posted on January 2, 2006 05:26:36 PM new
I was updating my Nina Simone catalog today and found this song. Over 30 years old and yet a damn near perfect response to the rappers of today.
You're nothing but a dirty, dirty old man
You do your thinking with a one track mind
Keep talkin' about heaven glory but
On your face is a different story
Clean up your rap your story's getting dusty
Wash out your mouth
Your lies are getting rusty
Can't believe nothing you say
'Cause I'm around and I see what you do
You know you're funky as a mosquito's tweeter
You gotta mouth like a herd of boll weevils
Same old game, same old thing
You never changed
Always rappin 'bout the same old thing
I got something to tell ya
I got something to tell you baby
But you ain't hip to baby
Blowin' minds is a thing of the past
You blew your chance that's why you never last
You want to be a graduated mother
But in reality just another brother
You think you slick but could
Stand a lot of greasing
The things you do ain't never really pleasin'
Can't believe nothin' you say
'Cause I'm around and I see what you do
You know you funky as a mosquito's tweeter
You got a mouth like a herd of boll weevils
Same old game, same old thing
A...lways rappin 'bout the same old thing
You beautiful, beautiful
Beautiful, beautiful
Brought yoursef a pot of baked stew
Nothin' worse than an educated fool
Talkin' sex is your favorite conversation
But peace and love is a famous generation
What's in your head has really started showing
Your conversation gettin' kinda boring
Can't believe nothin' you say
'Cause I'm around and I see what you do
You know you funky as a mosquito's tweeter
You got a mouth like a herd of boll weevils
Same old game, same old game
Same old thing you never change
Same old game, same old thing
Always rappin' 'bout the same old thing
If you think the lyrics are good, you should hear the song!
~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~
Never ask what sort if computer a guy drives. If he's a Mac user, he'll tell you. If he's not, why embarrass him? - Tom Clancy
posted on January 2, 2006 05:36:03 PM new
Rap is so...I don't know. On the one hand, having read some of M and M's lyrics, the guy is a true wordsmith. He really has a poetic genius that can't be denied. On the other hand, the subject of his lyrics is so hideously ugly, hate filled and misogynistic it's hard to believe he's not institutionalized somewhere. Most of my students are country music fans, but I always have a few who listen to rap, especially the hard core stuff like M and M and Fifty Cent or whatever he calls himself. I always have to ask them, especially the girls, if they've ever actually read and thought about the lyrics...most of them haven't.
____________________________________________
Habla siempre que debas y calla siempre que puedas....
posted on January 2, 2006 05:48:58 PM new
Turn the girls on to Nina Prof. Amazing singer, very unique voice. Does everything from blues to jazz. Great piano player. No matter what type of music they are into, everyone that I have ever turned on to her music has fallen for it. She's one of those artists that proves you don't have to be a fan of a particular style to be able to a great song that is well performed.
gotta agree with you on Eminem. He's got a brilliant mind and amazing sense to humor and irony (his videos are classic). If only put more of a positive twist on his work ....
~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~
Never ask what sort if computer a guy drives. If he's a Mac user, he'll tell you. If he's not, why embarrass him? - Tom Clancy
posted on January 2, 2006 05:51:13 PM new
BTW - perfect example of a great song badly performed - Michael Buble's soulless martini lounge version of Feelin' Good.
~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~
Never ask what sort if computer a guy drives. If he's a Mac user, he'll tell you. If he's not, why embarrass him? - Tom Clancy
You're nothing but a dirty, dirty old man
You do your thinking with a one track mind
Keep talkin' about heaven glory but
On your face is a different story
Clean up your rap your story's getting dusty
Wash out your mouth
Your lies are getting rusty
Can't believe nothing you say
'Cause I'm around and I see what you do
You know you're funky as a mosquito's tweeter
You gotta mouth like a herd of boll weevils
Same old game, same old thing
You never changed
Always rappin 'bout the same old thing
I got something to tell ya
I got something to tell you baby
But you ain't hip to baby
Blowin' minds is a thing of the past
You blew your chance that's why you never last
You want to be a graduated mother
But in reality just another brother
You think you slick but could
Stand a lot of greasing
The things you do ain't never really pleasin'
Can't believe nothin' you say
'Cause I'm around and I see what you do
You know you funky as a mosquito's tweeter
You got a mouth like a herd of boll weevils
Same old game, same old thing
A...lways rappin 'bout the same old thing
You beautiful, beautiful
Beautiful, beautiful
Brought yoursef a pot of baked stew
Nothin' worse than an educated fool
Talkin' sex is your favorite conversation
But peace and love is a famous generation
What's in your head has really started showing
Your conversation gettin' kinda boring
Can't believe nothin' you say
'Cause I'm around and I see what you do
You know you funky as a mosquito's tweeter
You got a mouth like a herd of boll weevils
Same old game, same old game
Same old thing you never change
Same old game, same old thing
Always rappin' 'bout the same old thing
HEY PIINTHESKY THEY WROTE A SONG ABOUT YA! WHATS UP WITH THAT???
