1969 Song of the Day is- “He Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Brother”- by The Hollies. Along with The Zombies I have always thought of The Hollies as one of the great overlooked British groups of the 1960’s. They had 21 singles crack the Hot 100 in the US-and some big hits too. Maybe it is because they were more a singles band than an album band? I don’t know.   He Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Brother went to #7 in the US and #1 in the UK. The song was written by songwriters- Bob Russell and Bobby Scott. Russell was dying of lymphoma at the time- the two guys only met three times but they came away with this song. The song was climbing into the Top 40 in the US when Russell died.

The recording  has an upcoming piano player on it- Elton John. Elton had yet to ‘break’ yet. I always thought the song title was odd- it turns out it came from a book by James Wells in 1884- The Parables of Jesus. In this book he tells the story of a little girl carrying a big baby boy. Someone seeing her struggling asked if she wasn’t tired. Her reply “No, He’s not heavy, he’s my brother.”

In 1970 Neil Diamond would cover the song, The Osmonds had a cover of it on the b-side of their rock classic [ just kidding] One Bad Apple. I don’t think I want to hear that one. Olivia Newton-John also had it as a b-side of her single “Let It Shine.” In 2012 the song made a big comeback in the UK when a collective group of musicians going under the title Justice Collective recorded the song for charities associated with the Hillsborough soccer disaster. It was the Christmas #1 in 2012.