Mississipi Goddam (1964)
Mississippi Goddam" is a song written and performed by American singer and pianist Nina Simone, who later announced the anthem to be her "first civil rights song". The song was released on her album Nina Simone in Concert in 1964, which was based on recordings of three concerts she gave at Carnegie Hall earlier that year. The album was her first release for the Dutch label Philips Records and is indicative of the more political turn her recorded music took during this period.[1]
Simone composed "Mississippi Goddam" in less than an hour. Together with the songs "Ain't Got No, I Got Life", "Four Women" and "To Be Young, Gifted and Black", it is one of her most famous protest songs and self-written compositions. In 2019, "Mississippi Goddam" was selected by the Library of Congress for preservation in the National Recording Registry for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".[2]
Key Lyrics
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!"
Interpretation
Reception
Reference
- ↑ https://www.jstor.org/stable/3660176. Ruth Feldstein. 1 March 2005. Journal of American History. Retrieved January 20, 2021.
- ↑ https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/jay-z-a-speech-by-sen-robert-f-kennedy-and-schoolhouse-rock-among-recordings-deemed-classics-by-library-of-congress/2019/03/19/f7eb08ea-4a58-11e9-9663-00ac73f49662_story.html?. Travis M. Andrews. 20 March 2019. The Washington Post. Retrieved January 20, 2021.
