B-side "Better Off Dead" Recorded 1972 Label Sussex | Released April 21, 1972 Genre Soul | |
Length 4:17 (Album Version)
3:45 (Single Version) | ||
"Lean on Me" is a song written and recorded by American singer-songwriter Bill Withers. It was released in April 1972 as the first single from his second album, Still Bill. It was his first and only number one single on both the soul singles and the Billboard Hot 100. Billboard ranked it as the No. 7 song of 1972. It is ranked number 208 on Rolling Stone's list of "The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time". Numerous cover versions have been recorded, and it is one of only nine songs to have reached No. 1 with versions recorded by two different artists.
Contents
Background and writing
Withers' childhood in the coal mining town of Slab Fork, West Virginia, was the inspiration for "Lean on Me", which he wrote after he had moved to Los Angeles and found himself missing the strong community ethic of his hometown. He lived in a decrepit house in the poor section of 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.'"
Several members of the Watts 103rd Street Rhythm Band were used for the recording session in 1972. A string section was also included as well.
Wither's version is noted for its Bridge section: ("Just call on me, brother"), as well as the Coda section, where the words: Call Me," is repeated a total of 14 times, before the song ends on a cadenza on the strings. Several radio stations, as well as the single version, fade out during the repeated Coda, due to time limits as well as the repetition of the lyrics. Some radio versions cut the number of "Call Me's" to six times before the song's end.
Personnel
Track listings
7" single
- Lean On Me 3:45
- Better Off Dead 2:13
Club Nouveau version
The R&B group Club Nouveau covered the song and took it to number one for two weeks on the Billboard Hot 100 charts in 1987. It also reached number one on the dance charts, and number two on the Black Singles charts, kept out of the top spot by Jodi Watley's "Looking for a New Love". It won a Grammy award in 1987 for Bill Withers, as the writer, for Best R&B Song.
Track listings
7" Single
- "Lean On Me" 3:58
- "Pump It Up (Lean On Me) (Reprise)" 2:38
12" Single
- "Lean On Me (Remix)" 7:42
- "Lean On Me (LP Version)" 5:56
- "Pump It Up (Lean On Me) (Remix)" 4:51
- "Pump It Up (Lean On Me) (Reprise - LP Version)" 2:38
2-4 Family cover version
In 1999, 2-4 Family released "Lean on Me (with the Family)", a cover version with a hip hop arrangement and additional lyrics. 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 Content in Bulgaria.
12" single
- Lean on Me (with The Family) (Special radio version) 3:58
- Lean on Me (with The Family) (DSP mix) 4:04
- 9 Lives (Album Version) 4:06
- Stay (Special Radio Version) 4:12
- Lean on Me (with The Family) (Lounge mix) 6:38
- Stay (Jay's D-Style Mix) 4:15
CD maxi single
- Lean on Me (with The Family) (Radio version) 3:38
- Lean on Me (with The Family) (DSP mix) 4:04
- Lean on Me (with The Family) (Lounge mix) 6:38
- Lean on Me (with The Family) (Special radio version) 3:58
- Stay (Jay's D-Style mix) 4:15
- 9 Lives (Album version) 4:06
In popular culture
The song is frequently played at charity events. Avril Lavigne and Heart made a duet singing this song at the 17th Race To Erase MS event in May 2010. Kid Rock, Sheryl Crow and Keith Urban performed the song at the 2010 Hope for Haiti earthquake relief telethon.
The song was used in a 1970s drug awareness film titled Dead Is Dead, hosted and produced by actor Godfrey Cambridge.
The original and Club Nouveau version was featured in the 1989 film Lean on Me, starring Morgan Freeman.
Mary J. Blige performed this song at the HBO We Are One: The Obama Inaugural Celebration at the Lincoln Memorial. 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.
The song plays at the end of "Radioactive Man", an episode of The Simpsons, when two film producers return to Hollywood after a movie failure.
Early TV comedy sketch parodies of Lean on Me included a famous sketch on In Living Color where Joe Louis Clark is played by Keenen Ivory Wayans.
Paula Abdul and The Muppets performed this song on a 1997 episode of Muppets Tonight.
On the fourth season of Martin, Martin and the crew sang the song in the hospital in the episode, "Why Can't We Be Friends" that was broadcast in 1996.
Brian Eno, Michael Stipe and Stephen Colbert sang an a cappella version of the song on The Colbert Report that was first broadcast on November 10, 2011.
Club Nouveau's cover is played over the credits of Escape Plan (video game).
A cover version appears in a 2016 TV commercial for Muscle Milk.
Other cover versions
"Lean on Me" has been interpreted by various other artists including Mud (1976), Al Jarreau (1985), Club Nouveau (1986), DC Talk (1992), Michael Bolton (1993), Bonnie Tyler (1999), Anne Murray (1999), The Temptations and Mark Medlock (2011).
In 1989, covers 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.
Jack Vidgen recorded a version of the song for his album Inspire.
In 2004, Glen Campbell recorded the song on his album Love Is the Answer: 24 Songs of Faith, Hope and Love.
The rapper Majid featuring Burhan G made a rap song entitled "Lean On Me". The song contains the same introduction words as the original, with Burhan G doing the refrain from the song; however, it otherwise has different lyrics.
Mitchel Musso recorded a version of the song for the 2008 film Snow Buddies.
Glee recorded a version of the song for the "Ballad" episode, in which the glee club sings it to fellow members Finn and Quinn.
Garth Brooks released a version in his Blame It All on My Roots: Five Decades of Influences box set in 2013.
The Canadian Tenors released their own version in the album Under One Sky published in 2015.