Issue 8: Nina Simone's "Wild is the Wind" / 4 Takes on a Gothic Premise
The best jazz singer you’ve never heard of (...or maybe you have). / H.P. Lovecraft meets Knives Out.
Normally I have a little quip or descriptor in the title of these album reviews, but this one speaks for itself.
Instead, I'll open with an anecdote. In a side room at a certain library at Lehigh, there's a record player with a small collection. Every vinyl except one is a mainstream pop or hip-hop album originally released after 2010. That one? Wild is the Wind (1966).
The simple matte pink cover sticks out like a sore thumb among all the big-money hi-def nepo-baby 2020s visual design, but every time I check, it's near the front of the stack, above even the most recent popular stuff. The people want Nina, and they sure as hell want her over Taylor Swift.
What an album, and what an artist! Nina Simone holds herself to quite a high standard, putting out 11 tracks of vocal jazz with a certain tormented grandeur usually only seen in the most out-there material.
When I say vocal jazz, I have to clarify something. This is no Frank Sinatra, even though Frank Sinatra took heavy inspiration from Simone in his arrangements and certain musical choices. This is a little more substantial - not necessarily musically, but in terms of emotional content. Ol' Blue Eyes' sad tunes sound like Charlie Puth next to the sheer majesty and passion of "Four Women" or "Either Way I Lose." Her struggles are just so real, so physical.
"Four Women" is particularly interesting. The only Simone original on the album (more on that in a moment), it's an uncompromisingly dark depiction of the few possible lives available to her as a Black woman in America. The social justice theming still resounds today, but in 1966, only two years after the Civil Rights Act and while Martin Luther King Jr. was still alive, it was politically radical and downright revolutionary. In no uncertain terms, Simone depicts "four women" on the maternal side of her family tree - a whipped and brutalized slave; a child of assault caught between two worlds; an innocent woman forced into sex work; and finally, as the song comes to a shocking crescendo, herself - feeling "awfully bitter these days." A really heavy premise, and she executes it all to an immense standard of quality.
Oh, and - any other artist would end or begin the album with such a huge emotional-political statement, right? No, this is song #2, and yet it still somehow sounds perfectly sequenced. How does she do it??
"Four Women" is the only song on the album Simone penned herself, with everything else being covers of showtunes, Tin Pan Alley, and traditional folk. But unlike, say, Ella Fitzgerald, who took these tunes and faithfully interpreted them, Simone pulls them in odd directions not intended by the original writers. "Lilac Wine" turns a humble ballad into the very essence of yearning. "Break Down and Let It All Out" compresses the energy of early rock & roll into a tense ball of nervousness and resentment, 25+ years ahead of time on the '90s (PJ Harvey comes to mind in some ways, actually). Dramatic closer "Either Way I Lose" is taken down to funeral-procession tempo, with a horn section designed to sound huge, distant, and desolate. Again, all absolutely nothing like the originals. People give Nirvana's "Where Did You Sleep Last Night," Johnny Cash's "Hurt," etc., as stock answers for great cover songs that the artist makes their own, but Johnny Cash and Kurt Cobain could learn a thing or two from Nina Simone.
This unusual aspect of Wild is the Wind has led to two high-profile covers of songs from it - Jeff Buckley did "Lilac Wine" on Grace (1994), and David Bowie did the title track on Station to Station (1976). Both of them were originally popular in the '50s - in fact, the title track was taken from a movie that was big enough to get nominated for an Academy Award - and yet, both are undoubtedly covers of the Nina Simone songs, not the originals.
The cherry on top is the voice. Some people don't like Nina Simone's voice, and to be fair, it is rather jagged and nasal. But that low, piercing alto quality is the same thing that lets her really shine, from the fast songs to the ballads. Where most singers would breeze through some higher passages, she has to fight for every word, making the music desperate, intense, and alive. (Can you imagine, like, Bing Crosby effortlessly cruising through “If I Should Lose You?”) This ability to make a strength out of a weakness is something she shared with her predecessor Billie Holiday, who famously had only one good octave (though Simone had a somewhat wider range than that, and apparently hated being compared to Holiday). As one commenter has put it, not liking her voice is a skill issue (for the less hip people here, that means the problem would be with you, not her). Certainly an acquired taste in any case.
To quote Simone herself, “what more can I say?” You must listen to this thing.
Verdict: 4.5 stars - Highly recommended
4 Takes on a Gothic Premise
Here's a fun little story idea.
Time period - definitely Victorian, like 1890s-1900s. Gothic vibes, as mentioned in the title.
Our protagonist, detective Sir Edwin, visits the exclusive, wealthy Kosmiches-Voltparlour in Berlin. Electrification is the new horrible turn-of-the-century European aristocrats' pastime, a la radium. They electrocute themselves for stimulation & health. Electric chairs, clip things on fingers, electrodes on the body, etc. (Play up the Frankenstein vibes a little?) Perhaps a single quack doctor is behind it all, perhaps it's a larger movement and the Voltparlour is just the greatest/most luxurious example. I can think of about four different ways to treat this premise.
1 - Spin for comedy: Someone has "mysteriously" died after the treatment. Gosh! How could this happen? Sir Edwin must navigate around goofy buffoon nobles and their obsequious pomposity. This would probably take the form of a short movie or indie animation (I dunno if it would be as "fun" in live action).
2 - Spin for drama / Knives Out 2-esque "rich people are dumb" theming: Someone has "mysteriously" died after the treatment, and Sir Edwin must pretend to investigate while not offending the aristocrats who could have his head on a plate with a word. Perhaps he frames someone important for the death, causing a breakdown in the established order as the noble families tear each other/themselves apart over it, then walks away with the Voltparlour in flames behind him. On the other hand, maybe he's tangled up in the drama and must "enjoy" more and more dangerous electric shocks to be polite to the people he's trying to repair relations with, eventually becoming casualty number two. Either way, this would most likely be a movie, but I could see a good prose or comic adaptation. The second ending would also make a really fun parable/dark ending kind of short story.
3 - Spin for horror: It's not just electricity. They were using a hidden source of eldritch power to zap them. Now the nobles all speak a language no one knows and plot amongst themselves with morality that seems increasingly alien - just like real-life 1800s nobility. Edwin zaps himself just once so he can understand their speech, but finds himself increasingly tempted for another session… This one would definitely be a short story with Lovecraftian influence.
4 - Spin for action: Epic blockbuster Hollywood movie about three hours long. The nefarious Dr. [villainous Euro name] is behind this, and Edwin, who has inexplicably become an American named something like "Joe Steel," has gotta deal with this by punching his lights out. Bring the time period way forward to, like, the early ‘30s, but set it in France because we can't offend the Neo-Nazi demographic. With a hot French femme-fatale spy as his love interest, Joe Steel infiltrates Dr. Arrondisement's private study and reveals his papers with his Evil Plans to Control Them All to the innocent Continental Voltparlour-goers in a dramatic final scene with the Eiffel Tower in the background. They dramatically rise against him. Critics will say it was incredible; advertisements will be indistinguishable from U.S. military propaganda.
What would you do with this premise? Let me know in the comments!