Why (The King Of Love Is Dead) — Nina Simone

 

 

After her performance at the Selma to Montgomery March, American singer, songwriter, pianist, arranger, and civil rights activist  Nina Simone had met Martin Luther King onstage. Their exchange highlighted the fundamental difference between the pair’s outlook on the Civil Rights movement: "˜I’m not nonviolent!’, she greeted the doctor, referring to King’s policy of peaceful protest and resistance. She admired King, nonetheless, and on this day in 1968 three days after the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.https://teifidancer-teifidancer.blogspot.com/2021/01/honoring-rich-radical-legacy-of-martin.html was assassinated Simone and her band played at the Westbury Music Festival on Long Island, N.Y and used her concert to stage an act of collective mourning and outrage.  They performed the haunting "Why? (The King of Love is Dead)," a song they had just learned, written by their bass player Gene Taylor less than 24 hours after King's death in response to the shocking event. This debut performance lasted around 15 minutes and seemed to encapsulate the feelings of sadness and loss everyone felt around this time.

As Simone says at the outset, the band had had just one day to learn it and the performance subsequently seems to veer between the rehearsed and the improvised. ‘Why?’ has made various appearances on record and CD, initially appearing in edited form on Simone's live album ‘Nuff Said (1968) recorded with violence erupting in more than 100 cities in outrage at King’s assassination  but fueled by longstanding social inequity and discrimination. and later being partially restored to its original version as part of the “Martin Luther King Suite” on the compilations Saga of the Good Life and Hard Times and Sugar in My Bowl. 

The song is enraged, heart wrenching, and catchy. Simone’s voice soars as she sings, “Turn the other cheek he’d plead/ Love thy neighbor was his creed/ Pain humiliation death he did not dread/ With his Bible by his side/ From his foes he did not hide/ It’s hard to think that this great man is dead.” The song managed to sum up the mood of bitterness and despair that had descended on the nation, and remains . a powerful moving eulogy to Martin Luther King. Simone’s music increased attention to racial oppression and also encouraged civil rights activists to keep fighting for freedom that continues to this day.

Why (The King Of Love Is Dead) — Nina Simone

Once upon this planet Earth,
Lived a man of humble birth,
Preaching love and freedom
For his fellow man.

He was dreaming of the day
Peace would come to Earth to stay,
And he spread this message
All across the land.

 “Turn the other cheek,” he’d plead.
“Love thy neighbor,” was his creed.
Pain, humiliation, death he did not dread.
With his bible at his side,
From his foes he did not hide.
It’s hard to think that this great man is dead.

Will the murders never cease?
Are they men or are they beasts?
What do they ever hope to gain?
Will my country stand or fall?
Is it too late for us all?
And did Martin Luther King just die in vain?

But he had seen the mountaintop,
And he knew he could not stop,
Always living with the threat of death ahead.
Folks you’d better stop and think,
Everybody knows we’re on 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.
He was not a violent man,
Tell me folks if you can?
Just why, why was he shot down the other day?

But he had seen the mountaintop,
And he knew he could not stop.
Always living with the threat of death ahead.
Folks you’d better stop and think, and feel again
Cause we headed for the brink,
What will happen, now that the King of love is dead?