Mississippi Goddam facts for kids
Quick facts for kids "Mississippi Goddam" |
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The sleeve for the promo release of the single
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| Song by Nina Simone | |
| from the album Nina Simone in Concert | |
| Released | 1964 |
| Recorded | New York City, live at Carnegie Hall |
| Label | Philips Records |
| Songwriter(s) | Nina Simone |
| Composer(s) | Nina Simone |
| Producer(s) | Hal Mooney |
"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.
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".
Legacy
In 2022, in response to the decision on Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization overturning Roe v. Wade, 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".
See also
- Civil rights movement in popular culture
