A Little Night Music, A Little Change

Sam Cooke is music you can play in the background as you study. It is music you can relax to as you drift away in thought. It can be your night music. Cooke was well-known for many popular hits, including Cupid, offered here at 45 RPM on the Seeburg V200 jukebox...

Some of his music, however, refuses to lay smoothly in the background. It demands to be heard, every note and every word.

In October 1963, Cooke was jailed for refusing to be turned away at a hotel in Louisiana, where had a reservation to stay. Around the same time, he heard Bob Dylan's protest song "Blowin' in the Wind," and determined to create his own. In December 1963, Cooke recorded "A Change Is Gonna Come." He was murdered shortly after recording it and never saw it become an anthem of the 1960s civil rights movement.

The song is considered by many his masterpiece and an historically significant work of art. It hopes for change; it cries for it. And in such a beautiful way...

Reading about the role of music in the civil rights movement made it very clear that the best and most powerful songs were not created in response to the movement -- they were not some kind of marketing tool. They were inspired by the decades and centuries of people's experiences long before the formalized protests and movements were put into place. Many of the songs existed in one form or another for a long time before the organized marches at which they were sung or chanted. This made them real and powerful. Songs like Lift Him Up were born in the churches of the South and sung for generations, with words changing over time and the message expanding.