Lean on Me (1972)

"Lean on Me" is a song written and recorded by American singer-songwriter Bill Withers. It was released in April 1972 as the lead single from his second album, Still Bill. The song was a No. 1 single on both the soul and Billboard Hot 100 charts, the latter chart for three weeks in July 1972. Billboard ranked it as the No. 7 song of 1972.

Numerous other versions have been recorded, and it is one of only nine songs to have reached No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 with versions recorded by two different artists with a 1987 cover by Club Nouveau also reaching No. 1. In 2007, the 1972 recording of the song by Bill Withers on Sussex Records was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame. It was ranked No. 208 on Rolling Stone's list of "The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time" in 2010.

Background and writing

Bill Withers' childhood in the coal mining town of Slab Fork, West Virginia, was the inspiration for "Lean on Me", which he wrote for his album Still Bill after he moved to Los Angeles, and found himself missing the strong community ethic of his hometown. Withers had lived in a decrepit house in the poor section of his town.

Withers recalled to Songfacts the original inspiration for the song: "I bought a little piano and I was sitting there just running my fingers up and down the piano. In the course of doing the music, that phrase crossed my mind, so then you go back and say, 'OK, I like the way that phrase, Lean On Me, sounds with this song.'"

Withers stated in the same interview that he made an effort to keep the lyrics simple.

Several members of the Watts 103rd Street Rhythm Band were used for the recording session in 1972. A string section was also included.

Personnel

• Bill Withers – Piano, vocals
• Benorce Blackmon – Guitar
• Raymond Jackson – Wurlitzer electric piano, string arrangement
• Melvin Dunlap – Bass
• James Gadson – Drums

Club Nouveau version

The R&B group Club Nouveau covered the song with a go-go beat for their album Life, Love & Pain and reached No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in March 1987. It also reached No. 1 on the Billboard Dance/Disco Club Play and 12-inch Singles Sales charts, as well as No. 2 on the Billboard Hot Black Singles chart. The song won a Grammy Award in 1987 for Bill Withers, as the writer, for Best R&B Song at the 30th Annual Grammy Awards. It was ranked at No. 94 on VH1's 100 Greatest One-Hit Wonders of the 80s.

2-4 Family version

In 1999, 2-4 Family released "Lean on Me (With the Family)", a remake with a hip hop arrangement and additional lyrics, from their album Family Business. Epic Records published a 12-inch single and a CD maxi single in Germany.

In 2008, several years after the dissolution of 2-4 Family, founding band-member Mike Johnson performed the song with backing vocalists and dancers at the Eurovision Song Contest in Bulgaria.

In popular culture

The song is used in the ending scene of the 1995 season 7 episode of The Simpsons titled "Radioactive Man".

Mary J. Blige performed this song on the HBO special We Are One: The Obama Inaugural Celebration at the Lincoln Memorial (January 18, 2009). The next day, a crowd spontaneously began singing the song in the Purple Tunnel of Doom under the National Mall as they waited to gain entrance to the inauguration ceremonies for President Barack Obama.

On October 3, 2015, Hillary Clinton, during her presidential campaign, made a cameo appearance on Saturday Night Live in a comedy sketch alongside Kate McKinnon, who regularly parodied Clinton for the show. At the end of the sketch, the duo sang "Lean on Me" together.

Notable cover versions

In 1989, remakes of "Lean on Me" by the Winans and Sandra Reaves-Phillips provided the emotional uplift for the film Lean on Me. For the same film, the song was adapted by Big Daddy Kane in "hip hop" form.

In 1976, English glam rock band Mud released their version which was a top 10 hit on both the UK singles chart and Irish singles chart, peaking at No. 7 and No. 6, respectively.

For the BBC's Children in Need in 2016, 1,580 children in choirs sang the song in unison, live from nine towns across the UK. The choirs started singing at the same time and on the telethon; starting in the studio it cut between the choirs giving them either one 20 second slot, or two 10 second slots on air before finishing in the studio. The choirs sang from Elstree at Elstree Studios (the studio just outside London where the main telethon was held), Liverpool at Sefton Park, Swansea from The Swansea University Bay Campus, Bridlington at Bridlington Spa, Dudley at the Black Country Living Museum, Glasgow at BBC Pacific Quay, Milton Keynes at Stadium MK, Salisbury at Salisbury Arts Centre and Belfast at Titanic.