“A Change Is Gonna Come” is a song by American singer-songwriter Sam Cooke. It initially appeared on Cooke’s album Ain’t That Good News, released mid-February 1964 by RCA Victor; a slightly edited version of the recording was released as a single in December, 1964. Produced by Hugo and Luigi and arranged and conducted by Rene Hall, the song was the B-side to “Shake”.
The song was inspired by various events in Cooke’s life, most prominently when he and his entourage were turned away from a whites-only motel in Shreveport Louisiana in October 1963 despite having previously made reservations there. Cooke felt compelled to write a song that spoke to his struggle and of those around him, and that pertained to the Civil Rights Movement and African Americans. In 2019, then Shreveport mayor Adrien Perkins apologized to Cooke’s family for the event, and posthumously awarded Cooke the key to the city.
Cooke first performed “A Change Is Gonna Come” on The Tonight Show in February 1964. Cooke’s new manager, Allen Klein, was infatuated with the song and persuaded Cooke to do away with promoting his most recent single, “Ain’t That Good News”, and perform “Change” instead, feeling that that was the statement he needed to make before a national audience. Cooke elected not to perform “A Change Is Gonna Come” again in his lifetime, both because of the complexity of the arrangement and because of the ominous nature of the song. When shown to his protégé Bobby Womack, his response was that it sounds “like death.” Cooke responded, “Man, that’s kind of how it sounds like to me. That’s why I’m never going to play it in public.” Womack clarified his thoughts, that it wasn’t deathly, but rather “spooky,” but Cooke never performed the song again. It is for this reason that there is no video of Sam Cooke performing the song.
In December 1964, “A Change Is Gonna Come” was prepared for single release, with the verse and chorus preceding the bridge (“I go to the movies…”) deleted for radio airplay. The civil rights movement picked up on “A Change Is Gonna Come” with near immediacy. On December 11, 1964, two weeks before the song was released, Sam Cooke was fatally shot at a Los Angeles motel. Cash Box described the single as “a moving, string-filled ‘message’ tune.
Though only a modest hit for Cooke in comparison with his previous singles, “A Change Is Gonna Come” is widely considered one of Cooke’s greatest and most influential compositions and became an anthem for the civil rights movement. It has been voted among the greatest songs ever released by various publications. “In 2007, the song was selected for preservation in the Library of Congress, with the National Recording Registry deeming the song “culturally, historically, or aesthetically important.” In 2021, it appeared on Rolling Stone’s list of the 500 Great Songs of All Time, ranked at No. 3.
