ANOHNI has today shared two new songs: versions of ‘It’s All over Now, Baby Blue’ by Bob Dylan and ‘Be My Husband’ by Nina Simone. The songs are available now, digitally, with a 7” following on 2nd October via Secretly Canadian. And she’s explained the background to this bewitching recording to Long Live Vinyl…
“I saw Nina Simone perform at Carnegie Hall in 1991 while I was still in college. The concert was not properly publicized, and the theater was only half full. I think it may have been her first time back in NYC in many years. She was rumored to be volatile and unpredictable. That night she sang and played with such dignity, so incredibly, and she did 5 or 6 encores. For me, she was the greatest musician of the 20th Century. She didn’t write many songs, but the ones she wrote were among the most profound of the era. Be My Husband was one such song. The lyrics spin a paradox of romantic assertion and submission. This live version of the song was recorded at an Antony and the Johnsons concert at the Knitting Factory in NYC in 1999.”
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