Hope is a tenuous emotion, and it’s hard to say exactly where it comes from. But when you feel it, there’s no mistaking its power. It’s what drives us to keep putting one foot in front of the other when things seem impossibly bleak. It’s what inspires communities to mobilize when they’re facing dark days. And it’s an emotion some music can fill your spirit with the minute it begins.
I don’t know if Five Stairsteps realized their song “O-o-h Child” would become an anthem for hope when they released it in 1970. That’s certainly what’s happened, though, with this simple, hopeful tribute to the belief that “things will get brighter.” Forty-two years after the song’s release, this performance on Soul Train can’t help but make you smile.
Not surprisingly, YouTube is full of comments like this one from Tika100876 who says, “This song has helped me through some tough times in my life. Through tears I can almost always hear it playing in the echos [sic] of my mind. It's such a great song.” Countless musicians have covered “O-o-h Child,” it’s been used on film soundtracks and it’s even inspired hip-hop artists to sample it.
Here are some of the best cover versions I found:
Just a year after the original tune came out, the great jazz legend Nina Simone released it on Here Comes the Sun, an album of cover tunes.
2Pac’s 1993 song “Keep Ya Head Up” encourages men to treat women with respect and women to believe in themselves. He uses “O-o-h Child” as a refrain to emphasize his point.
Gospel performers Donnie McClurkin and Kirk Franklin dedicated their 2004 version of the song to the victims of Hurricane Katrina.
And finally British singer-songwriter Beth Orton takes a more melancholy approach in her stripped-down version. It’s as though she’s longing for that feeling of release the song promises, but hasn’t quite gotten there yet.
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