posted on January 2, 2006 07:46:48 PM new
:::headshake:::
Even in a music thread? Can't anything here ever just be civil and enjoyable?
~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~
Never ask what sort if computer a guy drives. If he's a Mac user, he'll tell you. If he's not, why embarrass him? - Tom Clancy
posted on January 2, 2006 07:59:03 PM new
Fenix, I'm not sure if I've heard her or not. I've heard of her though - all good. Can you recommend a CD if I was to buy one?
posted on January 2, 2006 08:04:06 PM new
Probably because she left the country in the 70s feeling disgust and frustration with the racism in the US and for the record companies she felt had taken advantage of her
She grew up as a black child in the south. toured in the 50's encountering racism and spoke out in her music against things that she encountered that pissed her off. Probably the strongest examples are "Mississippi Goddamn (written after the church bombing that killed 4 children
Years later she then got lambasted by the black community for "Four Women" which addressed the different attitudes and opportunities encountered by four black women of differing skin tones.
I guess it's just easier to label someone a racist than to acknowledge what they may have been thru and seen and how it might affect them.
Certainly makes for a more tantalizing one liner from someone with nothing else to offer.
~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~
Never ask what sort if computer a guy drives. If he's a Mac user, he'll tell you. If he's not, why embarrass him? - Tom Clancy
posted on January 2, 2006 08:11:05 PM new
Kd - I'll turn you on to what turned me on to her. The soundtrack from Point of No Return with Bridget Fonda. there's a point in the movie where you hear this amazing haunting song and I wanted to know wh the hell it was and then magically, the two charachters discuss the artist. At the end of the movie I waited thru the credits to make sure Nina Simone was a real person then walked out of the theater and across the street to music store and bought the sound track and "The Essential Nina Simone" and was hooked. If you give me a few, I'll look thru some of the comphilations and see which one has the best mix of her different styles. In the last few years before her death a number of different record companies put out comhilations and Verve released some really intersting remixes.
~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~
Never ask what sort if computer a guy drives. If he's a Mac user, he'll tell you. If he's not, why embarrass him? - Tom Clancy
posted on January 2, 2006 08:12:28 PM new
She also did a great rendition of the song, Strange Fruit about Southern lynchings. That song was named best song of the century by Time.
posted on January 2, 2006 08:14:41 PM new
In 1971, Simone left the United States following disagreements with agents, record labels, and the tax authorities, citing racism as the reason. She returned in 1978 and was arrested for tax evasion (she had withheld several years of income tax as a protest against the Vietnam War). She lived in various countries in the Caribbean, Africa, and Europe, continuing to perform into her 60s. In the 1980s, she performed regularly at Ronnie Scott's jazz club in London.
In 1995, Simone purportedly shot her neighbour's son with a BB gun after his laughing disturbed her concentration. She had a reputation in the music industry for being volatile and sometimes difficult to deal with, a characterization with which Simone vigorously took issue.
edited to add her quotes:
Desegregation is a joke.
Nina Simone
From the beginning, it has been a no-no for a black man to touch a white woman.
Nina Simone
Greed has driven the world crazy. And I think I'm lucky that I have a place over here that I can call home.
Nina Simone
I am particular about the seating of the audience-also about how much money they pay-but most of all where they are seated. If I am going to sing something intimate, who am I going to sing it to?
Nina Simone
I demand perfection in what I do, and I practice very hard before I give a concert-sometimes three to six hours a day.
