#TBT: A Change Is Gonna Come | Sam Cooke

Now known by Rolling Stone as "one of the greatest songs of all time", Sam Cooke's "A Change Is Gonna Come" stands for more than just an accolade in 6/8. Released in 1964, the song came at a time where delivering it's political message was like standing atop a lone piece of thin ice in a sea of arctic water. After working extremely hard to be a crossover artist, biographer Peter Guralnick expressed that "'A Change Is Gonna Come' was a real departure for him, in the sense that it was undoubtedly the first time that he addressed social problems in a direct and explicit way."

The song was written after Cooke, his wife and his band had been turned away from staying at a Holiday Inn in 1963. Outraged, Cooke turned to his music. "It almost scared him that the song — it was almost as if the song were intended for somebody else. He grabbed it out of the air and it came to him whole, despite the fact that in many ways it's probably the most complex song that he wrote. It was both singular — in the sense that you started out, 'I was born by the river' — but it also told the story both of a generation and of a people."

Although we may not be able to relate to the immense injustice and segregation that Cooke and many North Americans felt during the time, the song demonstrates the transcendence that music can provide. For many of us, a change (in the form of graduation) is right around the corner. But we can't fear it, we must embrace it and let it add on to who we are as we enter the next chapter in our lives. A change is gonna come, but there's no one I'd rather face it with than with all of you.