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"Nobody" was first publicly performed in February 1906, in the Broadway production Abyssinia. The show, which included live camels, premièred at the Majestic Theater and continued the string of hits for the vaudeville team of Williams and Walker. "Nobody" became Bert Williams' signature theme, and the song that he is best remembered for today. It is a doleful and ironic composition, replete with his dry observational wit, and is complemented by Williams' intimate, half-spoken singing style. "Nobody" embodies the struggle that Bert Williams and George Walker went through during their lives both as citizens and performers on the vaudeville stage. As black men living during segregation in the south when blacks were openly disenfranchised, Williams and Walker used their platform to protest such flagrant racism.
Johnny Cash recorded a cover of the song on his album, American III: Solitary Man, in 2000.