The Hollies - He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother

youtube ^ | 1975 | The Hollies

[FLNittany]

From wiki - take it for what it's worth:

James Wells, Moderator of the United Free Church of Scotland, tells the story of a little girl carrying a big baby boy in his 1884 book The Parables of Jesus. Seeing her struggling, someone asked if she wasn't tired. With surprise she replied: "No, he's not heavy; he's my brother."

In a 1918 publication by Ralph Waldo Trine titled The Higher Powers of Mind and Spirit, Trine relates the following anecdote: "Do you know that incident in connection with the little Scottish girl? She was trudging along, carrying as best she could a boy younger, but it seemed almost as big as she herself, when one remarked to her how heavy he must be for her to carry, when instantly came the reply: 'He's na heavy. He's mi brither.'"

The first editor of Kiwanis magazine, Roe Fulkerson, published a column in September 1924 carrying the title "He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother", the first use of the phrase exactly as it is rendered in the song title.

In the 1940s, the words, adapted as "He ain't heavy, Father, he's my brother", were taken as a slogan for Boys Town children's home by founder Father Edward Flanagan.[3] According to the Boys Town website, the phrase as used by Boys Town was said to Fr. Flanagan in 1918 by one of the residents while carrying another up a set of stairs. The boy being carried is said to have had polio and worn leg braces.

[FLNittany]

The Hollies owned this song obviously. The video says it's 1975. I think the song was released in 1969. I have a file of Rolling Stone Rag's top 500 songs of all time, and I was surprised this song isn't amongst them.

[joma89]

This is a popular phrase with marines.

[Paladin2]

Thanks for kicking me off talk radio to music for the start of the w/e.

Went to Dan Hicks and the Hot Licks pretty quickly.

[imardmd1]

Yeah. It ain’t heavy; it’s my 81mm mortar baseplate.

[BobL]

Powerful.

[Steely Tom]

Never liked this song, but I have to give credit where it's due: The Hollies were a remarkably versatile and creative band. I liked every other song of theirs, at least the ones that were on Top 40 radio where I lived.

I always kind of half-way thought that Long Cool Woman was done by CCR. At that age, I wasn't really paying attention to the names of the bands on the radio.

A great band that spawned other great bands, as we all know.

[mfish13]

18 year old Elton John on piano

[ProtectOurFreedom]

Fascinating background to the title of the song. Thanks for providing that — I had no idea about that history of the phrase.

[Fiji Hill]

When they were surfing the charts, I saw the Hollies as a bubble-gum group. “Long Cool Woman,” which is unlike any of their other hits, is my favorite.

[Inyo-Mono]

The Hollies owned this song obviously. The video says it's 1975. I think the song was released in 1969. I have a file of Rolling Stone Rag's top 500 songs of all time, and I was surprised this song isn't amongst them

Probably released in late 1969, the song reached number 2 on the Billboard charts in March 1970.