Inspirational songs are rarely conceived in moments of true inspiration. Too often they are overburdened with good intentions, performed with a "sun will come out tomorrow" optimism. Not so with Donny Hathaway's 'Someday We'll All Be Free,' perhaps the most important song of his brief but brilliant career. The melody was born backstage at a concert while Hathaway was preparing to perform. Lyricist Edward Howard later put words to the music, seizing the opportunity to reach the struggling singer whose life was crumbling from the depression and addiction that would eventually lead to his suicidal leap from the 15th floor of the Essex House Hotel in New York just six years later. When Hathaway finally recorded the song on Jan. 10, 1973, he moved himself to tears. "He loved that song," his wife, Eulaulah, recalls in the liner notes for the 1993 reissue. "Donny literally sat in the studio and cried when he heard the playback of his final mix."

Bending his vocals around the lush orchestration, punctuated by his own electric piano, Hathaway creates an atmosphere redolent of hope but not optimism, peace but not pacifism. The song was quickly taken up as an anthem of black struggle and salvation -- a kind of musical analog to Martin Luther King Jr.'s prophetic 'I Have a Dream' speech. But it is above all the testimony of an artist turning personal suffering into lasting beauty. Almost 20 years later, Aretha Franklin would perform the song for the soundtrack of Spike Lee's 'Malcolm X,' the finest of more than a dozen recorded covers. And yet even her brilliant rendition does not so much efface as emphasize the enduring power of the original.

About the Author

Adam Bradley is a freelance writer based in New England.