A personal reflection on inspiration, lyricism, and why some words still hit decades later
Where My Inspiration Comes From
How music gets under my skin
As a writer, I pull inspiration from a lot of places, but the biggest source is my own life—my hardships, my depression, my being. I also find it in music, film, and television. Music, especially, is powerful: it can lift you up, bring you down, unlock memories, trigger you, and even stir up pain and regret.
Lately I’ve been thinking about the late, great Tupac Shakur—especially his songs “Dear Mama” and “Changes.” “Changes” samples Bruce Hornsby and the Range’s 1986 song “The Way It Is,” and both tracks hit me with a lot of emotion. I’m not African American or Black, and I’ve never lived the specific experiences he describes, but his writing is so human that it reaches beyond labels.
Why “Dear Mama” Still Matters
The story behind the song
“Dear Mama” speaks on love, gratitude, and complicated family history—especially Tupac’s relationship with his mother, Afeni Shakur, who was involved in activism in New York in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Their story wasn’t simple. There were years of struggle, distance, and reconciliation, and that complexity is part of why the song feels so real.
Love, gratitude, and the parts we don’t talk about
“Changes”: A Song That Refuses to Age
What the song is calling out
“Changes,” released posthumously on his album Greatest Hits, touches on issues that were central to Tupac’s era—racism, police brutality, drugs, and gang violence. He references Huey P. Newton (“Huey” in the lyrics), founder of the Black Panther Party. He also questions whether the country is truly ready for real change—even imagining the idea of a Black president and wondering if “we ain’t ready.”
A lyric that stays with me
These lines still stop me every time:
I see no changes, wake up in the morning and I ask myself
Is life worth livin’? Should I blast myself?
I’m tired of bein’ poor and, even worse, I’m black
My stomach hurts so I’m lookin’ for a purse to snatch
Cops give a damn about a negro
Pull the trigger, kill a n*****, he’s a hero
“Give the crack to the kids, who the hell cares?
One less hungry mouth on the welfare”
First ship ’em dope and let ’em deal to brothers
Give ’em guns, step back, watch ’em kill each other
“It’s time to fight back,” that’s what Huey said
Two shots in the dark, now Huey’s dead
I got love for my brother
But we can never go nowhere unless we share with each other
We gotta start makin’ changes
Learn to see me as a brother instead of two distant strangers
And that’s how it’s supposed to be
How can the Devil take a brother if he’s close to me? Uh
I’d love to go back to when we played as kids
But things change, and that’s the way it is
When I first heard it
“Changes” came out in 1998. I was 18 then, and I wasn’t even much of a rap fan. But when you care about lyrics—when you care about writing—you can’t ignore his talent. He was taken far too early.
I can’t help but ask: will things ever change—or have they only gotten worse? Some days it feels like we’re sliding backward, not forward. That’s why Tupac’s words still speak so loudly: if we can look back nearly 30 years and recognize the same wounds, what will it take to finally heal them?
Closing Thoughts
If you have a song that shaped you—or lyrics that still hit years later—I’d love to hear what they are.
Notes
References mentioned: Tupac Shakur’s songs “Dear Mama” and “Changes”; “The Way It Is” by Bruce Hornsby and the Range; and background commonly documented about Afeni Shakur and the Black Panther Party.
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