Once you hear perfection, you spend the rest of your life chasing that sound.
I think I’ve been chasing A Song for You for most of my life.

There are thousands of songs I love.
There are songs connected to people, places, heartbreaks, celebrations and entire chapters of my life.
But there are only a handful of songs I would call perfect.

This is one of them.
A Song for You by Donny Hathaway may very well be my favorite song of all time.

From the moment I hear those opening piano notes, I know what heaven sounds like. 🎹❤️
That piano isn’t just an instrument.
It’s another voice.
They truly compliment each other.
Sometimes it whispers.
Sometimes it just drops a few notes into the room and disappears again.

Then Donny comes in.
He sings something and that piano answers him.

I don’t know how you teach somebody to sing with that kind of honesty.
Donny doesn’t simply sing the notes.
He bends them, plays with them, holds them, releases them and somehow makes every word feel like he’s telling you something he has never told another living soul.

That’s a masterclass.

Leon Russell wrote and originally recorded A Song for You in 1970.
Donny recorded his version for his self titled 1971 album.
Arif Mardin arranged the song and produced it with Jerry Wexler.
Donny handled the lead vocal and piano / keyboards.

Now, with all due respect to Leon Russell, everybody else covered Donny. 😂

More than 200 artists have taken their turn with this song.
Aretha Franklin, Ray Charles, The Carpenters, The Temptations, Willie Nelson, Amy Winehouse, Christina Aguilera, and even his daughter Lalah Hathaway to name a few.
Even my Whitney.
And y’all KNOW how I feel about Whitney.
But I’m sorry. This one belongs to Donny.

Leon Russell penned it, but somewhere along the way Donny Hathaway moved in, changed the locks and put his name on the mailbox. 😂
Again, for me Donny’s version is the original and everyone else is the cover.
I know that’s technically wrong.
I don’t care.

This song has also followed me everywhere.
It was on my Quiet Storm cassette tapes.
Then my mix CDs.
Then the MP3 era and my iPod.
Now my Spotify playlist.

Technology kept changing.
A Song for You stayed.
That’s when you know a song isn’t simply something you listen to anymore.
It has become part of you.

And this one became part of The Soundtrack Of Who I Became. ❤️

But there’s another reason this song means so much to me.

It’s a personal love letter from me to my hubby.
I’ve played this song for him many times and told him that this is my song to him.
If I had Donny Hathaway’s voice, these are the feelings I would want to sing to him.

He’s seen me at my best.
He’s seen me at my worst.
He’s been there through the good, the bad and all that complicated stuff we human beings drag into love. And he’s loved me through it.

That’s what I hear in this song.
Not perfect people.
Love.💜
The kind that sees you.

When he sings those final bars;

And when my life is over
Remember when we were together
We were alone
And I was singing this song to you
We were alone
And I was singing this song to you
We were alone
And I was singing this song

Those final moments, hit me emotionally everytime.
Everytime.
Always. ❤️

And maybe that’s ultimately why I’ve been chasing this sound for so many years.

As a DJ and as somebody who simply loves music…
Once you’ve heard a recording where the voice, piano, words, arrangement and emotion all meet in exactly the right place, you spend your life hoping another song will make you feel that way again.

Okay. Enough said.
I’m officially shutting up.

Press play.
Let Donny Hathaway finish saying what I’ve been trying to say this entire post.

DJZ7

PS – Thank you Leon and Donny for this beautiful love letter.

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