Year:  2020

Medium : Oil On Wood (Hand crafted frame)

Dimensions : 60.96 cm (26 inches Framed )

Availability : $1450.00 (usd) 🔴 original sold 6/5/2020 1:20 pm

The Perspective : A rendition of Billie Holiday

This was written by Billie Holiday with her frequent collaborator Arthur Herzog in 1941. She wrote the lyrics after an argument with her mother, Sadie, over financial matters. Just a few years earlier, Holiday had loaned her mom thousands of dollars to open a restaurant and when she found herself in need of cash, Sadie declined to lend her any money. In her autobiography Lady Sings The Blues, Holiday recalled how, in the course of the row, she uttered the old proverb, “God bless the child that got his own.” The singer’s anger over the incident led her to turn that line into a starting point for this song.

Them that’s got shall have
Them that’s not shall lose
So the Bible saidand it still is news
Mama may have,Papa may have
But God bless the child that’s got his own
That’s got his own

Yes, the strong gets more
While the weak ones fade
Empty pockets don’t ever make the grade
Mama may have, Papa may have
But God bless the child that’s got his own
That’s got his own

Money, you’ve got lots of friends
Crowding round the door
When you’re gone, spending ends
They don’t come no more
Rich relations give
Crust of bread and such
You can help yourself
But don’t take too much
Mama may have, Papa may have
But God bless the child that’s got his own
That’s got his own

Holiday opens the song with her own interpretation of a biblical observation: “Them whose got shall get, them whose not shall lose. So the Bible says, but it still is news.” The verse that Lady Day was referring to is thought to be: “For everyone who has will be given more, and he will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken from him.” (Matthew 25:29).