Helping out

 You know the song "Anyone Who Knows What Love Is (Will Understand)" if you are a fan of 60's soul music. You remember the original version of the song by Irma Thomas from 1964, and if you bought the 45 and turned to the flip side, you heard the first recording of "Time Is On My Side," which became the first US top ten hit for the Rolling Stones.

I bring all this up because the words for "Anyone Who Knows.." were written by the great Jeannie Seely, a Grand Ole Opry star who performed 5,397 times on the Opry and had plenty of country hits with her own compositions, and her songs were recorded by others as well (most notably, Faron Young's #1 hit "Leaving and Saying Goodbye.")

Jeannie Seely, 1940 - 2025

Jeannie was working as a secretary at Liberty Records when she wrote the song and was trying to get into performing. The words came to her as she hung around after work, working on her songs, but she needed some help with the piano chords. So guess who happened to be there, piano player and composer and performer Randy Newman, whom you know for "I Love LA", "Short People," and for writing "Mama Told Me Not To Come" for Three Dog Night.

Randy got co-writer credit for "Anyone" and fast forward to 2011, it was used in six episodes of the science fiction anthology series "Black Mirror" on TV.  Years later, asked about helping to write the music for the song, he frankly didn't remember helping Jeannie with it, but he did!

Jeannie also got some help from reading a pantyhose ad that pushed its product with the slogan "Anyone who knows what comfort is..." She turned that into one of her many great songs, and she passed away last week in Nashville, beloved by many for many songs and great performances.