YOU KNOW YOU KNOW YOU KNOW for Bill Withers

my mother always said he sang like he wasn’t
no light-skinned man. said his voice walked
a flat line, no nonsense, no running, just
a stand and deliver, sermonic, part your hair
kind of tone, like that west virginia coal
caught in his throat and blacked it up something
serious. up there strumming like a folkie,
but he ain’t no folkie. he our folk, for sure.