One Artist, One Song Series: Billie Holiday - God Bless The Child (1941/1950/1954)

[This is the first write-up in a tentative series that shall cover a bunch of my favorite pre-mid-Fifties’ artists as specifically represented by one of my favorite songs of theirs, by way of a short, humble compensation for the lack of full-scale review pages for any of them. In no special order, though the overall direction will probably be from more famous ones to those that are - sometimes rather unjustly - less so.]

Billie Holiday: God Bless The Child

Finding the one "perfect" track that defines and exemplifies Billie Holiday is a challenging, if not entirely futile, affair: comparable, perhaps, to finding that one absolutely perfect blade of green grass within the confines of one of those lush New Zealand meadows from Lord Of The Rings or butter ads. As we know, Billie herself wrote very little of her own repertoire, mostly relying on the regular Tin Pan Alley crowds of professional songwriters — but each and every one of those songs she made uniquely her own through the sheer magic of her voice. I can find pleasure and comfort in just about any recording she ever made, from the young and playful versatility of her early Columbia singles to the cracked and weary melancholy of her late Verve LPs, and if it comes to recommendations, well, I can recommend no less than her entire official output for all the four labels she ever worked with (also including Commodore and Decca) as the bare minimum for anybody whose first random impression of Billie has been positive.

Of course, any averaged amalgamation of public or critical opinion will always single out ‘Strange Fruit’ as the go-to song if you have never had a Billie Holiday experience. But, in a way, this is precisely because ‘Strange Fruit’ is such an obvious stand-out track in Lady Day’s entire catalog. A rare, if not unique, case of setting an actual poem to music; an innovative and unusual approach to vocal melody-making, closer to the not-yet-existing standards for "modern jazz" singing than traditional vaudeville; and, of course, the social value of the song ("single-handedly started the civil rights movement!" is an excited hyperbolic assessment that I have come across not a few times) — all of these arguments demand that ‘Strange Fruit’ be recognized as an exceptional masterpiece, and I have no qualms about that. Kneel and worship? I’ll kneel and worship.

However, it is also absolutely clear that ‘Strange Fruit’ was all about Billie stepping out of her usual «comfort zone» — much in the same way as it would later happen with Sam Cooke, a popular singer and songwriter who mostly sang about the affairs of the heart but was eventually driven to more epic heights under the influence of Dylan’s ‘Blowing In The Wind’. Admittedly, we have no idea what Cooke’s future might have been after the recording of ‘A Change Is Gonna Come’ (although, given the shady and unpleasant circumstances of his death, something tells me he wasn’t exactly envisioning a full-scale transformation into a human rights activist). But we do know that ‘Strange Fruit’, originally recorded by Billie in 1939, was never followed by anything even remotely like it in the remaining twenty years of her life — although she did occasionally re-record it and, of course, performed it live on a regular basis.

The reason for this, I believe, is easy to discern from merely absorbing Billie’s catalog — you don’t really have to go for her autobiography (no single page of which should be consumed uncritically anyway) or the testimonies of her friends or colleagues to make a reasonable judgement. Hers is a quiet, intimate, solitary way of singing, introverted to the extreme and never aiming to manipulate the crowds, which is usually an obligatory requirement for any kind of «activist performance». Even ‘Strange Fruit’ itself is, when you come to think of it, merely an attempt to convey the emotional sense of dread and horror inside the soul of a petrified observer of the lynching aftermath. There is no call to action here and not even any anger — because anger in any Billie Holiday song is, at best, always implied, never expressed directly. Never once.

Consequently, were I to single out one particular song that would wholesomely represent the true artistic quintessence of Billie Holiday, it would have to be something that does not immediately stand out — something that agrees on all fronts with her usual musical and emotional stylistics — but also somehow manages to go beyond the standard run-of-the-mill romantic themes of the Tin Pan Alley idiom. And having cast a glance far and wide, at the moment I find no better candidate for this role than ‘God Bless The Child’, first recorded on May 9, 1941 for the OKeh label and later re-recorded at least twice for the Decca and Verve labels, respectively. It was not a big hit — ironically, it only rose to #25 on the pop charts in 1941, which was Billie’s all-time lowest position to that date — but it did become a critical favorite, and it’s certainly the kind of song about which one can write far more meaningfully than, say, about ‘What A Little Moonlight Can Do’.

