I love Nina Simone. LOVE HER. Ne Me Quitte Pas showed me a new level of beauty in music, Strange Fruit's (video NSFW) haunting melodies and horrifying lyrics taught me that music has the power to terrify as well as glorify, and Love Me Or Leave Me was that one really cool jazz song that they played to kick everyone out of the club at the end of NOFX's I Heard They Suck Live album that I could never figure out. Discovering her music has been nothing short of an extraordinary journey for me, and I'm always finding new masterpieces.

Enter her Little Girl Blue album from 1957 into my life last week. Thanks to the blessings of Pandora and all of the amazing new music that it has delivered to my soul, Good Bait came up the other day. I could go into the story about how this song invoked a sort of Dr. Jekyll /Mr. Hyde feeling in my stomach, almost as if an evil spirit was slowly dripping down my ear canal, through my throat and enveloping my heart, but I'd rather just get to the point of this post and let you listen to its' majesty.

My Google search turned up a fan video dubbing this beautiful song over Orson Wells' 1958 Noir, Touch of Evil starring Charlton Heston and Janet Leigh. My knowledge of Wells' work doesn't stretch any further than Citizen Cane, but after seeing this video, I am incredibly eager to see it. I'm not sure if this song is in the movie or not, but the melodies couldn't possibly fit the visuals any better than this. Turn up your speakers, and embrace possession.

Update: As suspected, Nina didn't write this song. It was composed in 1944 by Count Basie and Tadd Dameron. Apparently, there's some speculation as to when the song was actually written, but it's first recorded performance was in 1948 Basie and Dizzy Gillespie at the Royal Roost in NYC. [jazzstandards].

The original song is upbeat and swinging, as heard here in John Coltrane's 1958 Soultrane recording. I couldn't find a video of Gillespie's version, but it's pretty similar to Coltrane's. Miles apart from the terrifying rendition that Nina plays. She completely makes it her own, like nothing I've ever heard before. It sounds like how I imagine heroine feels upon the first penitration of a vein. If I were ever damned, her rendition would be playing as I fall. The song is utterly hopeless in the most fantastic way, I can't stop listening to it.

It's possible that this song is the most beautifully horrifying song I've heard in my 30+ years. My new goal is to re-learn piano so I can bust this out at a drunken party and murder everyone in the room. Not physically, though... maybe...