Stop What You’re Doing And Check Out Donny Hathaway’s Take On John Lennon’s “Jealous Guy”

“I Didn’t Want To Hurt You…”

One of the things we loved about late soul singer Donny Hathaway was his ability to make you feel. I’m not talking about “Man, I love this song!” but the type of feelings that come from the depths of places you didn’t know you had, channeling the singer’s fleeting moments of joy while simultaneously taking on the weight of the sadness that would take his life in January of 1979.

Hathaway’s early 70s take on late Beatle John Lennon’s “Jealous Guy” is the perfect example of that dichotomy between joy and pain; from the first bright piano riff, “Jealous Guy” as sung by Hathaway immediately grasps at your heart and despite its happy sound manages to sound even sadder than Lennon’s own slower, more somber original – the musical equivalent of trying to smile through your own pain.

One of the greatest soul singers of the 20th century, Donny Hathaway’s gift for spinning cover songs into something so uniquely his own that you have a hard time remembering that it was never actually his song to begin with, and that gift never shines through more clearly than on his take on “Jealous Guy”. Be sure to check it out in the audio below!