Jesse - Roberta Flack - MP3 instrumental karaoke

Teenage sensation Janis Ian, who wrote and recorded her first hit single, "Society's Child (Baby I've Been Thinking)" at 14 and won the Grammy for best pop vocal performance in 1975 for "At Seventeen," wrote "Jesse" from the perspective of the loved one of a Vietnam veteran. The song was made famous by Roberta Flack, whose elegant, strings-laced version of "Jesse" went to Number 30 in the US at the time of its release in 1973. "Jesse come home / There's a hole in the bed / Where we slept / Now it's growing cold / Hey Jesse, your face / In the place where we lay / By the hearth, all apart / It hangs on my heart," she sings in the heartbreaking opening verse. "And I'm leaving the light on the stairs / No I'm not scared - I wait for you / Hey Jesse, I'm lonely, come home," she continues, her voice bursting full of tender emotion. Roberta Flack included "Jesse" on her Killing Me Softly album, which was released in 1973.