Since I’d started I made a little bit of money and I figured I could afford a little piano. So I bought one of those Wurlitzer pianos. I screwed the legs on it and sat down and just started running my hands up and down. That’s a song that most children find is the first song that they learn to play because you don’t have to change your fingers. You just go up and down.

Then the lyrics are what crossed my mind. If somebody was asking me what kind of technique I use, you just are and something crosses your mind sometimes. The message of the lyrics are just what it says. That’s what I wanted to say. As to why I wanted to say it. It was an accumulation of subtle things that had buried themselves in my psyche over time. I think that would be the best explanation of why you would call something a gift is when something occurs to you, like in “Lean On Me,” and you don’t know why.

— Bill Withers, 2015