Bonnie Raitt – "Just Like That" (2022)

I lay my head upon his chest

And I was with my boy again

In what most people considered to be a stunning upset, Bonnie Raitt’s “Just Like That” won the “Song of the Year” Grammy last month.

“Just Like That” was one of the least-well-known “Song of the Year” winners in recent memory.  In fact, each of the other nominees had at least 60 times more Spotify streams.

But as Andrew Chow of Time magazine noted, Raitt’s connection with the Grammys is “long and deep.”  She won the first of her 13 awards in 1990, and has been a frequent onstage presence at the annual Grammy awards ceremony ever since.  She took home a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award just last year.

Bonnie Raitt with her newest Grammy

Chow believes that Raitt won the award not only for her “overflowing musical talent,” but also because “she’s the kind of artist that the Grammys want to honor.”  

“Grammy voters tend to be old and white,” Chow wrote.  “They like it when artists play their own instruments, write their own songs, and uphold long-held traditions.”

*     *     *     *     *

“Just Like That” tells a story of a fictional mother who is still grieving the death of her young son many years ago.

Her grief is particularly sharp because she feels responsible for her boy’s death:

If I hadn’t looked away

My boy might still be with me now

He’d be twenty-five today

One day, a young man knocks at her front door.  She’s not the kind of woman who ordinarily trusts strangers, but something in the young man’s expression makes her open her door to him.

After she invites him in, he explains that he is the recipient of her son’s heart:

I’ve spent years just tryin’ to find you

So I could finally let you know

It was your son’s heart that saved me

The mother has lived in darkness since losing her son – “I never thought the night would end,” she tells her visitor.  But when she lays her head upon his chest and hears her son’s transplanted heart beating, she feels that she is with her boy.  

The visitor has brought her the peace and grace that she thought she would never find.

*     *     *     *     *

 

The woman in “Just Like That” was consoled by the knowledge that her son’s heart had saved the life of another mother’s son.  

The friend who brought “Just Like That” to my attention lost her husband to cancer several years ago.  The nature of her husband’s fatal illness meant that his organs were not suitable for transplantation.  So she wasn’t able to enjoy the consolation that the woman in the song felt when she lay her head on the young stranger’s chest.

“The song evoked the sadness I felt when told that none of my husband’s organs could be donated,” she told me.  “A double loss.”

*     *     *     *     *

Registering as an organ donor is easy.  You can drop by your local department of motor vehicles or sign up online.  (If you have an iPhone, it’s as easy as opening your “Health” app.)

If you’re one of the 54% of Americans who are registered organ donors, good for you.

If you’re one of the 46% who aren’t, what in the world are you waiting for?  Please – register as a donor right now.

*     *     *     *     *

Click here to listen to Bonnie Raitt’s Grammy-winning “Just Like That.”

Click here to buy that record from Amazon.