#100- Chain Gang- Sam Cooke

100 Best Songs of the 60's

The Background: It’s crazy to think that there was a time in which Sam Cooke was considered controversial, both within the black community and outside of it. In part, this is probably because it’s crazy to think of their being a time in which Sam Cooke was a new artist who people hadn't heard before. Sam Cooke is such of class of “timeless” artists that it is not just hard to imagine a time in which his song played on the radio like the way Dua Lipa and Bruno Mars play now, but, for me, it is almost functionally impossible. Sam Cooke music might as well have always existed, but that’s not the case, there was a time in which Sam Cooke was a new hot artist, and people had divided opinions on the man. To some people he was a new exciting talent, a soul man who was not completely opposed to rock styles. A man who sounded just as good singing a soulful, mournful ballad as he did singing a high energy dance tune. Of course, he hadn’t been the first artist to do that, but he was one of the most successful, of course they are a few people who didn’t appreciate this. They were a few in the black religious community who did not want this nice seeming church boy with a beautiful voice and the priest father to be singing about love and more to the point, anything that could resemble sex. So Sam Cooke toed the line, he made songs about love, but he made them as classy and polished as possible ( look at “You Send Me”, a pretty great song) but, in 1960, on the way to tour stop Cooke saw a line of prison workers laboring on a railroad and decided to try something new. Writing a song with a political theme…. Kinda.

The Song: It’s interesting to me that Chain Gang has never been reclaimed as a labor anthem and maybe a part of that is Sam Cooke’s singing, what could be a song about these prisoners being worked to the bone is given a bit of levity in the way Cooke sings, with his trademark light and upbeat tone. Other artists would sing this with anger, others with pure pity (Elvis Presley’s nice but kind of condensing “In The Ghetto” strikes me as a good example of the latter) but Sam Cooke does it with pure understanding. He looks at these people working these railroad lines and considers them as people. They aren’t just some mass of sad men, they have hopes and desires, and of course Sam Cooke being Sam Cooke can only of these desires being in relation to love.

“Can't ya hear them singin' Mm, I'm goin' home one of these days I'm goin' home, see my woman

Whom I love so dear But meanwhile, I got to work right here”

Cooke, in a very short, very repetitive pop song fleshes out these people, they are tired of backbreaking work, they are always frowning, but they get through the day thinking about their woman. That’s a lot of detail to get through in a pop song, but he does it, and that is a testament to his singing and songwriting skills, but I would not want to discount the background singers, while this is not a character song, they are pretty much just playing the part of these workers and their little “who’s” and “ha’s” do nothing but enhance the song, they both add an element of fun while also fitting into the lyrics. Their may not be a better way to use background singers in a pop song.

Either way, “Chain Gang” becomes an interesting crossroads for Sam Cooke, while it is not a political song itself, writing about prison labor in 1960 was itself a bit of a political action and while Cooke centers the song around love, knowing where he would go from here could make the case that Cooke was making a political song with a love song wrapping. That’s probably not the case, but you could make that argument.

The Legacy: After “Chain Gang” hit number two on the pop charts Sam Cooke had a run of singles that are pretty much considered all time classics of the soul genre. I want to give a shout out to two songs, “Wonderful World” is a great little pop love song, mostly known for being in the Harrison Ford film “Witness” (which is perfect consider that “Witness” is a great little movie) and of course you have the anthemic “A Change Gonna Come” which has pretty much became a American staple at this point. Here you can see where “Chain Gang” diverges, love songs on one hand, political songs in the other. “Chain Gang” is a great use of both, even if it is unintended. As the 60s roared on who knows where Sam Cooke would have ended up. He was moving into a more political direction, maybe his days as pop crossover artist were getting numbered, and he would have moved into other genres, or maybe he would have tried to figure out the lane for a successful mainstream black political musician. Either way, it would have been interesting and it’s a shame we never got to see it. Sam Cooke was killed in 1964, the reasons of which have been considered conspiracy for decades, but either way, he was taken from us far too soon. Sam Cooke’s legacy lives on, he was most recently portrayed by Broadway actor Leslie Odom Jr. in the film adaption of the stage show “One Night in Miami”, and Odom actually got an Oscar nomination for that work, which would have been cool if that Oscar year had any kind of cultural relevance whatsoever. Outside of that film however, Cooke’s legacy seems to be boiling down to “A Change Gonna Come” and while I’m glad a talented and successful artist is going to be remembered in the 21th century, they are many hugely successful artists of the 20th century whose legacies are all but forgotten, I hope that Sam Cooke can be remembered for more than one song. “You Send Me” “Wonderful World” and especially “Chain Gang” are all wonderful tracks, and they deserve all the praise they can get.

(Here is a scene from “One Night in Miami” where Sam Cooke sings “Chain Gang” after his mic goes off in the middle of a performance which wins back his audience, all while Malcolm X watches….People say the movie and play are a bit exaggerated and plot points like this are probably why, but still, it’s a cool scene.)

(Here is a scene in 1990’s film “Candence” where this song is preformed by black army men…I have never seen this film, but according to the comment section it has a bit of a following so that’s cool I guess, it’s a decent scene)