A Change Is Gonna Come

Written By:    Sam Cooke    (Abkco Music)

Produced By: Hugo Peretti and Luigi Creatore at the RCA Studio in California on December 21, 1963

Other Information:

• Sam Cooke performed this song on the Tonight Show in February 1964, although he was against it. Manager Allen Klein pushed him and NBC to do the song and he did. Unfortunately the tape is lost.
• In the movie 'Malcom X' the song is played when Malcolm X is in his car, going to the place where he is killed. In the movie 'Ali' the Al Green version is played after he was killed. Malcolm X's director Spike Lee said this in his book 'By Any Means Necesary':  "Two of my favourite touches in Malcolm X are the opening, a full-frame of the American flag, which then burns down to an American red-white-and-blue X; and near the end, when Denzel-as-Malcolm is taking that fateful drive from the New York Hilton to the Audubon Ballroom, on February 21, 1965. The music behind him is of Sam Cooke singing 'A Change Is Gonna Come.' I love that song, love the way Sam Cooke interpreted it. I've always loved it, and knew one day the way to use it would make itself known to me."

• He wrote the song after he spoke with sit-in demonstrators in Durham, North Carolina in May 1963 after he did a show there.

• Heavily influenced by 'Blowin' In The Wind' by Bob Dylan, a song he appreciated very much and recorded himself.

• Bob Dylan performed 'A Change Is Gonne Come' at a benefit for the Apollo Theatre in New York. A review on this performance can be read here, it is in the notes. The rest of the article is about 'A Change' from Greil Marcus' book about Dylan's 'A Change Is Gonna Come. 
• Al Green performed this song when Sam Cooke was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
• James Taylor performs this song in an episode of the West Wing called 'A Change is Gonna Come' which was first shown on december 1, 2004. It was never released but you can listened to it on James' personal website. 
• Was named in the Top 300 of the most important songs on NPR Radio. 
• Named on of the 500 most important piece of music that shaped Rock & Roll by the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame
• It was voted #12 on the 500 Greatest Hits of All Time list of Rolling Stone magazine. This is what was written about it: 

  "In 1963, Sam Cooke -- America's first great soul singer and one of the most successful pop acts in the nation, with eighteen Top Thirty hits since 1957 -- heard a song that profoundly inspired and disturbed him: Bob Dylan's "Blowin' in the Wind." What struck Cooke was the challenge implicit in Dylan's anthem. "Jeez," Cooke mused at the time, "a white boy writing a song like that?"

  Cooke's response, "A Change Is Gonna Come," recorded on January 30th, 1964, with a sumptuous orchestral arrangement by Rene Hall, was more personal: in its first-person language and the experiences that preceded its creation. On October 8th, 1963, while on tour in the South, Cooke and members of his entourage were arrested in Shreveport, Louisiana, for disturbing the peace after they tried to register at a white motel -- an incident reflected in the song's third verse. And Cooke's mourning for his eighteen-month-old son, Vincent, who died that June in a drowning accident, resonates in the final verse: "There have been times that I thought/I couldn't last for long."

  On December 11th, 1964, nearly a year after he recorded the song, Cooke was fatally shot at a Los Angeles motel. Two weeks later, "A Change Is Gonna Come" was released as a single -- Cooke's farewell address and final hit."

• When Martin Luther King died, Rosa Parks and her mother played this song at their home
• This was the song Sam Cooke was proudest of having written.
• The 'I go to the movie' verse was cut for the single release
• The orchestration part was written by Rene Hall, who was given rare freedom by Sam to do so.
• # 32 in Dave Marsh's 1001 Greatest Songs of All Time. Amazon.com
• Drummer John Boudreaux, part of the AFO, was scheduled to play on 'A Change' but was so intimidated by the orchestra that he quit. Earl Palmer was around so he took over.
• Used in the movie 'Talk To Me' (2007)

Musicians:      

• Chuck Badie 

• Israel Baker - violin 

• Norman Bartold - guitar

• Harold Battiste 

• Arnold Belnick - guitar 

• Louis Blackburn - trombone 

• John Ewing - trombone

• Harry Hyams - viola 

• René Hall - guitar 

• William Hinshaw - french horn

• William Kurasch - trumpet

• Irving Lipschultz - violin  

• Leonard Malarsky - violin 

• Alexander Neiman - viola 

• Earl Palmer - drums  

• Jack Pepper - violin 

• Emil Radocchia - marimba, tympani, percussion 

• Emmet Sargeant - cello 

• Ralph Schaeffer - violin 

• Sidney Sharp - violin 

• Darrel Terwilliger - violin

• David Wells - trombone  

• Clif White  

• Tibor Zelig - violin

Charts   

• #9 R&B and #31 Pop
• Seal reached #73 on the Hot R&B/Hip Hop Songs chart, #33 Hot Adult R&B, #29 Smooth Jazz, #152 UK Singles, #73 Switzerland, #38 the Netherlandsm #31 in Belgium, Walonia

MP3's

• For Sale at Amazon.com

Singles    

• RCA 8486 b/w Shake (Dec 22, 1964) 
• RCA 1436 b/w Shake    (U.K.)
• RCA 0820 b/w Shake
• RCA 49872 with Wonderful World, Chain Gang & Cupid (12")
• HMV POP 574 with Wonderful World, Chain Gang, Cupid, (12", March 1986)

 

Albums:    

• Ain't That Good News (original album)

• Keep Movin' On
• The Man And His Music
• Portrait Of A Legend
• Forever 32 Hits
• The Golden Age of Sam Cooke
• Around The World

Lyrics: (chords)

I was born by the river
In a little tent, and o
just like that river
I've been running ever since

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

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 time coming, but I know
A change is gonna come, oh yes it will

(I go to the movie and I go downtown
Somebody keep tellin me
don't hang around)

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

Then I go to my brother
and I say brother help me please
But he wind up knocking me
back down on my knees

There have been times that I thought
I couldn't last for long
But now I think I'm able to carry on

It's been a long time, but I know
A change is gonna come, oh yes it will

 

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Gerald Alston	Sings Sam Cooke (2008)
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The Boogie Kings	Walkin' the Dog (1999)	Get it at Amazon.com
John Boutté	At the Foot of Canal Street (2001)
The Bowery Riots	The Changering Compilation (2008)	Get it at Amazon.com
Huriah Boynton	Change Is Gonna Come (2008)
Wayne Brady	Long Time Coming (2008)	Get it at Amazon.com
Billy Bragg	Internationale	Get it at Amazon.com
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Brothers Unlimited	Who's For The Young (1970)
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Bobby Bryant	Ain't Doing Too B-A-D, Bad (1967)
Solomon Burke	Change Is Gonna Come (1997)	Get it at Amazon.com
The Campbell Brothers	Can You Feel It? (2005)	Get it at Amazon.com
Capone-N-Noreaga
The Chenille Sisters	Mama, I Wanna Make Rhythm (1991)	Get it at Amazon.com
Anat Cohen	Notes From The Village (2008)	Get it at Amazon.com
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Cold War Kids	Hospital Beds (2007) Live At the Paradiso	Get the live version at Amazon.com
Arthur Conley	Sweet Soul Music (1967)
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The Charlie Daniels Band	Volunteer Jam VII (1997)	Live version with Dobie Gray. Get it at Amazon.com
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The Fugees	Greatest Hits (2003)	Lyrics have been changed but the instrumention is great. Just one acoustic guitar (probably Wycleff) with Lauryn Hill singing, with one other version. Wycleff adds some spoken words/raps in between. The changed lyrics are in the beginning: "I was born by the river, in a tenement and my poor mother couldn't pay the rent"
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