NPR All Things Considered, August 12, 2008, Music Picks From Obama, McCain
ROBERT SIEGEL, host: Well, if you choose your president based on musical tastes, then the new issue of Blender is for you. MELISSA BLOCK, host:The magazine asked the candidates for their top 10 favorite songs. Here’s some snippets. See if you can guess which is which. Here’s candidate one.
(Soundbite of song, “I’ve Got You Under My Skin”)
Mr. FRANK SINATRA (Singer): (Singing) I’ve got you under my skin.
(Soundbite of song, “What a Wonderful World”)
Mr. LOUIS ARMSTRONG (Singer): (Singing) I see skies of blue…
(Soundbite of song, “Good Vibrations”)
THE BEACH BOYS (Rock Band): (Singing) I’m picking up good vibrations. She’s giving me excitations.
(Soundbite of song, “As Time Goes By”)
Mr. DOOLEY WILSON (Singer): (Singing) As time goes by.
(Soundbite of song, “If We Make it Through December”)
Mr. MERLE HAGGARD (Singer, Songwriter): (Singing) If we make it through December…
(Soundbite of song, “Take a Chance on Me”)
ABBA (Pop Band): (Singing) Honey, I’m still free. Take a chance on me.
(Soundbite of song, “Blue Bayou”)
Mr. ROY ORBISON (Singer, Songwriter): (Singing) I’m going back some day, come what may, to Blue Bayou.
(Soundbite of song, “Dancing Queen”)
ABBA: (Singing) You are the dancing queen…
BLOCK: Some ABBA, Orbison, a little Louis Armstrong. Now, candidate number two.
(Soundbite of song, “Yes We Can”)
WILL.I.AM (Rapper): (Rapping) Yes we can.
(Soundbite of song, “City of Blinding Lights”)
BONO (Lead Singer, U2): (Singing) In the city of blinding lights.
(Soundbite of song, “Think”)
Ms. ARETHA FRANKLIN (Singer): (Singing) You gotta think.
Unidentified Group: (Singing) Think.
Ms. FRANKLIN: (Singing) Think about what you’re trying…
(Soundbite of song, “You’d be So Easy to Love”)
Mr. SINATRA: (Singing) You’d be so easy to love.
(Soundbite of song, “Touch the Sky”)
Mr. KANYE WEST (Rapper): (Rapping) For the day I die, I’m ‘a touch the sky.
(Soundbite of song, “Sinnerman”)
Ms. NINA SIMONE (Singer, Pianist): (Singing) Sinnerman, you ought to be praying.
(Soundbite of song, “Gimme Shelter”)
Mr. MICK JAGGER (Lead Singer, The Rolling Stones): (Singing) Gimme, gimme shelter.
(Soundbite of song, “I’m on Fire”)
Mr. BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN (Singer, Songwriter): (Singing) At night I wake up with the sheets soaking wet and a freight train running through the middle of my head.
(Soundbite of song, “What’s Going On”)
Mr. MARVIN GAYE (Singer): (Singing) What’s going on?
Unidentified Group: (Singing) What’s going on?
Mr. GAYE: (Singing) Yeah, what’s going on?
Unidentified Group: (Singing) What’s going on?
(Soundbite of song, “Ready or Not”)
Ms. LAURYN HILL (Singer, The Fugees): (Singing) Ready or not, here I come. You can’t hide. Gonna find you and take it slowly.
SIEGEL: Well, the Rolling Stones, Kanye West, U2 - if you haven’t guessed, the giveaway on this list is probably “Yes We Can,” a song celebrating Barack Obama.
BLOCK: Unlikely that would turn up on John McCain’s favorites. There is a glimmer of musical bipartisanship here, Robert. Both claim a fondness for Sinatra.
SIEGEL: Mm-hmm. Sinatra. And as for their number one picks, if you didn’t recognize the snippets, Barack Obama went for “Ready or Not” by the Fugees, and John McCain’s number one: the ABBA classic “Dancing Queen.”
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April 6, 2008, Why?’: Remembering Nina Simone’s Tribute to Martin Luther King Jr.
That night, Simone and her band performed a new song.
(Soundbite of archived audio)
Ms. NINA SIMONE (Late Singer): We want to do a tune written for today, for this hour, for Dr. Martin Luther King.
NEARY: The name of the song was “Why?” It went on for 13 minutes. Nina Simone sang and played and sermonized and asked the questions no one on that day could answer.
The song was written by her bass player, Gene Taylor. Simone’s brother, organist Samuel Wayman, was on stage with her that day.
