Welcome back, my fellow creatives!

I wrote quite the saga last week, so let’s keep things short and sweet with the celebration of song, shall we?

Discovering Nina Simone was a happy accident. In an earlier post I noted my husband’s love of blues and giving me different artists to explore. Even in the midst of all those artists, I wasn’t quite finding the song that encapsulated the struggle Elmore and Johnny face in the opening chapters of their story.

Initially in my YouTube searches through various gospel singers, I came across Sister Rosetta Tharpe, who inspired the likes of Johnny Cash, Elvis, and Little Richard. While I loved her upbeat sound of reaching for Heaven (and her music is worth its own post down the line), for now I wanted something grounded. Something that reflected tough times. Something that gave a deep, deep sense of the blues.

And then Nina Simone appeared in my searches.

Here is an artist raised by preachers, trained in classical music, and determined to go the distance for her dreams–even if it meant changing her identity and hiding her music from her own family as she played “the devil’s music” at night clubs and developed a career. This hit particularly close to home, for I write under a pen name and have never shared my work here with my family. 

Simone’s passion for change burns in her music. A victim of prejudice and witness to racist acts against her parents, Simone used her music to stoke the fire for change in the hearts of others.

As a fellow pianist, I love watching as well as listening to her play. You can just see the energy build in her shoulders as her fingers move flawlessly across the keys. It’s said she had to sing when she played jazz for nightclubs in order to be a “real” act. I don’t know how the blazes she could both sing and play with such ferocity. Give me the job of one or the other, but not both!

As I grew acquainted with Simone’s work, one video came on that just brought me to a complete halt: “Ain’t Got No; I Got Life.”

I ain’t got no home, ain’t got no shoes
Ain’t got no money, ain’t got no class
Ain’t got no skirts, ain’t got no sweater
Ain’t got no perfume, ain’t got no bed
Ain’t got no man

Ain’t got no mother, ain’t got no culture
Ain’t got no friends, ain’t got no schoolin’
Ain’t got no love, ain’t got no name
Ain’t got no ticket, ain’t got no token
Ain’t got no god

Part of what drives my work on Star Lines is the desire to show how powerful the bonds of family can be, even when the deepest cuts are inflicted by loss. And for twin brothers Elmore and Johnny, they indeed feel lost. Their mom has died. Their father is lost in his grief. Their peers see them as a waste of time. Law enforcement seems to just wait around for them to screw up, and any other adult in their lives is too busy to give them the attention they need.

They’ve got nothing.

And Nina Simone’s “Ain’t Got No/I Got Life” captures that so absolutely perfectly it just makes one stop. Listen. Just stop and listen to the pain that runs through the undercurrent of the first half of that song, a list of thing after thing after thing the singer lacks.

Then the second half of the song kicks in with the key change. The undercurrent takes a new path, and we hear what the singer does have: 

Hey, what have I got?
Why am I alive , anyway?
Yeah, what have I got
Nobody can take away?

Got my hair, got my head
Got my brains, got my ears
Got my eyes, got my nose
Got my mouth, I got my smile
I got my tongue, got my chin
Got my neck, got my boobies
Got my heart, got my soul
Got my back, I got my sex

I got my arms, got my hands
Got my fingers, got my legs
Got my feet, got my toes
Got my liver, got my blood

I’ve got life, I’ve got my freedom
I’ve got life
I’ve got the life
And I’m going to keep it
I’ve got the life.

Life.

The body, the soul. The Blood.

Life.

Defiant. Bright. Free.

Elmore and Johnny may not have much, but they have each other. And if they hold on to what their mother taught them, they can rediscover that which no one can take away.

To defy the darkness is to find the freedom of hope. That is the story I am excited to write and share with you. Thank you all for reminding me what I’ve got. x

~*~

How about a little worldbuilding next week? Come with me on a detour down an old side road away from the main thoroughfare to a world of scrap metal and imagination…

What will we find? Come back to find out!

Read on, share on, and write on, my friends!