Simone was born Eunice Kathleen Waymon on 21st February 1933 in Tryon, North Carolina, USA, one of eight children. Like a number of other black singers in the U.S., she was inspired as a child by Marian Anderson, and began singing at her local church, also showing great talent as a pianist. Her public debut, a piano recital, was made at the age of ten. Her parents, who had taken seats in the front row, were forced to move to the back of the hall to make way for white audience members. This incident contributed to her later involvement in the civil rights movement.
Simone's mother, Mary Kate Waymon (who lived into her late nineties) was a strict Methodist minister; her father, John Divine Waymon, was a handyman and sometime barber who suffered bouts of ill-health. Mrs Waymon worked as a maid, and her employer, hearing of Nina's talent, provided funds for piano lessons for the little girl. Subsequently, a local fund was set up to assist in Eunice's continued education.
At seventeen, Simone moved to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where she taught piano and accompanied singers. She was able to begin studying piano at New York City's prestigious Juilliard School of Music but lack of funds meant that she was unable to fulfill her dream of becoming America's first Black classical pianist. She later had an interview to study piano at the Curtis Institute, but was rejected. Simone believed this rejection, which fueled her hatred of racism, was because she was black.
Simone turned to blues and jazz after getting her start at the Midtown Bar & Grill on Pacific Avenue in Atlantic City, taking the name Nina Simone in 1954; "Nina" was her boyfriend's nickname for her, and "Simone" was after the French actress Simone Signoret. She first came to public notice in 1959 with her wrenching rendition of George Gershwin's "I Loves You Porgy" (from Porgy and Bess), her only Top-Forty hit in the United States. This was soon followed by the single "My Baby Just Cares for Me" (this was also a hit in the 1980s in the United Kingdom when used for television advertisements for Chanel No 5 perfume).
Throughout the 1960s, Simone was involved in the civil rights movement and recorded a number of political songs, including "To Be Young, Gifted and Black" (later covered by Aretha Franklin and Donny Hathaway), "Backlash Blues", "Mississippi Goddam" (a response to the murder of Medgar Evers and the bombing of a church in Birmingham, Alabama killing four black children), "I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel to Be Free", and Kurt Weill's "Pirate Jenny", from The Threepenny Opera, re-cast in a southern town.
In 1961, Simone recorded a version of the traditional song "House of the Rising Sun", which was then covered by folk-blues artist, Dave Van Ronk, and later recorded by Bob Dylan, where it was picked up by The Animals and became their signature hit. Other songs she is famous for include "I Put a Spell on You" (originally by Screamin' Jay Hawkins), The Beatles' "Here Comes the Sun", "Four Women", Bob Dylan's "I Shall Be Released", the Bee Gees' "To Love Somebody", and "Ain't Got No (I Got Life)". The latter, from the musical Hair, was her debut in the UK charts, reaching number two in 1968, and a remixed version of the recording by Groovefinder was a UK Top Thirty hit in 2006.
Broadway musicals also supplied several hits for Simone: "My Baby Just Cares for Me", "Love Me or Leave Me", "Feeling Good", and "Ne Me Quitte Pas". Also "You Can Have Him" on the LP Live at Town Hall recorded when she was twenty-six years old; at the end of this operatic performance, which displays her great skill as an actress as well as a musician, she whoops with joy. This single recording encapsulates her extraordinary power, wit, flexibility, sensuality and occasional menace.
In 1987 Nina experienced a resurgence in popularity when "My Baby Just Cares for Me", a track from her first Bethlehem Records album (1958) became a huge hit in the UK and elsewhere. Nina's versatility as an artist was evident in all her music, which often had a folk-music simplicity.
In a single concert, she moved easily from gospel-inspired tunes to blues and jazz and, in numbers like "For All We Know", to numbers infused with European classical stylings, and counterpoint fugues.
Throughout most of her career she was accompanied by percussionist Leopoldo Flemming and guitarist and musical director Al Shackman.
In 1971, Simone left the United States following disagreements with her agents, record labels, and the tax authorities, citing racism as the reason. She returned in 1978 and was arrested for tax evasion (she had withheld several years of income tax as a protest against the Vietnam War). She lived in various countries in the Caribbean, Africa, and Europe, continuing to perform into her 60s. In the 1980s, she performed regularly at Ronnie Scott's jazz club in London. In 1995, Simone reportedly shot and wounded her neighbour's son with an air pistol after his laughing disturbed her concentration.
