Songfacts®:

• This song is a homage to singer Jeff Buckley. In a Rolling Stone interview, Legend said: "I had this really interesting whispering vibrato. It sounded so intimate and spiritual and ethereal, and it reminded me of Jeff a bit. I think I can sing with just about anybody, but he's one of the few singers who truly intimidates me. He's one of the best I've ever heard."
• "Show Me" finds John Legend calling out for help:
  
  Show me the light, show me the way
  Show that you're listening
  Show me, that you love me
  
  It's not a friend or lover he's addressing, but God. He explained the meaning in an Inside Entertainment interview: "It's about God and wondering how he works in the world and what my personal relationship with him is supposed to be like. I speak to him like he's a lover or at least a very close friend."
• One of the writers on "Show Me," along with Legend, Rob Bacon and the track's producer, Raphael Saadiq, is the British singer Estelle. A year later, she became the first signing to Homeschool Records, a label John Legend established. She had a big hit in 2008 with "American Boy."
  
  Estelle met Legend in Los Angeles in 2002 when he was in a restaurant (Roscoe's Chicken and Waffles) with Kanye West, and Estelle made a cold introduction.
• "Show Me" was the last single issued from Legend's second album, Once Again. Like his first, the album was issued on Kanye West's GOOD (Getting Out Our Dreams) label.
• When this song was released as a single in 2007, Legend launched an anti-poverty campaign along with it called "Show Me," which evolved to include eduction initiatives.
• The music video, shot in Zanzibar, was directed by Lee Hirsch and follows a young boy as he goes about his day. At the end of the video, there's a dedication to "Yaguine Koita and Fode Tounkara, young stowaways who died flying from Guinea to Belgium in July 1999, and to the millions who live in poverty." It was nominated for a NAACP Image Award.