Friday, April 4, 2008

Sam Cooke - A Change Is Gonna Come

Forty years is a long time in any human life. And he didn't even make it to forty.

One of the (then) freshly written anthems of the civil rights movement, this song's mix of sorrow and hope captures perfectly an emotional blend that typified much of that struggle. Used to beautiful effect by Spike Lee at a pivotal point in the movie Malcolm X, it has been covered often, but the original has not been surpassed. Sure, the orchestral arrangement seems overblown, but even that had a political point--that the finest things in life are for everyone, and that everyone deserves dignity.

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