Wednesday, December 14, 2022

Bonnie Raitt’s song Just Like That tells how a life can change just in a moment

 


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On August 8, 2022 I blogged about Down the Hall, A poignant song by Bonnie Raitt about a prison hospice. It is the last song on her latest album, titled Just Like That.

 

The five-minute title song is another excellent example of telling a story in only five minutes. You can listen to it and see the lyrics here on YouTube. An review of the album by John Parlees at the New York Times on April 21, 2022 titled Bonnie Raitt faces mortality with compassion and hope explained:

 

“Another kind of solace after death arrives in the quietly poignant title track of ‘Just Like That…,’ also written by Raitt. Its story unfolds at a measured pace. A stranger shows up on the doorstep of a woman who has never stopped blaming herself for the death of her son. The man has sought her out because he’s the one who got her son’s heart as a transplant: ‘I lay my head upon his chest/And I was with my boy again,’ Raitt sings, with sorrow and relief in the grain of her voice.”

 

A long interview with Zane Low, which you also can watch on YouTube, explains how she wrote it by reimagining what she saw in a television news story.  

 


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