Music and info for next class

Hi everyone,

As promised, here's the music for our next class (Monday, March 30), and some background information about it. We'll be talking about these pieces as aesthetic responses to historical events, and as usual we'll be wanting to think about the vision of America implied, condemned or parodied by each of the songs.

There are two pieces here: Nina Simone's song "Mississippi Goddamn" and John Coltrane's tune "Alabama." Feel free to do some research on either performer if you'd like.

Both songs were written in response to the 1963 Baptist Church bombing in Birmingham, Alabama, in which four young girls were killed. You can find some background information on the bombing here and here. Nina Simone's song also references Medgar Evers' murder in 1963 in Mississippi. Info on Evers here, courtesy of our old friend wikipedia.

Here are the pieces:

Nina Simone - Mississippi Goddamn (4:51) (lyrics here)


John Coltrane - Alabama (5:14)


If you'd rather just download both files to your computer, you can click here.


If you'd like to write your paper about one or both of these pieces (or either of them in relation to either Cane or Dutchman), go for it! Just let me know sooner rather than later.

All best,
Ben