Remarks:
In 1958, this song went to #82 on the British pop charts. In 1987 it was used in a Chanel No. 5 perfume ad (the first video shown above) and went to #5. It made the top ten in France, Switzerland, Austria and #1 in the Netherlands. It never charted in her native US.
It is her cover of an old Eddie Cantor song written in 1928, which he has performed in blackface (shown below from 1930) and in his own face. She changed up some of the words to fit her gender and times.
See also:
Lyrics:
My baby don’t care for shows
My baby don’t care for clothes
My baby just cares for me
My baby don’t care for cars and races
My baby don’t care for high-tone places
Liz Taylor is not his style
And even Lana Turner’s smile
Is somethin’ he can’t see
My baby don’t care who knows
My baby just cares for me
Baby, my baby don’t care for shows
And he don’t even care for clothes
He cares for me
My baby don’t care
For cars and races
My baby don’t care for
He don’t care for high-tone places
Liz Taylor is not his style
And even Liberace’s smile
Is something he can’t see
Is something he can’t see
I wonder what’s wrong with baby
My baby just cares for
My baby just cares for
My baby just cares for me
I used to love that Chanel #5 commercial and loved the music but had no knowledge of Nina Simone. Today i love Nina Simone’s music as i am older and can appreciate her.
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UGGH! That Eddie Cantor in blackface is disgusting.
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I found Nina Simone when I was looking for a Janis Joplin song, Little Girl Blue, and when I heard Nina sing that song, OMG I just fell in love, so much different and for me, so much more moving. Here’s the link (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wT_Z-D31vbU).
Another Nina Simone I love is “Mississippi G*damn. “
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@ Mary Burrell I thought you might find this brief description of blackface useful.
@Abagond Sorry. I know this is off topic, but I couldn’t resist. I kept it short.
Blackface minstrelsy first became nationally popular in the late 1820s when white male performers portrayed African-American characters using burnt cork to blacken their skin. Wearing tattered clothes, the performances mocked black behavior, playing racial stereotypes for laughs. Although Jim Crow was probably born in the folklore of the enslaved in the Georgia Sea Islands, one of the most famous minstrel performers, a white man named Thomas “Daddy” Rice brought the character to the stage for the first time. Rice said that on a trip through the South he met a runaway slave, who performed a signature song and dance called jump Jim Crow. Rice’s performances, with skin blackened and drawn on distended blood red lips surrounded by white paint, were said to be just Rice’s attempt to depict the realities of black life.
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What about this one?
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8_ZD9cFk7DM)
Nina Simone with “Ain’t Got No…I’ve Got Life”
Peaked no. 2 in the UK (1968), no. 9 in the Netherlands (1998) and no. 98 in the USA (1969).
Great live version here: (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GUcXI2BIUOQ)
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And “Ain’t Got No, I Got Life” also was no. 1 in The Netherlands in 1969 for five weeks in a row: “Ain’t Got No, I Got Life”
See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Dutch_Top_40_number-one_singles_of_1969
I never knew that.
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@Ben Munday: Yes, I knew that.
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[…] + EN: Nina Simone: My Baby Just Cares for Me | Abagond […]
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And more on Nina Simone, tihis time concerning an upcoming biopic: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/zoe-saldana-nina-simone-controversy_us_56d83aa2e4b0ffe6f8e83bb1?ir=Black+Voices§ion=us_black-voices&utm_hp_ref=black-voices&
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