Nina Simone
I don't like rap music at all. I don't think it's music. It's just a beat and rapping.
Nina Simone
I had a very intensive love affair from 1994 to 1995. It was like a volcano, so I don't want that anymore for a while.
Nina Simone
I had spent many years pursuing excellence, because that is what classical music is all about... Now it was dedicated to freedom, and that was far more important.
Nina Simone
I think if I were over there in America, protest music would be more important. But I'm not going.
Nina Simone
I think the rich are too rich and the poor are too poor. I don't think the black people are going to rise at all; I think most of them are going to die.
Nina Simone
I think the rich will eventually have to cave in too, because the economic situation around the world is not gonna tolerate the United States being on top forever.
Nina Simone
I try to swim every damn day I can, and I've learned to scuba dive and snorkel. Nina Simone
I would like a man now who is rich, and who can give me a boat-a sailboat. I want to own it and let him pay for it. My first love is the sea and water, not music. Music is second.
Nina Simone
I'm a real rebel with a cause.
Nina Simone
I believe that America is going to die, die like flies, just like the song says. That's what I believe, lady.
Nina Simone
Jazz is a white term to define black people. My music is black classical music.
Nina Simone
My job is not done. I address my songs now to the third world. I am popular all over Asia and Africa and the Middle East, not to speak of South Africa, where I'm trying to go to see Nelson Mandela.
Nina Simone
Once I understood Bach's music, I wanted to be a concert pianist. Bach made me dedicate my life to music, and it was that teacher who introduced me to his world.
Nina Simone
Slavery has never been abolished from America's way of thinking.
Nina Simone
The worst thing about that kind of prejudice... is that while you feel hurt and angry and all the rest of it, it feeds you self-doubt. You start thinking, perhaps I am not good enough.
Nina Simone
There's no excuse for the young people not knowing who the heroes and heroines are or were.
Nina Simone
This may be a dream, but I'll say it anyway: I was supposed to be married last year, and I bought a gown. When I meet Nelson Mandela, I shall put on this gown and have the train of it removed and put aside, and kiss the ground that he walks on and then kiss his feet.
Nina Simone
To most white people, jazz means black and jazz means dirt, and that's not what I play. I play black classical music.
Nina Simone
When I was studying... there weren't any black concert pianists. My choices were intuitive, and I had the technique to do it. People have heard my music and heard the classic in it, so I have become known as a black classical pianist.
Nina Simone
With all the bombings going on, and the terrorism, I don't like it at all. It frightens me. I like being in the South of France. It is very beautiful, and we work very hard to keep it that way. We have a huge garden bearing fruit for the winter: peaches, grapes, strawberries, and raspberries.
Nina Simone
posted on January 2, 2006 08:30:36 PM new
I think that Strange Fruit was named song of the Century by Time in 1999.
Strange Fruit
Seven trees
Bearin strange fruit
Blood on the leaves
And blood at the roots
Black bodies
Swinging in the southern breeze
Strange fruit hangin
From the poplar trees
Pastoral scene
Of the gallant south
Them big bulging eyes
And the twisted mouth
Scent of magnolia
Clean and fresh
Then the sudden smell
Of burnin flesh
Here is a fruit
For the crows to pluck
For the rain to gather
For the wind to suck
For the sun to rot
For the leaves to drop
Here is
Strange and bitter crop
As singed by billie holiday
Southern trees bear strange fruit,
Blood on the leaves and blood at the root,
Black bodies swinging in the southern breeze,
Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees.
Pastoral scene of the gallant south,
The bulging eyes and the twisted mouth,
Scent of magnolias, sweet and fresh,
Then the sudden smell of burning flesh.
Here is fruit for the crows to pluck,
For the rain to gather, for the wind to suck,
For the sun to rot, for the trees to drop,
Here is a strange and bitter cry.
posted on January 2, 2006 08:30:59 PM new
the shooting incident: She shot out of her window to shut up the kids that were playing out in the street. She was later determined to be unfit to stand trial.
Krafty - try Nina Simone Gold. It's a two disc set. worth the price based soley on the bonus track Feelin Good (might have heard it two years ago in the HBO ads for Six Feet Under) but it's got most of my favorites from her. Also includes Sinnerman that you may have heard if you saw The Thomas Crown Affair. you'll probably recognize her voice once you hear. It's very distintive. I've noticed it used in a number of commercials in the last few years. Clinton quoted one of her songs is his eulogy at Rosa Parks funeral.
