Bill Withers - Grandma's Hands (live at Carnegie Hall)

Introductory Remarks To "Grandma's Hands"
-Bill Withers (live at Carnegie Hall)

"Lotta folks of all different nationalities and thangs, come up to me and say, "I dug my Grandmother, too."

And I remember, the first responsibility I ever had was to take care of my Grandmother, make sure she got everywhere OK. And at that time I was maybe 5 or 6 years old. And the most I could ov done was let her fall on me if she decided to fall.

But it was a hip job, becos Grandma never went no where but the Church. And it wasn't one of them sad churches, where they sing them songs and make you wish you could just hurry up and die and get it over with. One a them kind of "Lead me on...", no, no.... Grandma them had churches where they sung "If you wanna have me Jesus, it's alright. If you wanna help me Jesus, it's alright". And at the funeral they used to have to tie the caskets down! Yeah. Yeah.

And they had them fat sisters in there, used to get so glad, in the rhythm, had a little stove in the center of the church for heat, and invariably, one of them fat sisters would feel so good she would jump onto the stove and holler "AOW!" right in the rhythm.

Grandma was like Bobbye over here, Bobbye Hall, she had a tambourine and a triangle. When I saw Bobbye with that tambourine and triangle, I couldn't help but hug her. But Grandma couldn't play the triangle good like Bobbi can, but she could deal with the tambourine. So I used to sit on the triangle and hand her the tambourine.

And the Honorable Reverend back there had an old bass drum that somebody gave him. And when the groove got right, and the fat sister hit the stove, and holler at Grandma ship the tambourine off the hip, the Reverend would get the feeling so good he'd just hit himself all upside the head with the drumstick. Yeah.

I loved that old lady, loved that old lady...."