According to Billie’s own recollections, the title phrase — God bless the child that’s got his own — was born out of a dispute with her mother when the latter refused Billie’s request for money one night — and she claims to have written all the other lyrics around that line by herself, with her steady collaborator Arthur Herzog setting them to music later on. Whether all of that story is documentally true or not does not matter; what does matter is that the song (unlike so many Tin Pan Alley covers she recorded over the years) did originate with Billie Holiday, and that the rags-to-riches-back-to-rags story it tells is, to a large degree (certainly to a larger degree than ‘Strange Fruit’), an essential part of the story of her own life.

On the lyrical side it is, of course, quite firmly grounded in ancestral tradition. "Money, you’ve got lots of friends crowding round the door / When you’re gone and spending ends, they don’t come no more" is a direct descendant of ‘Nobody Knows You When You’re Down And Out’, the old Alberta Hunter / Bessie Smith anthem that Billie somehow never got to cover herself (perhaps because it would be such an obvious choice? then again, she did stay away from most of Bessie’s repertoire). But the old message — be wise about how you spend your money — only serves here as a foundation for the new one, which, I’d say, has potential appeal for a much larger circle of people. In ‘Nobody Knows You’, the protagonist already starts out affluent ("once I lived the life of a millionnaire..."), while ‘God Bless The Child’ emphasizes the dire need to achieve self-sufficience: "Papa may have, Mama may have, but..." — and that is a far more realistic situation for the majority of people, be they black or white. In standard leftist discourse, the song is often extolled as quite specifically a plea for the underprivileged status of African-Americans, but nothing about its mood, lyrics, or story of origin suggests that Billie intended to give it any racial overtones — it is every bit as applicable to any struggling people all over the planet.

Perhaps the only inherent direct nod to its being rooted in black culture are the opening lines, borrowing from the vernacular: "Them that’s got shall get / Them that’s not shall lose / So the Bible said and it still is news". This, we know, is a simplified paraphrasing of "whosoever hath, to him shall be given, and he shall have more abundance; but whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken away even that he hath" (Matthew 13:12) which, upon first sight, can feel like a ridiculous misunderstanding of Jesus’ words — the lyrical line suggests that we are here talking about a dog-eat-dog world in which only the proverbial Elon Musk stands a chance (and it is certainly emphasized by the parallel in the next verse — "yes, the strong gets more / while the weak ones fade"), whereas the New Testament phrase actually serves as the answer to the question "why speakest thou unto them in parables?", referring to the alleged division of people into those with inborn intelligence and clarity of spirit vs. those deprived of such qualities, to whom the only option is talking in the simplest layman terms.

Billie and Arthur Herzog did not invent that twist of phrase or, for that matter, that twist of the original Evangelical meaning — the fact that it keeps reappearing all over the place (see Ray Charles’ ‘Them That Got’ from 1959 — "them that’s got are them that gets / And I ain’t got nothing yet") shows that it was a common idiomatic expression — but I would dare suggest that in the context of ‘God Bless The Child’ there is at least a partial restoration of the original meaning: the song is not about the hopelessness of one’s situation when in dire straits, but about the importance of being able to provide for oneself without relying on the kindness of others — and in this context, them that’s got and the strong refers (or, at least, may refer) to people with potential, energy, and a sense of purpose rather than those born with a silver spoon. In other words, good old affirmation of the classic Protestant work ethic, which Billie herself certainly knew a thing or two about. Amusingly, this is absolutely not what the Sower’s Parable is about, either — but at least it’s a little closer.

Summing up, ‘God Bless The Child’ is basically Billie’s equivalent of Scarlett O’Hara’s famous as God is my witness, I’ll never be hungry again — quite an appropriate message to the world for the rough and tough days of 1939 — but as it is with any great artist, far more important than the core message is the manner of its expression. The song, like almost everything in which Billie herself had a songwriting hand, is in the blues idiom, but more relaxed and «jazzified» (especially when compared to such far more straightforward creations like ‘Billie’s Blues’), so that both the singer’s pain and the toughness feel implied instead of floating directly to the surface. If you just listen to the song wedged among all her other recordings around 1941 (‘I Cover The Waterfront’, etc.), without paying it special attention, you might not even feel anything particularly special about it in the first place.

