James Baldwin and Nina Simone

I recently decided to take another listen to the live version of  Nina Simone’s song, “I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel To Be Free” that she performed at the 1976 Montreux Jazz Festival. One particular line that really caught my attention in class, and again during my second listening was when she says, “Everybody should be free because if we ain’t we’re murders.”  It grabbed my attention first for standing out so much in comparison to otherwise relativity light lyrics. When looking up the lyrics I found that this particular line was not in the recorded version.  The fact that the line was organic to the live performance made it have an even greater impact on me.  The line made me think about Baldwin’s writings about his father and the hate he held onto. It made me think how detrimental structures, like race that keep us “chained,” are to the human body, both mentally and physically.  In a way then it is true that to not be mentally free from these structures is to murder ourselves.

Another section that was unique to the live version and that I really enjoyed was her saying that she finally knows, “How it feels not to be chained to anything, to any race, to any faith, to anybody, to any greed, to any hopes, to anything.” I felt that this again just embodied even more the beauty in breaking free from these structures that work so hard to restrain us.