Listen to Paula Cole's Rendition of "God Bless the Child" Here

Singer and songwriter Paul Cole has put her own stamp on Billie Holiday's "God Bless the Child."  The song is the first single from her upcoming album Ballads -- due Aug. 11 on her own label, 675 Records.

"God Bless the Child" is a song written by Billie Holiday and Arthur Herzog, Jr. in 1939. It was first recorded on May 9, 1941 and released by the Okeh Records in 1942.Holiday's version of the song was honored with the Grammy Hall of Fame Award in 1976. It was also included in the list of Songs of the Century, by the Recording Industry Association of America and the National Endowment for the Arts.  

The song was hastily written in 1939, and Holiday said she wrote it in a rage after her mother refused to give her a small loan - at a time when Holiday was bankrolling her restaurant. "She wouldn't give me a cent. I was mad at her, she was mad at me . . . Then I said, 'God bless the child that's got his own', and walked out", according to her autobiography Lady Sings the Blues.

The vocalist stewed for three weeks before "a whole damn song" fell into place and she rushed to Greenwich Village to ask songwriter Herzog to help sort the tune out. "We changed the lyrics in a couple of spots, but not much," she wrote. 

"God Bless the Child" is the first release off Ballads, Cole's twenty-song collection featuring American jazz and folk classics from the 1930s-1960s. 

 

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