« Sixteen Tons: Tennessee Ernie Ford
For the Love of Money: O’Jays »

God Bless the Child: Billie Holiday

Explore posts in the same categories: Music

This entry was posted on January 15, 2011 at 1:18 pm and is filed under Music. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments.

Tags:

Both comments and pings are currently closed.

3 Comments on “God Bless the Child: Billie Holiday”

  2. sblake's avatar sblake Says:

    January 15, 2011 at 10:54 pm

    In her autobiography Lady Sings the Blues Holiday indicated an argument with her mother over money led to the song. She indicated that during the argument she said the line “God bless the child that’s got his own.” The anger over the incident led her to turn that line into a starting point for a song, which she worked out in conjunction with Herzog. In Jazz Singing Will Friedwald indicates it as “sacred and profane” as it references the Bible while indicating that religion seems to have no effect in making people treat each other better. The lyrics refer to an unspecified Biblical verse: “Them that’s got shall get, them that don’t shall lose, so the Bible says, and it still is news. . . . ” This likely refers to Matthew 25:29.

    • katry's avatar katry Says:

      January 16, 2011 at 10:09 am

      sblake,
      I think I assumed this had a loftier inspiration for the words to this song. Maybe it was the line you quote and the word Bible.

      When I argued with my mother, the lyrics to a timeless song never came to me!


Comments are closed.