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GREENSBORO - Roy Roberts ain't into politics. He'll tell you that.

He'd rather write songs, play his guitar or share some tale about touring with soul legend Solomon Burke and growing up in a Tennessee town so tiny you'd miss it if you blinked.

But after nearly a half-century in the entertainment business, playing from here to Europe, Roberts has written his first political song - a tune that came in a 20-minute rush, a few hours before daybreak last summer.

He wrote it at his kitchen table, scribbling the lyrics on a legal pad usually used for taking down phone messages.

The song sprang from his own personal blues. He had seen gigs disappear and gas skyrocket as he told his musician friends searching for work, "I can't help y'all because I can't help myself.''

It also sprang from the time he spent at his home in northeast Greensboro in front of his TV. Every time he tuned in to the news, he'd spot this skinny guy in a tie going on about hope and change.

And about that time, it hit him - "like a ton of bricks,'' he likes to say - at 3 in the morning. He woke up, sat at his kitchen table and felt the words roll off like water.

The apolitical crooner had suddenly become the political activist. And he had his eye on that skinny guy in a tie.

"We need change in America,'' he wrote down. "Change is what we need.''

He recorded it in his backyard studio, a two-room trailer where you can trace Roberts' 47-year music career by looking at the framed photos, posters and magazine covers ringing the walls painted Easter egg blue.

His tune is classic old-school, an R&B throwback to the time when a young Roy Roberts walked into the El Rocco off East Market and saw soul singer Jerry Butler wow a room full of women.

Roberts had come to Greensboro from Livingston, Tenn., to live with his uncle. He was 18, looking for a life far away from the other end of a hoe.

He carried with him a paper bag full of clothes and a $15 guitar. He bought it from Sears, with money earned from working on his grandfather's farm.

In Greensboro, he tried washing dishes and packaging poultry. But nothing worked until he saw Butler that night at the El Rocco.

"This is it, man,'' he told himself. "I'm going to play music for a living.''

He has. And he's been everywhere. He's felt the praise of crowds and the sting of segregation. He's played with the greats, earned awards for his talents and even got a highway sign dedicated in his honor back in Livingston.

He did get political back in the '60s. He bounced from state to state to avoid the draft, and whenever someone asked him about fighting in Vietnam, he'd say, "I'm not going to fight for a country I'm not free in."

But he never sang or wrote about politics. Until he sat down at his kitchen table and wrote about Barack Obama, that skinny guy in a tie.

He calls his song, "Obama for Change.'' He even has a video, produced by his friend, UNCG professor Emily Edwards, on www.youtube.com.

Type the words "obama song" into the search bar and you'll find it on the fourth page of 122,000 videos, right after "You Rock, Barack!'', "Do The Obama,'' and "There's No One As Irish as Barack Obama.''

You get the idea. There are loads of songs out there about our country's new man of the moment. And Roberts is about to add another one.

It seems this 66-year-old grandfather, a man called "Pops'' by his grandkids, has caught the political songwriting bug. He's written another political tune. This time, in the notebook he keeps in his car.

It's about his belief in what he sees. The title? "Change Has Come.''

We'll see.

Contact Jeri Rowe at 373-7374 or jeri.rowe@news-record.com