2012년 3월 30일 금요일

Mississippi Goddamn -- Nina Simone



The name of this tune is Mississippi Goddam  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  Tennessee made me lose my rest
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  "To slow"  Washing the windows  "To Slow"
Picking the cotton  "To Slow"  You're just plain rotten  "To Slow"
You're too damn lazy  "To Slow"  The thinking's crazy  "To Slow"
Where am I going  What am I doing  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 made you thought I was kiddin'  Picket lines  School boy cots
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

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  "To slow"  Desegregation  "To slow'
Mass participation  "To slow"  Reunification  "To slow"
Do things gradually  "To slow"  But bring more tragedy  "To slow"
Why don't you see it  Why don't you feel it  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!         (sing365)  

 
A classically trained pianist, Nina Simone wrote hundreds of songs, but rarely put words to them. When she did, it was often to speak out against racism and injustice. She wrote this song in response to the murder of civil rights leader Medgar Evers in Mississippi on June 12, 1963, and also to the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, which killed 4 black girls. Simone said "When I heard about the bombing of the church in which the four little black girls were killed in Alabama, I shut myself up in a room and that song happened. At first I tried to make myself a gun. I gathered some materials. I was going to take one of them out, and I didn't care who it was. Then Andy, my husband at the time, said to me, 'Nina, you can't kill anyone. You are a musician. Do what you do.' When I sat down the whole song happened. I never stopped writing until the thing was finished."                                                                                                                                    (songfacts)  


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