Mr. SAMUEL WAYMAN (Brother of Nina Simone): We learned that song that day. We didn’t have a chance to really, like, have two or three days of rehearsal. But when you’re feeling compassion and outrage and wanting to express what you know the world is feeling - we did it because that’s what we felt.
(Soundbite of song “Why?”)
Ms. SIMONE: (Singing) Because he’d seen the mountaintop and he knew he could not stop. Always living with a threat of death ahead. Folks, you’d better stop and think because we’re heading for the brink. What will happen now that he is dead? He was for equality for all people, you and me, full of love and goodwill, hate was not his way…
Mr. WAYMAN: Yeah, she didn’t know what she wanted to do. She didn’t know whether she could do it. Through the tears, the hurt, confusion, what do you do at a moment like that?
(Soundbite of song, “Why?”)
Ms. SIMONE: (Singing) For the murders never cease, are they men or are they beast? What do they ever hope, ever hope to gain? Will my country fall or stand up or is it too late for us all? And did Martin Luther King just die in vain?
NEARY: So many questions she had - so many questions that song has.
Mr. WAYMAN: Yeah, yes, yes.
(Soundbite of humming)
Mr. WAYMAN: You just touched a nerve.
NEARY: Do you remember what that felt like as you were listening to her?
Mr. WAYMAN: Yes. Just like I’m feeling right this minute: pretty emotional. The questions in the song are the questions that are still being asked today about hatred and justice, discrimination, lack of peace around the world that’s going on today. This song is timeless.
(Soundbite of song, “Why?”)
Ms. SIMONE: (Singing) He has seen mountaintops and he knew he could not stop, always living with a threat a step ahead. Come on, Sam. Folks, you’d better stop and think because we’re almost to the brink. What will happen now that the king of love is dead?
(Soundbite of applause)
NEARY: Nina Simone in a tribute to Martin Luther King Jr. She was performing 40 years ago, three days after King’s assassination in 1968. We heard memories of the concert from her brother, organist Samuel Wayman. He was on stage with Nina Simone that day at the Westbury Music Fair on Long Island.
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BOB EDWARDS, host:Singer and pianist Nina Simone died yesterday at her home in France. She was 70 years old. To many she was the voice of the civil rights era and yet her recordings resonate with timeless relevancy. Ashley Kahn filed this appreciation.
(Soundbite of music)
Ms. NINA SIMONE: (Singing) I love you, Porgy.
ASHLEY KAHN reporting:
The world first became aware of Eunice Kathleen Waymon, best known by her stage name NinaSimone, in 1959 when she hit with the Broadway tune, "I Loves You, Porgy." But in a few short years, Simone's music began to reflect the increasing activism around her. A growing number of listeners who wanted more from their music, depth and meaning and soul, embraced her songs, which were proud to speak out in anger.
(Soundbite of music)
Ms. SIMONE: (Singing) Alabama has got me so upset. Tennessee made me lose my rest. And everybody knows about Mississippi ...(unintelligible).
KAHN: As powerful as her protest songs were, Simone's recordings could also be intimate and suggestive, as she pointed out herself in a 2001 NPR interview.
(Soundbite of 2001 NPR interview)
Ms. SIMONE: Well, I sing "Sugar in my Bowl" and the audience loves it. Bessie Smith, baby, who's talking about sex and love.
(Singing) I want a little sugar in my bowl. I want a little sweetness down in my soul.
KAHN: Simone's musical appetite knew no bounds. She covered jazz standards, the gospel songs of her youth and was one of the first black singers to record tunes by Bob Dylan, eventually incorporating rock and soul music into her sound.
(Soundbite of music)
Ms. SIMONE: (Singing) There's a million boys and girls who are young, hip (unintelligible) and that's a fact.
KAHN: There's no doubt that she could be difficult and demanding. She admitted it herself to Newsweek magazine in 1963, saying, `I am no more mean or evil or temperamental than anybody else. The only thing is I'm more obvious. I do it in public.'
In 1973, Nina Simone left America, leaving behind a recorded legacy that still burns with the rage of her convictions. She died yesterday in self-imposed exile in Europe after a long illness. As singer and songwriter Oscar Brown Jr. recently put it, `Nina's music was not a fad. The art she made in the 1960s is as valid today as it was then.'
(Soundbite of music)
Ms. SIMONE: (Singing) But I'm just a soul whose intentions are good.
EDWARDS: Ashley Kahn is author of the liner notes to "Four Women: The Nina Simone Philips Recordings," a four-CD collection to be released next month.
(Soundbite of music)
Ms. SIMONE: (Singing) You know, sometimes...
EDWARDS: The time is 29 minutes past the hour.
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