This literally brought tears to my eyes...

[fpb]

...not just for the understated power of the song, but for the heart-breaking subtext, come from someone who really knew what racism was and what it could do to a man.

Comments

[arhyalon.livejournal.com]

I've always loved this song. We used to sing it in school when I was young.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

Elsewhere on Youtube, there is an extract from an interview with SDjr, where he says that he often felt that the song was about him - that when he got to be seventy, he would be dancing and singing in little joints - and also about all the old time black performers he had met, so many of whom had ruined themselves with drink or drugs. I found myself thinking that Michael Jackson - who learned a lot from Davis - was only the last and most extreme instance of a sad tradition of self-destruction that went back generations.