There is a line near the end of the 1972 album by Nina Simone titled 'Emergency Ward,' a line improvised by Simone in response to the crowd, that remains confusing. The album, in its "Complete RCA Albums Collection" version, consists of four tracks that stand as an enduring testament to the power of Simone's voice and the ability of carefully chosen and beautifully sung music to engender feelings of possibility and genuine transport between knowledge and history or between a people and their own souls. Although the songs are covers, their arrangements and compositions are uniquely Simone's. The track in question, "Let It Be Me," written in French in 1955 by Gilbert Bécaud, but made popular in the U.S. by the Everly Brothers in 1960 in a translation which was likely the first version heard by Simone, is here performed as a duet with Simone's own brother Sam Waymon. Slow, but swelling, punctuated by the snare and kept on the rails by Simone's flowing piano, the lyrics reach for romance and are met by the enthusiasm of the audience. At the end of his solo verse, Waymon's voice stretches out in the ecstasy of rising exclamation "and oh baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, yaaeah, and ooooooooooooooh, oooohhohhhh", the piano quickens, louder as both voices rejoin and sing, "so don't ever leave me lonely," someone in the crowd shouts "do it!," Simone and Wayman again, "say that you want me only." Suddenly Simone of and on her own adlibs a lyric unclear in meaning and lacking a direct object. Perfectly in time, but so unexpected that Waymon can be heard to miss a beat and slightly chuckle, Nina punches at the five syllables of "not quite, but almost," then returns to the lyrics with two refrains of "now and forever, let it be me." What does it mean, "not quite, but almost?" Was she responding to the lyrics, but then which ones, those just before or those just after? Don't quite say that you want me only, or almost now and forever, let it be me? Was she responding to the crowd's desire ("do it!") as if to let them know what hadn't been reached, what remained undone, what higher heights were possible? Simone unfolds a potential within the song, then leaves it there unfulfilled and shimmering. Not being able to ask Simone what she meant, meaning's possibilities linger and expand. Hearing the words, feeling the music, can it be understood? Not quite, but almost. As I’ve written elsewhere of a friend:
The truly Queer creates meaning where there has previously been little, and while it actively flirts with the possibility, it absolutely does not allow itself to be understood. Sometimes a context is its own excuse, and sometimes a seed can only arrive at fertile soil chambered within layers of tough thorn, protected and obscure.
So I hope for the work of others, and so I hope for work of my own.