Admittedly, this is because pretty much all of Billie’s Columbia recordings follow the «playful» pattern, emphasizing the singer’s entertainment value over her personal aura. She is fluttering like a butterfly on that first verse, speedy and almost happy, lending the whole performance an ironic rather than a tragic atmosphere; even the harshest lines about how "the strong gets more while the weak ones fade" are delivered casually, without any attempt to hit you over the brain with their actual gravity. "Mama may have, Papa may have" is sung with all the tenderness of a young mother lulling her kid to sleep in the cradle — it’s as if Billie, learning from her own life experience, were passing the message along to her unborn baby, a little protection spell before bedtime. Her sidemen, including the famous Roy Eldridge on trumpet and the slightly less known Eddie Heywood on piano, humbly hide in the background here (with the exception of an unusually short solo at the end) to let the lullaby roll its course.

There is far more gravity on the 1950 recording made for Decca — this was the culmination of Billie’s «romantic-epic» phase, with orchestration and backup singers and lots of Hollywoodish pomp — but while the crooning overtones of the Gordon Jenkins Singers’ choir might feel irritating and even exploitative to some listeners (myself included), Billie’s own performance on this second version feels deeper and more chilling. The recording rolls on at a slightly slower tempo, giving her more time to inject soul into each phrase — "them that’s got... shall get... them that’s not... shall lo-o-o-se..." gets an extra punch of both cynicism and sadness compared to the more rapid and careless phrasing of the first version, and overall it feels as if, well, the singer has had a good ten years to ponder on how this message should really be delivered. She’s also much closer to the microphone, and at this time, her voice has not yet begun to crack, so in an imaginary universe, the Eldridge/Heywood arrangement from 1941 + the vocal track from 1950 would make the perfect studio rendition.

Finally, the last version that was cut in 1954 (for the autobiographic Lady Sings The Blues album) is somewhat superfluous — and not because of the actual deterioration of the singer’s voice (I don’t have a problem at all with Billie’s drug-wrecked vocal cords, because they simply gave her an extra emotional dimension), but rather because the arrangement feels too cluttered: taken at a more steady, 12-bar-bluesy rhythmic pacing, the song has Billie’s new accompanyist, Carl Drinkard, battling out some kind of personal battle with his piano in the background which, honestly, does not suit the song’s mood at all and feels like he’s holding a separate jam session in a different room that ends up bleeding over into the proper recording. It’s okay if you haven’t heard the previous two, but it does not add much to the song’s greatness if you already have.

There is, however, one more crucial version of the song which, although slightly shorter than the others, might just be the single best take on it in Billie’s entire life — and it’s on video, too! Shot for a short documentary in the same year 1950 that also yielded the Decca version, it has Billie singing live in front of a small audience with the Count Basie Sextet backing her (well, I’m pretty sure the audio recording is actually overdubbed, but it’s no big deal in this case). Impeccable as always, the Count knows precisely what sort of arrangement and mood the song needs — his own piano playing is quietly meditative, tasteful, never threatening to undercut the singer; and Billie might be here at the absolute peak of her powers — every vowel tinkling like pure crystal, each consonant rustling like crunchy velvet. Add to this the amazingly restrained stage presence — just the tiniest elements of body language — and it’s probably not difficult to understand why I have already rewatched this short bit dozens of times and still can’t get enough of it.

Out of understandable curiosity (and sometimes, by sheer accident), I have experienced quite a few cover versions of ‘God Bless The Child’ over the years — all of them essentially consisting of various artists trying to subvert the song to abide by their own rules and conform to their own personalities. Aretha Franklin predictably sings it like the preacher’s daughter, loud and thunderous; Diana Ross delicately chirps it out like the fragile sugary songbird; Liza Minnelli belts it with all the verve and power of her friend Elsie from Cabaret; and people who genuinely enjoy David Clayton-Thomas’ rendition on the second Blood, Sweat & Tears album must keep very boring company.

But the truth remains that this was a song specifically meant to be sung by the likes of Billie Holiday, in precisely the usual, natural, free-flowing manner of Billie Holiday. It is that perfect combination of deep-hidden inner strength and determination, combined with superficial sadness, tenderness, and frailty that really brings those words to life. It’s a hundred shades of emotions packed in one, as opposed to the far more streamlined and (usually) bland cover versions that, as a rule, only emphasize one or two aspects of the song, or even end up emphasizing nothing. It is, to me, one of the finest demonstrations of why Billie Holiday is essentially the Jimi Hendrix of vocal jazz — not necessarily «the greatest jazz singer ever», whatever that could mean, but simply standing in a class all her own that is impossible to recreate, and hopelessly useless to even try.