I have been quite obsessed with Nina Simone for the last couple of years, after hearing her haunting version of "Black Is The Color Of My True Love's Hair." Her voice is deep and throaty yet warm and her arrangements of jazz and pop classics were innovative and captivating. Most people probably know her from her version of "Feeling Good" - which is the basis for most modern versions, or other jazz standards like "My Baby Just Cares For Me."
But Nina got political after the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama left schoolchildren dead and a KKK member murdered Medgar Evens in Mississippi in 1963. While "Mississippi Goddam" doesn't have the subtle meditations on race in America that her later song "Four Women" does or the joy of "To Be Young, Gifted and Black," it has a heat and an anger that Nina would also channel into covers of "Pirate Jenny" and "Strange Fruit."
This isn't an easy song to hear but it's honest about the frustrations that many in the civil rights movement felt. They "dressed real fine and talked like a lady" yet still did not get the respect they deserved. They were told to "go slow" but all they wanted was "Equality for my brother, my sister, my people and me." While "threats" like "we're all gonna get it, we're all gonna die and die like flies" might alienate those whose hearts and minds need changed, that's a real feeling that others could identify with.
It's very familiar to other maligned groups today, being told to wait while our rights and freedoms are put on hold. It leads to anger that isn't always productive, but it's a real emotion that is valid.
"This is a showtune, but the show hasn't been written for it yet," Nina says after the chorus. That's because she was living it then, as we are living it now.
Click on the "Four Women" link above for another brilliant performance by Nina!
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