by Michael Winters
“I was born by the river in a little tent
Oh, just like a river, I've been running ever since
It's been a long, a long time coming
But I know a change's gonna come, oh, yes, it willIt's been too hard living, but I'm afraid to die
'Cause I don't know what's up there above the sky
It's been a long, a long time coming
But I know a change's gonna come, oh, yes, it willAnd I go to the movies, and I go downtown
Somebody keep telling me, don't hang around
It's been a long, a long time coming
But I know a change's gonna come, oh, yes, it willOh, when I go to my brother
I'd say brother, help me, please
But he winds up knockin' me
Back down on my kneesThere been times that I thought I wouldn't last for long
Now I think I'm able to carry on
It's been a long, a long time coming
But I know a change's gonna come, oh, yes, it will”- Sam Cooke, “A Change is Gonna Come”
This song, beginning with an image of a black man running, today brings to mind Ahmaud Arbery jogging, then pursued and shot by Gregory and Travis McMichael. This event, appropriately called a lynching, seems like something that might have happened back when this song was released more than half a century ago, but it happened in 2020. When events like Ahmaud Arbery’s death occur, it makes us question if anything has really changed.
Though much has changed, much has stayed the same and the world is not free of racism and violence. Sam Cooke’s song is honest about deep struggle - fatigue, fear, abuse - but in the end it manages to be hopeful. In the song, the source of hope is not obvious. It’s not clear how he knows a change is going to come. Given the experiences hinted at in the song, hope even seems unlikely, but the song is insistent: a change will come. Even though he writes, “I don’t know what’s up there above the sky,” it seems faith of some kind is at work.
“Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.” (Hebrews 11:1) It’s easy to be discouraged by the news, and it’s necessary we should wrestle with despair, but we can’t end there. Even though we haven’t seen the change we’d like to see, we have confidence in what we hope for. This is faith. For Christians, this faith is made possible through Jesus. We trust that Christ has reconciled and is reconciling all things in heaven and on earth to God (Colossians 1:20).
This trust should inspire us to sing along with Sam Cooke, “A change is gonna come, oh, yes, it will.”
This line of thinking started for me when I ran into musician Ben Sollee while out for a walk last week. When I got home my intent was to look into his new music, but I was drawn to 2008’s “A Change is Gonna Come.” This is Ben’s modified cover of Sam Cooke’s classic.
The video above starts with Ben playing his version of the song and then he discusses his use of “music as a technology to generate affection.”
He says, “A good song with a well-sculpted melody can grow the heart. And the truth is we assign a lot of value and worth to how close we feel to something. And we tend to protect what we care about.” This offers an excellent answer to his TEDx talk title question: “Can music change society?”
Artists, by using the “technology” of melody, shape, color, form, syntax, can help grow affection in us. Music and stories of all kinds can help us care, and as Ben points out, quoting Wendell Berry, “It all turns on affection.” As listeners and viewers, we should engage art not only for entertainment, but also to grow our affections. And this has great implications for what we might choose to consume. If we find that the news of Ahmaud Arbery and Breonna Taylor’s deaths don’t stir our emotions, it might be that our affections for black Americans have been under-developed. Or our affections for black Americans might have been mis-developed by unhelpful and stereotypical media portrayals. The same is true for any other group of people with whom we don’t have much deep and direct experience. Engaging art is one way to help us compensate for our weaknesses. We might consider listening to more classics of the Civil Rights movement, or we might read the literature that will help generate empathy for the experience of African-Americans.
Additional Notes:
Sam Cooke wrote the song partially in response to an experience of being rejected at a whites-only hotel while on tour. For me, this called to mind Pastor Jamaal William’s own 21st century experience of discrimination at a hotel, shared in his recent video regarding Ahmaud Arbery.
Leon Bridge’s 2016 fantastic song and video “The River” has some interesting parallels and contrasts with “A Change is Gonna Come.” You can also hear Bridges talk about the story behind the song here.
Ben Sollee’s more recent projects include production of “Lift up Louisville”, an encouraging and ambitious collaboration of so many Louisville musicians made during the pandemic.