Online , accessed June 29, 2020.
  3. ↑ Sam Cooke receives posthumous apology from Louisiana mayor. Hollywood.com, June 24, 2019, accessed June 30, 2020 .
  4. ^ Peter Guralnick : Dream Boogie. The Triumph of Sam Cooke. Black Bay Books 2005, ISBN 978-0316013291 , pp. 512-513 (English).
  5. ↑ a b c d e f g Sam Cooke And The Song That 'Almost Scared Him'. NPR , February 1, 2014, accessed June 30, 2020 .
  6. ^ A b Peter Guralnick : Dream Boogie. The Triumph of Sam Cooke. Black Bay Books 2005, ISBN 978-0316013291 , pp. 540-541 (English).
  7. ↑ Peter Guralnick : Portrait of a Legend: 1951–1964. ABKCO 2003, Liner Notes (English).
  8. ^ A b Peter Guralnick : Dream Boogie. The Triumph of Sam Cooke. Black Bay Books 2005, ISBN 978-0316013291 , pp. 547-548 (English).
  9. ^ Peter Guralnick : Dream Boogie. The Triumph of Sam Cooke. Black Bay Books 2005, ISBN 978-0316013291 , pp. 550-552 (English).
  10. ^ Peter Guralnick : Dream Boogie. The Triumph of Sam Cooke. Black Bay Books 2005, ISBN 978-0316013291 , pp. 550-607 (English).
  11. ↑ A Change Is Gonna Come - Sam Cooke. Billboard , accessed June 30, 2020 .
  12. ↑ Sam Cooke, 'A Change Is Gonna Come'. Rolling Stone , 2005, accessed June 30, 2020 .
  13. ↑ Sam Cooke 'A Change Is Gonna Come'. Pitchfork Media , August 18, 2006, accessed June 30, 2020 .
  14. ↑ The Original NPR 300. National Public Radio , accessed June 30, 2020 .
  15. ^ Recordings by Historical Figures and Musical Legends Added To the 2006 National Recording Registry. Library of Congress , March 6, 2007, accessed June 30, 2020 .
  16. ^ Mark Sutherland: Beyonce Leads a Charge of Powerful Women at Sound of Change. Rolling Stone , June 1, 2013, accessed June 30, 2020 .
  17. ↑ Alice Vincent: Beyoncé, Sound of Change Live, Twickenham Stadium, review. The Telegraph , June 2, 2013, accessed June 30, 2020 .
  18. ↑ Jordan Sargent: Watch Beyonce Dedicate Moving Cover of 'A Change Is Gonna Come' to Detroit. Spin , July 31, 2013, accessed June 30, 2020 .
  19. ↑ “A Change is Gonna Come” - Sam Cooke (as used in Spike Lee's “Malcolm X”). Dave's Strange World, January 1, 2013, accessed June 30, 2020 .