Feelin' Good

“It’s a new dawn. It’s a new day. It’s a new life for us. And we’re feeling good.”

 

A song is often a good way—in fact, often the best way— to marry meaning and emotion and sing out what you feel. And so this song written by Anthony Newley and Leslie Bricusse (who also wrote another anthem of hope “Gonna Build Me a Mountain”) and sung so soulfully by Nina Simone, captures a tiny bit of my feeling after watching that most moving and most needed and most timely of Inauguration Ceremonies. So open up Youtube and sing along! 

 

And I mean everyone. As expressed in a blogpost a while back, those who didn’t vote for Biden and Harris won as much as those who did. They won a chance to curtail the pandemic that devastates us all, pay attention to the climate change that threatens us all, to consider draining the hate from their heart that hurts them as much as they people they choose to hate, to consider that life is a helluva lot more fun when you choose to simply enjoy people without imprisoning them in your categories and our chances for survival are a helluva lot better when we join forces. After all, neither the pandemic nor the fires nor the storms nor the god or gods you think are on your side only gives a rat’s ass for your ideologies and dogma and group names. So give up your loyalty to your worst self egged on by that lunatic now gone—what was his name again?— and join in the song. Trust me, you will be so much happier and so will your children and so will we all. Okay?

 

Now sing along with Nina!  https://youtu.be/zADj0k0waFY

 

Birds flying high, you know how I feel
Sun in the sky, you know how I feel
Breeze driftin' on by, you know how I feel

It's a new dawn, It's a new day, It's a new life for me
And I'm feeling good

Fish in the sea, you know how I feel
River running free, you know how I feel
Blossom on a tree, you know how I feel

It's a new dawn, It's a new day, It's a new life for me
And I'm feeling good

 

Dragonfly out in the sun, you know what I mean, don't you know
Butterflies all havin' fun, you know what I mean
Sleep in peace when day is done, that's what I mean
And this old world is a new world, and a bold world, for me. (us!)