Inspiration: Lean on Me
Hmm... hmm-hmm-hmm-hmm
Hmm-hmm-hmm-hmm
Hmm-hmm-hmm-hmm-hmm
Sometimes in our lives
We all have pain
We all have sorrow
But if we are wise
We know that there's always tomorrow
Lean on me
When you're not strong
And I'll be your friend
I'll help you carry on...
For it won't be long
Till I'm gonna need somebody to lean on
Please swallow your pride
If I have things you need to borrow
For no one can fill
Those of your needs that you won't let show
You just call on me brother when you need a hand
We all need somebody to lean on
I just might have a problem that you'll understand
We all need somebody to lean on
Lean on me
When you're not strong
And I'll be your friend
I'll help you carry on...
For it won't be long
Till I'm gonna need somebody to lean on
You just call on me brother
When you need a hand
We all need somebody to lean on
I just might have a problem that you'll understand
We all need somebody to lean on
If there is a load you have to bear
That you can't carry
I'm right up the road
I'll share your load
If you just call me
Call me
If you need a friend
(Call me)
Call me (call me)
If you need a friend
(Call me)
If you ever need a friend
(Call me)
Call me
(Call me) Call me
(Call me) Call me
(Call me) Call me
(Call me)
If you need a friend
(Call me)
Call me
(Call me) Call me
(Call me) Call me
(Call me) Call me
(Call me)
Source: Musixmatch
Songwriters: Bill Withers
Lean on Me lyrics © Songs Of Universal Inc.
When I listen to Lean on Me, I hear the quiet scaffolding of human life laid bare. It is not flashy or performative. It is structural, like a heartbeat that carries weight. Sometimes in our lives, we all have pain. We all have sorrow. Those words are simple, but they are also ruthless in their honesty. Pain does not ask permission. Sorrow does not wait for convenient timing. They arrive, and if you are awake, you feel them deep in your chest. That line is my life cataloged in four words. Every struggle I have carried—illness, addiction, motherhood, betrayal—has traced that same pulse.
And yet, if we are wise, we know there is always tomorrow. Wisdom, in my experience, is less a gift than a muscle built from persistence. Tomorrow is not promise; it is insistence. It is the way breath returns after panic. The way the body insists on uprightness even after years of trauma. That idea, so simple in song, has been a quiet mantra through the hardest seasons of my life. When I could not see a way forward, I repeated the words inwardly: tomorrow exists. Even if I am still fractured, tomorrow exists.
Lean on me. That is not a metaphor; it is a directive. It is invitation and obligation wrapped together. I have carried many burdens that were not mine to bear, yet I also know what it is to be alone beneath a load that seems too vast to lift. These lyrics recognize reciprocity. They honor the truth that strength is not solitary. Friendship is not optional. Family is not optional. When the song says, “For it won’t be long till I’m gonna need somebody to lean on,” it places vulnerability next to generosity. Life is a constant negotiation between the two.
I think about the lives of those around me—my children, my partner, my friends, my chosen family. Each of us has carried moments that seemed private, unsharable, unmanageable. Yet leaning on one another has been the way we survive, the way we remain human. I have learned, painfully, that pride can be a cage. Swallow your pride. Ask for help. Accept help. Share your load. It sounds simple, but simplicity is often the hardest terrain. It asks humility, courage, and trust in people who might fail you, and still, you must reach.
The repetition of “Call me” feels like a heartbeat echoing across years. It is insistence. It is persistence. It is faith that connection matters more than self-reliance alone. That faith has threaded through my life. During the darkest stretches, when illness or despair threatened to isolate me, someone always answered my call. Sometimes literally. Sometimes in presence, in silence, in a glance or a hand held across the kitchen table. Leaning on people is never transactional. It is sacred. It is the quiet architecture of survival.
These lyrics apply to me because they remind me that life is a shared burden, that connection is oxygen. I cannot carry everything. I cannot heal alone. I cannot mother alone. I cannot endure my own mind alone. And that is not weakness. That is the human condition, recognized and named with tenderness and urgency. Lean on me, the song says. And I have. And I have let others lean on me. And in that rhythm—receiving, giving, holding, being held—I have learned the form of resilience. The song is my life measured in trust, in friendship, in the unspoken vow that no matter the sorrow, no one carries it alone.