She had a reputation in the music industry for being volatile and sometimes difficult to deal with, a characterization with which Simone strenuously took issue.
Though her onstage style could be somewhat haughty and aloof, in later years, Simone particularly seemed to enjoy engaging her adoring audiences by recounting sometimes humorous anecdotes related to her career and music and soliciting requests. Simone's regal bearing and commanding stage presence earned her the title the "High Priestess of Soul."
In 1993, she settled near Aix-en-Provence in the south of France. She had been ill with cancer for several years before she died on 21st April 2003 in her sleep at her home in Carry-le-Rouet.
Simone was the recipient of a Grammy Hall of Fame Award in 2000 for her song "I Loves You Porgy." She has also received fifteen Grammy Award nominations. On Human Kindness Day 1974 in Washington, D.C., more than 10,000 people paid tribute to Simone. Simone received two honorary degrees in music and humanities, from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and Malcolm X College. She preferred to be called "Dr. Nina Simone" after these honors were bestowed upon her. Only two days before her death, Simone was awarded an honorary degree by the Curtis Institute, the music school that had refused to admit her as a student at the beginning of her career.
In 2002, the city of Nijmegen (The Netherlands) named a street after her, the Nina Simonestraat. Simone lived in Nijmegen between 1988 and 1990.
Simone was inducted into the North Carolina Music Hall of Fame in 2009.
In 2010 a statue in her honor was erected in Trade Street, Tryon, North Carolina, her place of birth.
*Official site
Mississippi Goddam
Nina Simone Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
And I mean every word of it
Alabama's gotten me so upset
Tennessee made me lose my rest
And everybody knows about Mississippi Goddam
Alabama's gotten me so upset
And everybody knows about Mississippi Goddam
Can't you see it
Can't you feel it
It's all in the air
I can't stand the pressure much longer
Somebody say a prayer
Alabama's gotten me so upset
Tennessee made me lose my rest
And everybody knows about Mississippi Goddam
This is a show tune
But the show hasn't been written for it, yet
Hound dogs on my trail
School children sitting in jail
Black cat cross my path
I think every day's gonna be my last
Lord have mercy on this land of mine
We all gonna get it in due time
I don't belong here
I don't belong there
I've even stopped believing in prayer
Don't tell me
I tell you
Me and my people just about due
I've been there so I know
They keep on saying "Go slow"
But that's just the trouble
"Do it slow"
Washing the windows
"Do it slow"
Picking the cotton
"Do it slow"
You're just plain rotten
"Do it slow"
You're too damn lazy
"Do it slow"
The thinking's crazy
"Do it slow"
Where am I going?
What am I doing?
I don't know
I don't know
Just try to do your very best
Stand up be counted with all the rest
For everybody knows about Mississippi Goddam
I bet you thought I was kiddin' didn't you
Picket lines
School boycotts
They try to say it's a communist plot
All I want is equality
For my sister, my brother, my people, and me
Yes, you lied to me all these years
You told me to wash and clean my ears
And talk real fine just like a lady
And you'd stop calling me Sister Sadie
Oh, but this whole country is full of lies
You're all gonna die and die like flies
I don't trust you any more
You keep on saying "Go slow"
"Go slow"
But that's just the trouble
"Do it slow"
Desegregation
"Do it slow"
Mass participation
"Do it slow"
Reunification
"Do it slow"
Do things gradually
"Do it slow"
But bring more tragedy
"Do it slow"
Why don't you see it?
Why don't you feel it?
I don't know
I don't know
You don't have to live next to me
Just give me my equality
Everybody knows about Mississippi
Everybody knows about Alabama
Everybody knows about Mississippi Goddam, that's it
Nina Simone's Mississippi Goddamn is a protest song against the racism, lynchings and Jim Crow laws in the southern United States during the 1960s. The song begins with the catchy chorus “The name of this tune is Mississippi Goddamn, and I mean every word of it” expressing Simone's anger and frustration, a sentiment that is present throughout the song. Simone sings about the discriminations in Alabama, Tennessee, and Mississippi, suggesting that the whole south is complicit in these crimes. She sings, “Can't you see it? Can't you feel it? It's all in the air”, repeating these lines to emphasize the gravity of the situation.
