You\u2019ve made history \u2013 but more importantly, you\u2019ve made a stunning song<\/p>\n\n\n\n
By Nigel Becker<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cOh my God\u2026 I\u2019m so surprised,\u201d Bonnie Raitt said as she accepted the 2023 Grammy Award for Song of the Year, for \u201cJust Like That.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She can\u2019t have been the only one. In the run-up to the ceremony, the chattering class<\/a> had declared<\/a> that Harry Styles was the frontrunner (\u201csomeone should probably start clearing mantle space in Harry\u2019s house,\u201d the Seattle Times<\/em> proclaimed), with a side-debate of whether Taylor Swift could best Adele<\/a>. Apart from a few exceptions<\/a>, Grammy forecasters ignored Raitt altogether, unless it was to discount her song as insufficiently \u201czeitgeisty<\/a>.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n Raitt herself didn\u2019t seem to have high expectations, either. On the red carpet, she emphasized that she was \u201creally proud\u201d just to be nominated and to represent the \u201coldsters<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n But then, Dr. Jill Biden tore open the Grammy envelope and announced, \u201cAnd the Grammy goes to\u2026 \u2018Just Like That.\u2019\u201d There was a moment of stunned silence \u2013 then, applause erupted, and a flabbergasted Raitt wended her way to the stage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The outcome was surprising, not least due to the song\u2019s obscurity<\/a>; pre-Grammys, it was notching just 10,000 streams a day, and close to zero sales. It was far less surprising, though, when one considers the songwriting. <\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s not my aim to downplay the songwriting feats of any of the other nominees; I have no desire to provoke the wrath of their dedicated fan armies, and more importantly, each one (even \u201cABCDEFU<\/a>\u201d) was fun, heart-rending, and\/or thought-provoking. <\/p>\n\n\n\n My aim, rather, is to sing the praises of \u201cJust Like That.\u201d The lyrics tell the real-life story of a woman whose son died years earlier (\u201cHe\u2019d be 25 today\u201d) and who donated his heart to a patient in need. Years later, the boy who received that heart \u2013 now a man \u2013 comes to her home to thank her, and to allow her to listen to her son\u2019s heart, still beating inside him. Raitt credited the late John Prine as a lyrical inspiration, and she does him proud.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s easy to get choked up just typing the synopsis, and even easier to lose composure listening to it: the minimalist, folky performance spotlights Raitt\u2019s smoky vocals and manages to sound mournful yet thankful all at once. It\u2019s a timeless song that could work in 1972, 1992, or 2022, and that Linda Ronstadt, the Chicks, or Taylor Swift could record proudly. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The track is all the more impressive because, as Raitt acknowledged in her acceptance speech, \u201cI don\u2019t write a lot of songs.\u201d Indeed, this was the first time she received a Grammy as a songwriter rather than a vocalist. She\u2019s a great interpreter, whether bringing other songwriters\u2019 tunes to life (\u201cLove Letter<\/a>\u201d) or putting a new spin on tracks recorded by other greats before her (\u201cNeed You Tonight<\/a>\u201d). <\/p>\n\n\n\n But as she\u2019s shown repeatedly \u2013 with \u201cNick of Time<\/a>\u201d back in 1989, and with \u201cJust Like That\u201d today \u2013 she makes the most of the songs she writes herself. Interestingly, too, it was the only one of the ten SOTY nominees to be written by a single songwriter, and the first single-writer SOTY since Amy Winehouse\u2019s \u201cRehab\u201d in 2008. <\/p>\n\n\n\n