Music- The Riff

Dragonfly Out in the Sun- You Know What I Mean

Feeling Good performed by blues icon Nina Simone, written by Leslie Bricusse

Lately, I’ve been feeling dolefully pig-headed. Melancholy, like a nebulous cloud floats just above my head. It feels surreptitiously tethered to me with one purpose. To scuttle my experience of the world through a cycloptic perspective that beholds the banal and the enchanting with equal amounts of criticism. Whether some, or all of the derision is deserved, I cannot say, but some would agree my eye must be the offending culprit. Thus, any self-respecting fanatic bent on literally interpreting Christian parables would demand I pluck it out.

Nina Simone’s catalog of music makes me grateful for having two good ears 👂, which thus far, seem to function perfectly outside these hyper-critical did-you-see-the-way-she-just-looked-at-me? funks.

From the worn waistband of my Levis to the fine muscles lacing the occipital plane of this skull, life feels too tight. It squeezes and pulls at my flagging desires. If I were five, I should find a flailing tantrum momentarily satisfying.

I ask you, are we doomed to mourn every misstep we’ve made — forever?

Feeling Good assures me, the choice is mine to make. Perfection is an apparition, a wriggling earthworm on the end of a cane pole disappearing into a liquid mirage as soon as it hits water.

When I am like this, I am liable to believe in the sacrosanctity of flaws. If only we had not been tossed from the Garden to play a zero-sum game as the imperfect, mortals we are. It’s been made clear, we are not, nor will we ever be perfect. Why would any benevolent god demand the magnificent rhinoceros it created mew like a kitten?

In Nina Simone’s voice, I hear the unequivocal answer coaxing me across this chasm of despair.

Everything is as it should be. Accept it all. Stop resisting and you’ll be free, she says. Open your eyes and you will see. And, if you happen to snatch a reason to feel good from the grip of this trifling life, by god, TAKE it, SING about it, SWAY to its rhythm, and finally, SHOUT it to the undertaker!

Feeling Good’s lyrics, while simple and intimate, only tell half the story, Simone’s richly expressive vibrato tells the rest.

In my head, I hear Nina saying, ‘Woman, you gotta seize these precious moments by the scruff of the neck and pull them into your heart and soul until they set you on fire again.’

When I hear Feeling Good, I’m keenly aware of how jaded I can become to life’s sweetnesses. The arrangement, orchestration, music — the timbre of Nina’s voice, the haunting textures penetrate the fog and challenge me to rouse myself with whatever passion and desire I have left in reserve. To rise once more toward something mythical, a Hieroglyphic ideal of perfect freedom playfully hidden between the common moments of everyday life, easily discovered with a modest amount of attention.

Within the descending progression of chords, the Pink Panther-like riff feels playful as the music jauntily lowers one down the scale like a stuffed doll forgotten on the seat of a carnival ride only to swing the listener up toward a clear blue sky once again. Upon the music, often a singular note trembling with desire for contrast or salvation rides on a spacious aural carpet woven from the delicate sinew of Nina’s extraordinary vocal presence. This note, like a lifeline, pulls me towards solid ground.

Simone stirs the part of my heart that knows all too well about love and loss. At the same time, she touches a less familiar place that understands and accepts the rhythmic rise and fall of life, yet cannot quite master the art of letting go.

In a sultry, moaning scat, which comes root and branch from the rich soil of a verdant soul, I hear the savage lovemaking between shadow and light in the contrast between holding on and letting go.

I wonder, what do you hear when you listen to Feeling Good, by Nina Simone? I hope it’s something good. Please share with me below. Cheers!

Feeling Good

Birds flying high you know how I feel — Sun in the sky you know how I feel — Breeze driftin’ on by you know how I feel It’s a new dawn It’s a new day It’s a new life For me And I’m feeling good — Fish in the sea you know how I feel River running free you know how I feel — Blossom on the tree you know how I feel — Dragonfly out in the sun you know what I mean, don’t you know — Butterflies all havin’ fun you know what I mean — Sleep in peace when day is done That’s what I mean — And this old world is a new world And a bold world For me — Stars when you shine you know how I feel — Scent of the pine you know how I feel — Oh freedom is mine And I know how I feel…

Knight spent her childhood under the face-freckling sun of central Ohio. A tree-climbing, sensitive tomboy, she taught herself, to play the guitar, write songs, and how to ride a unicycle. Once, she spent an eye-opening year traveling the hotel circuit as the female lead singer for a ragtag lounge act in the 1980s and sustained the original wardrobe malfunction while belting out the disco hit, ‘Last Dance’ by Donna Summer.

Though she had aspirations of running away with the circus, Knight joined the US Navy instead, trained as a pipe-fitter and welder, and took to the seas aboard a repair vessel before retiring honorably. After service with The National Park Service as a naturalist and protection ranger, Knight returned to her more creative pursuits. Knight holds a BS in Music Therapy from Maryville University, St Louis, with an emphasis in palliative care and has released several original recordings over the years. She lives with her husband and extended family in the Ozark Mountains of Arkansas.

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