The lyrics of the song detail the daily struggle for African Americans with lines like “Hound dogs on my trail, School children sitting in jail, Black cat cross my path”. Simone is seeking God's mercy on the country, stating that “We are all going to get it [punished] in due time”. She questions her own faith, singing "I even stopped believing in prayer”. The song also references the danger inherent in protesting against the Jim Crow laws with lines like “Picket lines”, “School boycotts”, and “They try to say it's a communist plot”. But the song ends with a call to arms, reminding the listeners to fight against inequality and for their human rights by standing up and being counted.
Line by Line Meaning
The name of this tune is Mississippi Goddamn
And I mean every word of it
This song is called Mississippi Goddamn and I genuinely mean every word of it
Alabama's gotten me so upset
Tennessee made me lose my rest
And everybody knows about Mississippi Goddam
The state of Alabama has made me extremely frustrated, and I can't sleep because of the state of Tennessee. Everyone knows about the situation in Mississippi
Can't you see it
Can't you feel it
It's all in the air
I can't stand the pressure much longer
Somebody say a prayer
Can't you feel the tension in the air? I'm at my limit and can't take much more. Someone please pray for us
This is a show tune
But the show hasn't been written for it, yet
This is a song that could be part of a stage musical, but it doesn't exist yet
Hound dogs on my trail
School children sitting in jail
Black cat cross my path
I think every day's gonna be my last
I feel like I'm being hunted, blacklisted and doomed for expressing my anger and frustration
Lord have mercy on this land of mine
We all gonna get it in due time
I don't belong here
I don't belong there
I've even stopped believing in prayer
I pray that God will have mercy on this country. We'll all suffer from the evil that exists here. I don't feel like I belong anywhere or even believe in divine intervention anymore
Don't tell me
I tell you
Me and my people just about due
I've been there so I know
They keep on saying "Go slow"
Don't tell me to be patient; my people have waited long enough. I've been there and witnessed the same message to "Go slow" repeatedly
But that's just the trouble
"Do it slow"
Washing the windows
"Do it slow"
Picking the cotton
"Do it slow"
You're just plain rotten
"Do it slow"
You're too damn lazy
"Do it slow"
The thinking's crazy
"Do it slow"
Where am I going?
What am I doing?
I don't know
I don't know
The problem is that you want us to make progress slowly. Wash windows, pick cotton gradually. You're useless and misguided. Where are you leading us? What are we doing? I have no idea
Just try to do your very best
Stand up be counted with all the rest
For everybody knows about Mississippi Goddam
Just do your best and join the struggle for equality. Everyone knows about the situation in Mississippi
I bet you thought I was kiddin' didn't you
You probably thought I was joking, didn't you?
Picket lines
School boycotts
They try to say it's a communist plot
All I want is equality
For my sister, my brother, my people, and me
We're protesting and boycotting to demand equality. Some say we're communists. All I want is equal rights for everyone
Yes, you lied to me all these years
You told me to wash and clean my ears
And talk real fine just like a lady
And you'd stop calling me Sister Sadie
You've been lying to me for years, saying that if I wash up and learn proper speech, I'll be respected. And you'd stop calling me a stereotype
Oh, but this whole country is full of lies
You're all gonna die and die like flies
I don't trust you any more
You keep on saying "Go slow"
"Go slow"
This entire country is built on lies. You'll all die in large numbers, and I don't trust anyone. The advice to "go slow" isn't helping
But that's just the trouble
"Do it slow"
Desegregation
"Do it slow"
Mass participation
"Do it slow"
Reunification
"Do it slow"
Do things gradually
"Do it slow"
But bring more tragedy
"Do it slow"
Why don't you see it?
Why don't you feel it?
I don't know
I don't know
The problem is the demand to do everything 'slow.' Desegregation, mass participation, and reunification should receive **urgent** attention. Diminishing it will lead to nothing but a tragedy that no one can afford. Don't you see and feel it?
You don't have to live next to me
Just give me my equality
Everybody knows about Mississippi
Everybody knows about Alabama
Everybody knows about Mississippi Goddam, that's it
You don't have to live next to me or even like me, merely give me the same opportunities as you. Mississippi, Alabama and the whole nation know about the appalling situation, and that's the bottom line
Lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group, Warner Chappell Music, Inc.
Written by: Nina Simone
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind
Harry strings
on Blackbird
This is one of the inspired song have ever heard, it's touches my soul..
Daniel
on Feeling Good
Just unbelievable, I dig it. Great music & artists.
Nikolaos Souroufis
on Sinnerman
amazing !!!!!!!!