The strange “American experience” that inspired Bill Withers to write ‘Lean On Me’
Bill Withers could sing about boiling a kettle and making you a cup of tea, and it would feel like the warmest, most affectionate song of all time.
On his 1971 debut album Just As I Am, the world was introduced to his gently soulful voice that told deeply painful stories of love and loss, through songs like ‘Ain’t No Sunshine’ and ‘Grandma’s Hands’. In that voice was an immediately captivating sense of personality that just heightened the emotional impact of whatever he was saying and thus made him a voice that, like I said, could turn the mundane into the romantic.
Then a year later, on his follow up record Still Bill, he wrote a song that felt tailor made to his voice and has since gone on to become the ultimate anthem of friendship, ‘Lean On Me’. As his voice strains in the line “I’ll help you carry on”, you can genuinely feel the heartfelt sentiment that exists in the lyrics, ultimately leaving you to wonder who was the muse behind this stirring track.
Well, rather than it being a lifelong friend or family member, it was a stranger in rural Florida, who helped a young Withers fix a tire, after a blow out at the side of the road.
He explained, “When I was in the Navy, I must have been about 18, 19 years old, and I was stationed in Pensacola, Florida. It was some holiday, I had this car that I was able to buy and I was driving from Pensacola, Florida, up to West Virginia. As is the case with young people with cheap cars, the tires weren’t that great, so one of my tires blew out on this rural Alabama road. This guy comes walking over the hill that looked like he was right out of the movie Deliverance.”
Adding, “This guy goes walking back across the hill, and I’m not too comfortable here because I know where I am. He comes back walking with a tire, and he actually helps me put the tire on the car. My circumstance, this was not an idealised concept, this was real to me. Now, if you have a tire blow out on the West Side Highway in New York, people who would probably be less inclined to participate in your lynching wouldn’t give a fat man if you sat there for two years. So, just like the whole American experience, it’s very complex and it has its own little rules and stuff.”
The real life story that sparked Withers’ iconic song is exactly why it’s found such an endeared place within the cultural lexicon. The general public can universally relate to it, because of the all-encompassing kindness that provoked Withers to go away and write it. Much like the famous duelling banjo scene in Deliverance, this was an interaction that transcended social structures and historical tensions, to instead remind people of humanity’s essence.
While Withers may have wished to have not had a tire blow out that day, as the listener I can safely say I am glad it did. Because, that song could only have fell into his lap, given how perfect his voice was for it.
