Listening to Four Women

Congratulations to our boxer/scholar Jordan for getting an A+ on this outstanding essay in his English class at BMCC!

Slavery is such a complex topic that some people think they understand it but don’t. Others shy away from it because it’s too sensitive. The effects of slavery were harsh and terrible on the African American men and women who went through it. Those effects varied from person to person, whether that may be physical or emotional, and that same pain and consciousness has carried on through the generations, lasting until today. 

 In an interview, DJ Vlad spoke with African American actor and director Bill Dukes about the legacy of slavery. Duke mentions Deepak Chopra and Rudolph E. Tanzi’s Super Genes, a book about genetic inheritance. Chopras and Tanzi conducted an experiment on a deer, in which the deer experienced trauma from an electrical fence. Later on, that same deer would go on to have offspring. Oddly enough, although they never experienced the electrical shock themselves, those offspring never went towards the fence. While humans and deer are two different species, our genetics work the same way. African Americans still feel the trauma and effects of slavery over a century later. 

African American singer Nina Simone created a song named “Four Women” that elaborates on such effects left behind by slavery. The song was released as part of her Wild is the Wind album in 1966, during times of harsh civil unrest between blacks and whites. She sings about four different types of black women, each with a different skin tone, and the effects slavery has had on them  Aunt Sarah, Saffronia, Sweet Thing and Peaches are the characters Simone creates. She sings each in the first person, allowing us to feel what they go through either directly or indirectly from the effect of slavery.  The song is a message, a cry, as well as an act of resistance. When combined, the vocals of Simone and notes of the piano give off a sad and uneasy feeling to listeners. I believe that to fully understand and digest this song, one has to listen on the expressive plane.

 Composer Aaron Copland explains this in more detail in his piece “How We Listen.” He states, “My own belief is that all music has an expressive power, some more and some less, but that all music has a certain meaning behind the notes, and that meaning behind the notes constitutes, after all what is the piece saying, what is the piece about.” This essentially means that to listen on the expressive plane, a listener has to recognize that each word and tone has a surface meaning, as well as deeper meanings. In terms of “Four Women,” when listening to it, one has to understand the depth of the effects slavery has had on African Americans in order to know why Simone sings with such sadness, passion and anger.

Simone starts off her song by describing Aunt Sarah, a black, dark-skinned woman with long arms, wooly hair and a strong back, “strong enough to take the pain inflicted again and again.” When Simone sings this part of her song, her pace is slow, slow enough that the listener can feel the pain behind each word. Her tone is filled with melancholy and sorrow. Altogether, she embodies a portrayal of what seems to be an African American slave women going through the hardships of slavery. Aunt Sarah’s long arms, black skin and wooly or nappy hair are all characteristics that were and still are seen as ugly for black women. In the case of skin color, black people have always been mocked and teased for their dark complexion ever since Europeans brought enslaved Africans over to the early colonies. That same mentality never went away, and has even carried on into the minds of black people themselves in the form of colorism. In a BBC article, Cherry Wilson talks about how there is colorism in Hollywood and a lack of dark-skinned women in pop culture. She quotes actress Lupita Nyong'o who would get teased for her dark skin color and would wish she woke up light-skinned: "Every day I experienced the same disappointment of being just as dark as I was the day before."

The next woman Simone sings about is Saffronia. She describes her as a yellow-skinned women with long hair. She is stuck between two worlds: her father is rich and white and he forced himself on her mother one night. Simone sings this verse with the same tone and pace as the previous one, keeping that same resonating feeling of sadness in her voice. Saffronia is a light-skinned women who feels stuck between two identities, black and white, as a result of her white father raping her black mother. White slave masters raping their female slaves was a common occurrence back in the times of slavery. Although that doesn’t happen any more, the feeling of being stuck between two worlds because of your ethnicity still persists in society. Former United States President Barack Obama found himself faced with the same disparity. In his memoir he writes, “I learned to slip back and forth between my black and white worlds, understanding that each possessed its own language and customs and structures of meaning.” His memoir was only published about two decades ago, and he is one of the most important and successful African American men in history. This just goes to show that anybody can be a victim of this effect.

Simone’s third verse tells the sad story of Sweet Thing. Simone describes her as a woman with fine hair, tan skin and lips the color of wine. In addition, Simone also hints that Sweet Thing is a sex worker/prostitute when Simone sings “Whose little Girl Am I? Anyone Who has Money To Buy.” Prostitution has always taken place in the U.S. since before slavery of African American women. However, the direct correlation between the two only occurred afterward. This is evident in the late rapper Tupac Shakur’s song “Brenda’s Got A Baby,” in which he talks about a true story of 12-year-old girl forced to sell herself because of her social conditions.

The last woman Simone sings about is Peaches. In this part of her song she does something different to her tone and pace. As well, the piano changes key into a deeper and faster sound. Listening to this last part is what really cements Simone’s power in the song. She describes Peaches as a brown-skinned woman whose parents were slaves. Because of that, she’s bitter, her manner is tough, and her life is rough. Peaches says that she’ll kill any mother that she sees. Each line describing Peaches that Simone sings is delivered with five times more passion and gruffness than before, discarding the tone of sadness and replacing it with anger. I believe Simone does all of this for two reasons. The first is to embody the character Peaches correctly in correlation to her history. The second is to leave the listener with a uneasy feeling. Listening to this part for the first time left me feeling shocked and overwhelmed.

Slavery of African Americans is something that has never ended, because it has left a hereditary scar within black people that may or may not ever heal. Nina Simone’s song “Four Women” gives examples of the effects of slavery that resonate within society and within people. Only a great artist like Nina Simone could capture such a complex topic, and we have to be great listeners in order to understand it, listening on the expressive plane and understanding the deeper meanings. Otherwise it’s rather pointless.