Herbie Hancock's "Speak Like a Child"

As somebody with over 14,500 songs on their iPod, there are several songs and artists that have had a profound, emotional, resonating impact on me. The examples are obvious to anyone who knows me well--Nick Drake, Joy Division, Van Morrison, Sly & the Family Stone, Miles Davis. When considering individual songs of profound impact, however, I constantly return to “Speak Like a Child,” a jazz composition written and performed by Herbie Hancock.

This beautiful, gorgeous song strikes me in a strange, alluring fashion, and it is difficult to put into words.

While the song has no lyrics, the title has a breathtaking, poetic quality, and is the first of the many mesmerizing aspects of the song. It is so simple, yet as the only words associated with the track, so meaningful.

And it perfectly complements the music of the track. One of the more interesting aspects of "Speak Like a Child" is the unusual instrumentation Hancock employs to support his piano. Casting aside the rudimentary Jazz language of the piano/trumpet/saxophone combo, Hancock instead uses flugelhorn, bass trombone, and alto flute, and rather than using the instruments for extended soloing, he uses them for mood and shading behind his own soloing on piano. The effect is a highly unorthodox but undeniably beautiful sound scape.

And then he plays, in such a light, delicate fashion. In other words, he speaks like a child. Hancock has always possessed a prodigious technique, capable of creating whirlwinds of sixteenths and thirty-seconds that confound traditionalists and amaze postmodernists. On this track, though, he forgoes all that jazz. Instead of power, we have lyricism. Instead of confrontation, we have sweetness. Along with experience, we have innocence, the innocence of childhood.

Listening to the song, to Hancock’s precious playing, and to his arrangements, I am flooded with memories of my youth. Not exactly one specific memory, but an entire cascade, an endless slide show of bits and pieces that all have one thing in common—the essence of childhood, and the innocence and adventure and carelessness that the time is defined by.

As I age, and more responsibility gradually crashes into my life, I can’t help but yearn for the simplicity of my youth. Listening to Hancock's music, I am saddened, thinking back to such simple times and wishing, so bad, that I could reclaim that joy for just another moment. Yet, Hancock’s light arpeggios fade off into the distance, and the song comes to a close. Great art is like our childhood; an evanescence, slowly melting away into the past.

I have never met the man, so I cannot be certain of this specific emotional response as what Hancock intended. What I do know, however, is that Hancock is as much a philosopher as he is a musician, and his composes his music with the specific goal to thrill, challenge, and above all else, move his audience. "Speak Like a Child," the title track off his 1968 release, it a sublime example.