“Someday We'll All Be Free” by Donny Hathaway

"Someday We'll All Be Free" comes from Extension of a Man, Donny Hathaway's 1973 album, and it was written for the man singing it. Edward Howard, who shares the writing credit with Hathaway, wrote the words about the mental anguish Hathaway was living with at the time, after a diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia; Howard said all he could do for him was write something that might lift him up, a hope that the weight would lift someday.

It never charted, yet it has become an R&B standard, covered again and again, and over the years listeners heard something bigger in it: an anthem of encouragement for Black Americans facing racial strife. Hathaway himself loved it, as Eulalah Hathaway has recalled.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.