This is a companion piece to a similarly-themed article on Pete’s site which, all things being equal, should be published at roughly the same time.
The Nina Simone week has been quite pleasant; I have enjoyed her in the background, and really listened to it when travelling to work. Strangely, the playlist in the book is barely annotated, while I find I have more to say than usual.
Feeling Good The lyrics talk of exhilaration and liberation, but I don’t get that from the majestic sound of the horns, which by the way I can’t help loving. However I do agree with one definition of Feeling Good: sleep in peace when day is done, that’s what I mean. If you set Maya Angelou to music, this might be what she sounded like, so perhaps this should be Rise’s anthem.
My baby just cares for me has a fab piano part that I would love to be able to play, but I find this song a little irritating, probably due to over-exposure in 1987. It reminds me of my first kiss, which I prefer to forget.
Mississippi Goddam starts off as some jolly, silly little tune, and turns into a bitter denunciation of this whole country full of lies. It sticks in the head.
I put a spell on you is the standard I love you, you hurt me, blah blah blah, heavy on the sax.
Strange Fruit is not in fact about Life of Pi, but a bitter, graphically horrible song about slavery and repression, with lyrics that juxtapose twisted bodies and the smell of flowers. In the middle is a horrible jarring, dropping note that, when you listen properly, has a rightful place in a song about death by hanging. Apparently this song made Nina cry, so she couldn’t sing it.
I want a little sugar in my bowl – a sticky sweet ode to being horny.
I wish I knew how it would feel to be free annoys me with its facile rhyming, which undermines the strength of her message.
To be young, gifted and black doesn’t do much for me as a song, but I appreciate the importance of it as a civil rights anthem at the time it was written and performed.
Save Me – I really like the sound of that bass. The rest of the song is very jangly and busy.
Four Women For some reason this didn’t make it on to my iPod, so I didn’t get a chance to concentrate on it. I have tried but it stubbornly resists making an impression on me. I feel that it should, but it won’t.
Next week we are cursed with The Pogues. Pete did ask if I wanted a recount, and I said that wouldn’t be in the spirit of things, but perhaps I was wrong…