Nina Simone (part one)

After Julliard they refused to let her play piano at Cappuccini’s or Dan-O’s unless she sang the blues. She was poor then, so she sang, that low moan like the end of sex, and more tender ‘cause the next bar she’d be screaming – couldn’t get the hang Uh dem blues, though – she’d let toccatas slip into songs about leaving, had the brass to turn a grieving old ballad into a minuet So sweet and soulful you’d swear it wasn’t white; and she’d grin over her piano, big and ugly as sin, say, This for the white man there... And sing? No, she wasn’t any trained singer (but then they all are, right?) And when she did “Pirate Jenny” You laughed a little, too, at her whispering “kill them now!” trying not to think how what she meant was you.