Today, while looking for a new poem among the ones I have written for older posts, I came across Day 1080. I opened the word document and read the poem and started to read the other text. I was impressed and thought I was pretty smart back then. To be sure I opened my blog in the browser on that day and realized that I was reading the lyrics of the song: “I wish I knew how to be free” written by Billy Taylor and Dick Dallas and in this case sung by Nina Simone.

I love the text a lot and the rendition of Nina Simone to. For fun I typed in the name of the song in YouTube and apparently it is a popular song to cover. There are a lot of contemporary artist, who are mostly younger, that sing it but they lack, for the most part, the depth of someone that has “lived a life”. Luck Peterson’s version is also good but he had lived, and you can here it.

The poem goes like this:

The dark flower

all of life’s forces used

towering over

looked down on

alone

The live version that Nina Simone sing in Montreux in 1976 is the best one I could find. The studio version is also good but this version has moor in it…

I wish I knew how
It would feel to be free
I wish I could break
All the chains holdin’ me
I wish I could say
All the things that I should say

Say ’em loud, say ’em clear
For the whole ’round world to hear
I wish I could share
All the love that’s in my heart
Remove all the thoughts
That keep us apart

I wish you could know
What it means to be me
Then you’d see and agree
That every man should be free

I wish I could give
All I’m longin’ to give
I wish I could live
Like I’m longing to live
I wish I could do
All the things that I can do

And though I’m way over due
I’d be startin’ a new
Well I wish I could be
Like a bird in the sky
How sweet it would be
If I found I could fly

I’d soar up to the sun
And look down at the sea
And I’d sing ’cause I know yeah

And I’d sing ’cause I know yeah
And I’d sing ’cause I know
I’d know how it feels
I’d know how it feels to be free, yeah-yeah
I-I’d know how it feels
Yes, I’d know
I’d know how it feels, how it feels
To be free, no no no

And one more: