Lyr Add: Mississippi Goddam (Nina Simone)

Subject: Lyr Add: MISSISSIPPI GODDAM (Nina Simone)
From: KarlMarx
Date: 20 Jan 03 - 06:44 AM

Here's a civil rights protest song from the 60s, by Nina Simone. It is sort of in honor of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day:

Mississippi Goddam
(1963) Nina Simone

The name of this tune is Mississippi Goddam
And I mean every word of it

Alabama's gotten me so upset
Tennessee made me lose my rest
And everybody knows about Mississippi Goddam

Alabama's gotten me so upset
Tennessee made me lose my rest
And everybody knows about Mississippi Goddam

Can't you see it
Can't you feel it
It's all in the air
I can't stand the pressure much longer
Somebody say a prayer

Alabama's gotten me so upset
Tennessee made me lose my rest
And everybody knows about Mississippi Goddam

This is a show tune
But the show hasn't been written for it, yet

Hound dogs on my trail
School children sitting in jail
Black cat cross my path
I think every day's gonna be my last

Lord have mercy on this land of mine
We all gonna get it in due time
I don't belong here
I don't belong there
I've even stopped believing in prayer

Don't tell me
I tell you
Me and my people just about due
I've been there so I know
They keep on saying "Go slow!"

But that's just the trouble
"do it slow"
Washing the windows
"do it slow"
Picking the cotton
"do it slow"
You're just plain rotten
"do it slow"
You're too damn lazy
"do it slow"
The thinking's crazy
"do it slow"
Where am I going
What am I doing
I don't know
I don't know

Just try to do your very best
Stand up be counted with all the rest
For everybody knows about Mississippi Goddam

I made you thought I was kiddin' didn't we

Picket lines
School boy cots
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!"

But that's just the trouble
"do it slow"
Desegregation
"do it slow"
Mass participation
"do it slow"
Reunification
"do it slow"
Do things gradually
"do it slow"
But bring more tragedy
"do it slow"
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
Everybody knows about Mississippi
Everybody knows about Alabama
Everybody knows about Mississippi Goddam

That's it!

Subject: RE: ADD: Mississippi Goddam (Nina Simone)
From: Azizi
Date: 20 Jan 05 - 01:39 AM

It's been exactly three years since this thread was started.

I found this thread in this circuitous way: I saw a reference that someone made to the song "Strange Fruit" in a current thread on "Songs that are special". I then went to the Search box and found the song listed in the Digitrad and also the information that there were a number of threads that mention the song.

BTW, the last posting in any of these threads was Sept. 2003.

I found this thread to be particularly informative:

Origins of 'Strange Fruit' - article

http://www.mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=30958

[sorry-I still don't know how to hyperlingk]/

Since the song "Mississippi Goddam"is connected in my mind with the song "Strange Fruit", I went to the Search box to find out if there was mention in Mudcat on this song.

The search engine gave this message: "No Results in the Digitrad"

The Search engine also gave the results that "Mississippi Goddam" had been mentioned in Mudcat threads 5 times, including the above post by KarlMarx.

"The Songs of Mississippi" thread contains a post on April 27 2003 by catspaw49. In that post she {he?}also includes the lyrics to the "Mississippi Goddam" song.

Since I am still a relative newbie here-I've been posting here not quite 4 months-I am asking this question in all sincerity: "What is the process for adding a song to the Digitrad?

I thought that including the lyrics in a post was enough, but apparently, this case demonstrates that that isn't so.

PS:
I was raised in the church and cursing "especially taking the name of God in vain" wasn't allowed in my childhood home. None of the above are permitted in my own home.

However....

While I still cringe when I read or hear the words "Goddam", I make an exception {with adults} with this song. The objectional phrase
is used here to effectively emphasize singer's extreme feelings about all the objectionable things that the name "Mississippi" evocates for her and {many other} African Americans.

I must say that I mean no disrespect to all the good folks who are from or who live in Mississippi. However for African Americans that state has long symbolized the harshest forms of slavery and Jim Crowism.

But maybe the'award' for "the most difficult in the USA for Black folks" should now been given to Texas.

Just a thought...

PSS:

On a much much lighter note, I also remember when I was a young child in the 1950s trying to 'trick' another child into saying something 'risque' by asking her if she knew how to spell "Mississippi".

The unsuspecting girl would start spelling
"M-I-S-S-I-P-P" and then I'd interrupt her and say "Oooh! You said you P-P"

Sometimes chidren wouldn't immediately 'get it', but eventually they would realized that they'd been tricked into mentioning bodily functions in public...They would shrug it off, and act like it wasn't any big deal. Which it wasn't. It was just childhood fun.

That's my only good memory of 'Mississippi'.

Subject: RE: ADD: Mississippi Goddam (Nina Simone)
From: Azizi
Date: 20 Jan 05 - 01:43 AM

Well maybe not THREE years...Subtract 2003 from 2005 and you get
TWO years.

I knew that...

Maybe that was some kids' revenge for my tricking them in days gone by.

;O))

Given the state of the nation and the world, sometimes it's good to smile.

Subject: RE: ADD: Mississippi Goddam (Nina Simone)
From: Joe Offer
Date: 20 Jan 05 - 04:22 AM

Hi, Azizi - The best way to submit songs to the Digital Tradition is to post them here. Then they're available to all of us right away, and they're also open for discussion, correction, and refinement. It does take a good while for songs to end up in the Digital Tradition (DT) The most recent edition of the DT was 2002, but there is a completed 2004 edition waiting for programming.

There are thousands of songs posted at Mudcat that may or may not be incorporated into the DT. We do our best to index them so people can find them, and we have a better system of song indexing under development.

This song is not a high priority for the DT, but it may eventually end up there. It's not a traditional song, and it's not in the folk genre - but still it's a darn good song.

-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: ADD: Mississippi Goddam (Nina Simone)
From: Azizi
Date: 20 Jan 05 - 09:15 AM

Thanks, Joe.

I appreciate your explanation. It was the process of adding songs to the Digital Tradition as much as the outcome that I was interested in understanding.

And I suppose you're right that MG is "not a traditional song', since it is of relatively recent composition. And I suppose you're also correct that, stritly speaking, MG is "not in the folk genre" since its composer is known.

Of course, the composers for other songs that are listed in the song index are known, such as the song "Strange Fruit"' that led me to this thread.

Maybe the selection of which song gets into the DT has something to do with copyright matters.

I guess things could get kind of sticky if known composers of songs didn't want the lyrics of those songs to be presented for all the world to see.

Also Joe, thanks for letting me know that there is a system on Mudcat to index the many songs that members & guests post that may or may not be incorporated into the DT.

Umm...would you share more about that system? And what, if anything, may I {and others do}to help with that system?

Or should I {and other new Mudcatters} wait to be introduced to the new index system that you mentioned is under construction?

PS.

I see you said that MG is a "darn good song"..So you weren't allowed to curse in your home either, right?

:O))

Ms. Azizi

Subject: RE: ADD: Mississippi Goddam (Nina Simone)
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 20 Jan 05 - 04:32 PM

Azizi, I may have misunderstood, but you said you couldn't find "Strange Fruit." It is in the DT.

Lyrics and Knowledge 'Search' is peculiar to say the least. Use no quotes. Use no caps. Use the shortest 'key' word or phrase possible- A lot of unwanted stuff may come up, but the one you are looking for should be there somewhere (if it is). Try alternate spellings. There are mis-spellings in lots of thread titles; mudcats are notoriously poor spellers. Old songs may have alternate titles- if you are lucky, you will hit one that appeared in Mudcat. Sometimes even the oldtimers here miss, and start a duplicate thread, adding to the problem of finding what one is searching for.

FAQ is poorly organized and parts are near incomprehensible, but I caught a few bare bones from it.

Post new songs with- Lyr. Add: in front of the title.

To make Links within and outside Mudcat- Go to FAQ. Scroll down Table of Contents to 'Technical Advice.' Click on 'Basic Mudcat HTML.'
To link a mudcat thread- scroll down a ways in this section and find 'for a thread'- Look at the string of stuff there, starting with Enter practice search in Search box, and an old practice thread should come up (if not create a new practice thread). Then try a few links until they come out right.
Below that, find the formula to link to a song in the DT.

Go back up near the beginning to find the formula for outside links.
Try making these as well.

Subject: RE: ADD: Mississippi Goddam (Nina Simone)
From: Azizi
Date: 20 Jan 05 - 05:09 PM

Q,

Strange Fruit is in the DigiTrad but "MG' isn't.

But it's all good...

Asking this question has helped me better understand how some songs get in the DT and why others may not be included there {yet or at all}.

I appreciate your walking me through the technical directions. I know that I'll 'get it' eventually.

Two years or so ago when I first learned about Mudcat I didn't have a clue what a blog or discussion forum was. and I thought that the Mudcat page was overwhelming. But I kept returning and reading others' comments getting comfortable with the idea until I got up enough nerve to post my first comment late last year. Then I finally got up my nerve to start a new thread...

And, as they say, the rest is history!