Story Behind The Song

In August 1995, I heard Stacy Bess on a local radio talk show. She's a Utah public school teacher who left her job to teach homeless children in a concrete culvert under a highway. Eventually her moral courage shamed the state into appropriating funding

Lyrics

Will somebody love somebody ? Will somebody love somebody ?
Will somebody love somebody ?

Nobody don?t love nobody
And that?s why people bleed
That?s how it happens that people are just thrown away
It?s not really much of a mystery
There?s a reason for all the suffering
And it?s not about karma or the demon economy
You say you want to know the reason, please
How they got to be the least of these
Well, when nobody don?t love nobody
Then somebody bleeds

Nobody don?t love nobody
So we decided there were two kind of poor
For one we felt pity, the other deserved our scorn
From there we divided our sisters and brothers
We decided that some deserved love more than others
And the circle of those who are worthy grows smaller each day
Which one of us can say we really deserve
If love is love then it is nothing we earn
But nobody don?t love nobody
Because we haven?t learned

Then a light shines through
A life like yours or mine
And love returns to earth
In the life of the one
Whose work?s never done
With the beaten, the broken, the blind

Ever been loved by somebody
With a love that you did not earn
When you?d made life a shambles and there was no place to turn
Deep in that memory, we?ll find a door
There we?ll remember why we were born
Try to remember?we came here to learn to love
Mighty nice of the least of these
Giving us the chance to be set free
From the burden of loving nobody
More than me
Won?t somebody love somebody ?