was greatly moved that such a poignant song about racism in America could come from someone who was not black, and was also ashamed he had not yet written something like that himself. However, his image and fears of losing his large white fan base had prevented him from doing so. Cooke loved Dylan's song so much it was immediately incorporated into his repertoire. He was further influenced by the message of the dream in Martin Luther King Jr's I Have a Dream speech at the civil rights march on Washington that year. Toward the end of 1963, according to Cooke, the Change composition came to him in a dream. Recording and production Following Christmas 1963, Cooke invited J.W. Alexander to his home to preview a new song he had just written, one Cooke was very excited about. When he arrived, Cooke ran through the number on his guitar twice, the second time going over it line by line. Both were very excited to record the song, with Alexander viewing it as more personal and political than anything he had yet attempted. He warned Cooke that he might not profit off the song as he had with lighter, poppier songs, but Cooke did not care. He explained to Alexander that he hoped the song would make his father proud. "It was less work than any song he'd ever written," biographer Peter Guralnick says. "It almost scared him that the song—it was almost as if the song were intended for somebody else. He grabbed it out of the air and it came to him whole, despite the fact that in many ways it's probably the most complex song that he wrote. It was both singular—in the sense that you started out, 'I was born by the river'—but it also told the story both of a generation and of a people." Cooke handed the song to his arranger René Hall, with no specific instructions as to what he personally wanted, but to give it “the kind of instrumentation and orchestration that it demanded.” Previously, the duo had collaborated on arrangement, but this was the first occasion in which Hall was granted complete control of the eventual arrangement, and he composed it as he would a movie score, with lush, symphonic strings. "I wanted it to be the greatest thing in my [life]—I spent a lot of time, put out a lot of