It's been too hard living but I'm afraid to die Cause I don't know what's up there beyond the sky
It's been a long, a long time coming
But I know a change gonna come,
oh yes it will...
in the midst of the 1960's civil unrest in this country, change was something sought by many of us - and the music world attempted to initiate this change by bringing about awareness in the universal language of music - it was the time of the civil rights movement - but not much was moving politically or legally -
a few days ago i was reminded again of the story of the death of the great musician SAM COOKE - you know, his death was under more than mysterious circumstances and remains a mystery today - below are several links which outline comprehensively the chronology of these tragic days and the event of sam's untimely death -
but my story here has to do not with those mysterious circumstances, but rather with the feelings of sam and others close to him right before his death - feelings associated particularly with the new song of sam's - a few months earlier, sam had heard bob dylan perform "blowing in the wind" - he was disturbed that a song carrying such a powerful message had not been written by a black man and he vowed to "do something" himself -
and so he did - he wrote "a change is gonna come" - however, sam told friends he didn't know how he came about writing the song - "it was like nothing he had ever done - as if it was someone else's - as if it had come to him in a dream" -
and then, there was a premonition attached to it - according to several people close to him, including bobby womack and jw alexander, sam spoke to them of this when he asked for their feedback upon performing the song for them - there was a sense of "death" - a sense that "somebody died, something creepy, something's going on", "something bad was going to happen" - to which sam "gloomily" agreed - and said that he would never perform this song in public - [actually, he did perform it live before his death, but only a few times] -
shortly after recording his song, on december 11, 1964, at the young age of 33, sam cooke was shot and killed in a two-bit motel - the song was not released until after his death - not only did sam cooke die a tragic untimely death, just months prior to his own death, his infant son was drowned in his home swimming pool -
forty-four [44] years later, on November 4, 2008, the first African-American President of the United States, Barack Obama, quoted from Sam's last song at Grant Park in Chicago -
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_Cooke
a few days ago i was reminded again of the story of the death of the great musician SAM COOKE - you know, his death was under more than mysterious circumstances and remains a mystery today - below are several links which outline comprehensively the chronology of these tragic days and the event of sam's untimely death -
but my story here has to do not with those mysterious circumstances, but rather with the feelings of sam and others close to him right before his death - feelings associated particularly with the new song of sam's - a few months earlier, sam had heard bob dylan perform "blowing in the wind" - he was disturbed that a song carrying such a powerful message had not been written by a black man and he vowed to "do something" himself -
and so he did - he wrote "a change is gonna come" - however, sam told friends he didn't know how he came about writing the song - "it was like nothing he had ever done - as if it was someone else's - as if it had come to him in a dream" -
and then, there was a premonition attached to it - according to several people close to him, including bobby womack and jw alexander, sam spoke to them of this when he asked for their feedback upon performing the song for them - there was a sense of "death" - a sense that "somebody died, something creepy, something's going on", "something bad was going to happen" - to which sam "gloomily" agreed - and said that he would never perform this song in public - [actually, he did perform it live before his death, but only a few times] -
shortly after recording his song, on december 11, 1964, at the young age of 33, sam cooke was shot and killed in a two-bit motel - the song was not released until after his death - not only did sam cooke die a tragic untimely death, just months prior to his own death, his infant son was drowned in his home swimming pool -
forty-four [44] years later, on November 4, 2008, the first African-American President of the United States, Barack Obama, quoted from Sam's last song at Grant Park in Chicago -
http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2005/nov/20/popandrock.urban1It's been a long time coming, but tonight, because of what we did on this day, in this election, at this defining moment, change has come to America.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_Cooke