Edited to add.... I looked for a copy of it on ebay but looks like there are two with the same title.... you want the one with this cover art:
~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~
Never ask what sort if computer a guy drives. If he's a Mac user, he'll tell you. If he's not, why embarrass him? - Tom Clancy
[ edited by fenix03 on Jan 2, 2006 08:40 PM ]
posted on January 2, 2006 08:49:32 PM new
President Bill Clinton at the funeral of Rosa Parks...excerpt.
"That great civil rights song that Nina Simone did so well: I wish I knew how it would feel to be free, I wish I could break all the chains holding me, I wish I could fly like a bird in the sky. The end says, "I wish that you knew how it feels to be me. Then you'd see and agree that everyone should be free." Now that our friend, Rosa Parks, has gone on to her just reward, now that she has gone home and left us behind, let us never forget that in that simple act and a lifetime of grace and dignity, she showed us every single day what it means to be free. She made us see and agree that everyone should be free. God bless you, Rosa. God bless you."
posted on January 2, 2006 08:52:06 PM new
Simone was influenced by other currents in the struggle for Black liberation, especially the Black Panthers, Malcolm X and Kwame Toure, a leader of the Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee who was then known as Stokely Carmichael. She wrote and performed other important socially conscious songs such as I Wish That I Knew How It Felt to Be Free, Four Women and Why? The King of Love Is Dead, a moving tribute to the martyred Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
Simone eventually left the United States following the government?s racist repression of the Black liberation movement. She was the victim of greedy record companies, unscrupulous agents and the Internal Revenue Service. This writer, as a teenager, was fortunate to see her perform and, like millions of others, will always admire her dignity and unwillingness to compromise her music and principles.
----
Reprinted from the May 8, 2003, issue of Workers World newspaper
(Copyright Workers World Service: Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies of this document, but changing it is not allowed. For more information contact Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011;
posted on January 2, 2006 09:23:05 PM new
Interesting that none of your bolding has anything to do with her music. Have you heard it?
If you have, can you tell me that you can listen to a songs like Feelin Good, Love me or Leave Me, My Baby Just Cares for Me, Angel of the Morning and be affected by anything other than her voice and her playing?
If you have never listened to her, you should try - there are very few recording artists that I have ever heard that I think can pull you into the emotions of a song with their voice. Most songs evoke emotion because a memory that you have attached to them( It was on the radio all the time during that best summer of your life, etc.) or because you can relate the lyrics to a personal experience. Nina Simone has the unique ability to make you feel something from the very first time you hear the song and does it frightning consistancy. BB King can do it sometimes, Johnny Cash has done it on occasion (how could you listen to his rendition of Hurt and not just ache) but I have never heard an artist that had the ability to do it with such regularity.
~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~
Never ask what sort if computer a guy drives. If he's a Mac user, he'll tell you. If he's not, why embarrass him? - Tom Clancy
[ edited by fenix03 on Jan 2, 2006 09:24 PM ]
WARNING: The link above will result in a download to your computer!
(I always hate when people don't warn me ahead of time of downloads)
~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~
Never ask what sort if computer a guy drives. If he's a Mac user, he'll tell you. If he's not, why embarrass him? - Tom Clancy
[ edited by fenix03 on Jan 2, 2006 10:06 PM ]
posted on January 3, 2006 12:03:38 AM new
linda:
""My point was to show there ARE black racists as well as white racists.""
Ya THINK????!!Quite a discovery , linda, NOBODY knew that before you informed them !!!
However, NONE of the remarks you bolded were racist.
Yes, maybe she didn't like white people, maybe she didn't like SOME white people, who knows?
But it's for damn sure if she didn't like white people she had damn good reasons.
This thread is about good music.
Thank you, Fenix.
posted on January 3, 2006 09:21:38 AM new
Why can't the neocons just discuss the music without bringing their nastiness into everything.....such prophets of gloom.
posted on January 3, 2006 10:39:36 AM new
What's this, you New Years resolution to go around accusing every rightie here of what you've done all the time since you first came here? ROFLOL
