"Mississippi Goddam" is a song written and performed by American singer and pianist

Nina Simone Eunice Kathleen Waymon (February 21, 1933 – April 21, 2003), known professionally as Nina Simone (), was an American singer, songwriter, pianist, and civil rights activist. Her music spanned styles including classical, folk, gospel, blu ...

, who later announced the anthem to be her "first civil rights song". The song was released on her album ''

Nina Simone in Concert ''Nina Simone in Concert'' is an album by the jazz singer Nina Simone. It is her first album for the record label Philips, composed of three live recordings made at Carnegie Hall, New York City, in March and April 1964. Simone recorded ''Nina S ...

'' 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 Philips Records is a record label founded by the Dutch electronics company Philips. It was founded as Philips Phonographische Industrie in 1950. In 1946, Philips acquired the company which pressed records for British Decca's Dutch outlet in ...

and is indicative of the more political turn her recorded music took during this period. Simone composed "Mississippi Goddam" in less than an hour. Together with the songs "

Ain't Got No, I Got Life "Ain't Got No, I Got Life" is a 1968 single by American singer-songwriter Nina Simone, from her album Nuff Said''. It is a medley of two songs, "Ain't Got No" and "I Got Life", from the musical ''Hair (musical), Hair'', with lyrics by James Rad ...

", " Four Women" and "

To Be Young, Gifted and Black "To Be Young, Gifted and Black" is a song by Nina Simone with lyrics by Weldon Irvine. She introduced the song on August 17, 1969, to a crowd of 50,000 at the Harlem Cultural Festival, captured on broadcast video tape and released in 2021 as the ...

", it is one of her most famous

protest song A protest song is a song that is associated with a movement for social change and hence part of the broader category of ''topical'' songs (or songs connected to current events). It may be folk, classical, or commercial in genre. Among social mov ...

s and self-written compositions. In 2019, "Mississippi Goddam" was selected by the

Library of Congress The Library of Congress (LOC) is the research library that officially serves the United States Congress and is the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It is the oldest federal cultural institution in the country. The library ...

for preservation in the

National Recording Registry The National Recording Registry is a list of sound recordings that "are culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant, and/or inform or reflect life in the United States." The registry was established by the National Recording Preservati ...

for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".

Interpretation

The song captures Simone's response to the racially motivated murders of Emmett Till and

Medgar Evers Medgar Wiley Evers (; July 2, 1925June 12, 1963) was an American civil rights activist and the NAACP's first field secretary in Mississippi, who was murdered by Byron De La Beckwith. Evers, a decorated U.S. Army combat veteran who had served i ...

in Mississippi, and the

16th Street Baptist Church bombing The 16th Street Baptist Church bombing was a white supremacist terrorist bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, on Sunday, September 15, 1963. Four members of a local Ku Klux Klan chapter planted 19 sticks of dynami ...

Birmingham, Alabama Birmingham ( ) is a city in the north central region of the U.S. state of Alabama. Birmingham is the seat of Jefferson County, Alabama's most populous county. As of the 2021 census estimates, Birmingham had a population of 197,575, down 1% fr ...

, killing four black children. On the recording she sarcastically announces the song as "a

show tune A show tune is a song originally written as part of the score of a work of musical theatre or musical film, especially if the piece in question has become a standard, more or less detached in most people's minds from the original context. T ...

, but the show hasn't been written for it yet." The song begins jauntily, with a show tune feel, but demonstrates its political focus early on with its refrain "Alabama's got me so upset, Tennessee's made me lose my rest, and everybody knows about Mississippi ''goddam.''" In the song, she says: "They keep on sayin' 'go slow' ... to do things gradually would bring more tragedy. 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!"

