Lalah Hathaway and Joe Sample : When Your Life Was Low

SONG When Your Life Was Low

WRITTEN BY Joe Sample and Will Jennings

PERFORMED BY Lalah Hathaway and Joe Sample

APPEARS ON The Song Lives ON

Eulaulah Donyll Hathaway was born on December 16, 1968. She is the daughter of the late great Donny Hathaway. Her father is an icon and one of my all time favorites. While he experienced commercial success during his career, Lalah hasn’t really gotten the wide exposure from any of her recordings. That’s unfortunate because I think she’s an underrated talent. She sings one of my favorite songs. It comes from the jazz album she recorded with Joe Sample titled The Song Lives On. The name of the song is ‘When Your Life is Low’ and I have been singing it to myself all week. I was surprise to see this song only made it to #118 on the R&B charts. Unlike some of the other songs I have written about in this blog I don’t have any personal reference to go with this one. I just think it’s a great song and I love the story. It’s a song about a person that was down and out who found shelter in the singer until their life was together again. Once things were well again and the person was back on top they changed and went back to their other life. The song starts with a piano lead in by Joe Sample and Lalah starts with the cautionary lyrics.

Always remember my friend,
the world will change again.
And you may have to come back
through everywhere you've been.

Since the first time I heard it I have been trying to determine if this song was a love song or not. It is but not in the sense of a love story between a man and a woman. It’s more of a tale that could happen between two people in any type of relationship. There is no guarantee that the people in your life that you need will be the same people that you desire to be around. Sometimes when you care about someone and they come to you in a troubled time, you have to do what you can for them with the understanding that once they are back together again they may be gone. Strange as it sounds, the comfort comes from knowing that you did the right thing for them. People make this deal with themselves all the time. At the same time if you have a person in your life that will take you in no matter how bad you screw things up, you should always give that person special recognition and hold them in high esteem. The worst thing you could do is take that person for granted. Just like the songs says, if things go wrong you may have to come back and those welcoming arms may not be there the next time. Even if all that analysis means nothing to you still check out the song because Lalah Hathaway is awesome. She's beautiful too.

Lyrics

Always remember my friend,
the world will change again.
And you may have to come back
through everywhere you've been.

When your life was low,
you had nowhere to go.
People turned their backs on you,
and everybody said that you were through.

I took you in, made you strong again
put you back together.
Out of all the dreams you left along the way,
you left me shining.

Now you're doing well
from stories I hear tell.
You own the world again.
Everyone's your friend.

Although I never hear from you,
still it's nice to know
you used to love me so,
when your life was low.

I took you in. I made you strong again.
I put you back together.
Out of all the dreams you left along the way,
you left me shining

Now you're doing well
from stories I hear tell.
You own the world again.
Everyone's your friend.

Although I never hear from you,
still it's nice to know
you used to love me so,
you used to love me so,
when your life was low.

But always remember my friend,
the world will change again.
And you may have to come back
through everywhere you've been.
The world will change again.