Quote

I do love to sing Jacques Brel songs, intensely. I get terribly excited, just by reading a couple of lines in any one of his songs.

Nina Simone

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Nina Simone
Age: 75 †
Born: 1933
Born: February 21
Died: 2008
Died: April 21
Composer
Jazz Pianist
Recording Artist
Singer
Singer-Songwriter
Tryon
North Carolina
Eunice Kathleen Waymon
High Priestess of Soul
Songs
Couple
Lines
Reading
Jacques
Song
Intensely
Love
Terribly
Excited
Sing

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There are all kinds of things that can be done. You can change rhythms, you can change chords, you can change whole concepts. But it will only work, on a record or in a performance, if you can make the people buy it.
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I would like a man now who is rich, and who can give me a boat - a sailboat. I want to own it and let him pay for it. My first love is the sea and water, not music. Music is second.
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You don't have to live next to me / Just give me my equality.
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Everything that happened to me as a child involved music. It was part of everyday life, as automatic as breathing.
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This is the world you have made yourself, now you have to live in it.
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Many times I feel different like a different person.
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The Beatles are lucky, very lucky. But what has happened to them has nothing to do with them, in a sense. They came along at the right time. Attention was focused on them. They've had the chance to grow in almost any direction they wanted. Very lucky. They are not exceptionally talented.
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I'm sorry that I did not become the world's first black classic pianist. I think I would have been happier.
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Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood, a song that was written for Simone, she confronted the band's lead singer, Eric Burdon. So you're the honky, she said, who stole my song and got a hit out of it?
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When I choose material for an album all these songs I grew up with pour into my head.
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When I was studying... there weren't any black concert pianists. My choices were intuitive, and I had the technique to do it. People have heard my music and heard the classic in it, so I have become known as a black classical pianist.
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From the beginning, it has been a no-no for a black man to touch a white woman.
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I can't stand loud guitars that make me deaf.
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I look forward to doing my own show, not someone else's. That's always been my dream.
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I know I'm different, but I don't think about it.
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That's a very high goal to have, study eight hours a day to be a concert pianist.
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How do you explain what it feels like to get on the stage and make poetry that you know sinks into the hearts and souls of people who are unable to express it
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You can't help it. An artist's duty, as far as I'm concerned, is to reflect the times.
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This may be a dream, but I'll say it anyway: I was supposed to be married last year, and I bought a gown. When I meet Nelson Mandela, I shall put on this gown and have the train of it removed and put aside, and kiss the ground that he walks on and then kiss his feet.
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I tell you what freedom is to me: no fear.
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