Cooke first performed "A Change Is Gonna Come" on "The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson" on February 7, 1964. Cooke's new manager, Allen Klein, was infatuated with the song and persuaded Cooke to do away with promoting his most recent single, "Ain't That Good News", and perform "Change" instead, feeling that that was the statement he needed to make before a national audience. Cooke objected, noting that the album's release was a month away and that he had no time to pull together an arrangement within such a short time frame. Klein arranged for RCA to pay for a full string section and Cooke performed the song that Friday on "The Tonight Show" after performing "Basin Street". An NBC timekeeper logged down the number as "It's a Long Time Coming," but the network did not save the tape of the performance. Klein and Alexander both felt it would become a milestone moment in Cooke's career, but it was overshadowed by the Beatles' performance on "The Ed Sullivan Show" on CBS just two days later.