Reception

Simone first performed the song at the

Village Gate The Village Gate was a nightclub at the corner of Thompson and Bleecker Streets in Greenwich Village, New York. Art D'Lugoff opened the club in 1958, on the ground floor and basement of 160 Bleecker Street. The large 1896 Chicago School structu ...

nightclub in

Greenwich Village Greenwich Village ( , , ) is a neighborhood on the west side of Lower Manhattan in New York City, bounded by 14th Street to the north, Broadway to the east, Houston Street to the south, and the Hudson River to the west. Greenwich Village ...

, and shortly thereafter in March 1964 at Carnegie Hall, in front of a mostly white audience. The Carnegie Hall recording was subsequently released as a single and became an anthem during the

Civil Rights Movement The civil rights movement was a nonviolent social and political movement and campaign from 1954 to 1968 in the United States to abolish legalized institutional racial segregation, discrimination, and disenfranchisement throughout the Unite ...

. "Mississippi Goddam" was banned in several Southern states. Boxes of promotional singles sent to radio stations around the country were returned with each record broken in half. Simone performed the song in front of 10,000 people at the end of the

Selma to Montgomery marches The Selma to Montgomery marches were three protest marches, held in 1965, along the 54-mile (87 km) highway from Selma, Alabama, to the state capital of Montgomery. The marches were organized by nonviolent activists to demonstrate the ...

when she and other black activists, including

Sammy Davis Jr. Samuel George Davis Jr. (December 8, 1925 – May 16, 1990) was an American singer, dancer, actor, comedian, film producer and television director. At age three, Davis began his career in vaudeville with his father Sammy Davis Sr. and the ...

, James Baldwin and

Harry Belafonte Harry Belafonte (born Harold George Bellanfanti Jr.; March 1, 1927) is an American singer, activist, and actor. As arguably the most successful Jamaican-American pop star, he popularized the Trinbagonian Caribbean musical style with an interna ...

crossed police lines. Simone performed “Mississippi Goddam” on ''

The Steve Allen Show ''The Steve Allen Show'' was an American variety show hosted by Steve Allen from June 1956 to June 1960 on NBC, from September 1961 to December 1961 on ABC,

'' on September 10, 1964. First Amendment scholar Ronald Collins pointed out that

Allen Allen, Allen's or Allens may refer to: Buildings * Allen Arena, an indoor arena at Lipscomb University in Nashville, Tennessee * Allen Center, a skyscraper complex in downtown Houston, Texas * Allen Fieldhouse, an indoor sports arena on the Unive ...

, the “famed host of a nationally syndicated TV variety program… was one of the few who then dared to provide a forum for those with dissident views.” Therefore, when Nina Simone “joined Allen at the desk before hesong, he told her he wanted her to sing ‘Mississippi Goddam’ because he knew it would provoke a lively discussion about censorship.”

Legacy

In 2022, in response to the decision on Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization overturning

Roe v. Wade ''Roe v. Wade'', 410 U.S. 113 (1973),. was a landmark decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in which the Court ruled that the Constitution of the United States conferred the right to have an abortion. The decision struck down many federal and s ...

, scholar Shana Redmond told NPR "I think there's only a sense of continuity that we can take from its legacy, from its usage in this very moment. The structures to which Nina Simone was responding have continued to face us in the future that she hoped would be free and clear and beautiful. So the rage that she brought to the production of that song, the moment at which she said, "I'm either going to take up arms, I'm going to buy a gun, or I'm going to write this song," is precisely where so many people see themselves fitting in today." In 2021, it was listed at No. 172 on Rolling Stone's "Top 500 Greatest Songs of All Time".

References

External links

Nina Simone in Concert
performs "Mississippi Goddam", 1964, YouTube video.

MetroLyrics at

Archive.org The Internet Archive is an American digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It provides free public access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, software applications/games, music, ...

{{authority control Songs written by Nina Simone Nina Simone songs Protest songs Songs against racism and xenophobia 1964 songs Movements for civil rights Songs based on actual events Philips Records singles Civil rights movement Obscenity controversies in music United States National Recording Registry recordings Songs about Mississippi Songs about Alabama

Interpretation

Reception

Legacy

See also

References

External links