Spring time often inspires musicians and poets to write about renewal and rebirth and hope and all those happy, shake-off-the-cold themes. Songs like that are great, and I’ve featured a few of them here over the years.
But for all its mention of birds and sun and drifting breezes, “Feeling Good” is not one of those songs.
Written for an obscure musical in 1964 and made iconic by Nina Simone’s recording the following year, “Feeling Good” presents a different attitude towards renewal: it’s less about skipping through fields of flowers and more about asserting a freedom that is long overdue. Less about the optimism of the first day on a new job and more about storming out of an old one without looking back.
Artists from Michael Bublé to Muse have recorded versions of this song, but nobody that I’ve heard has made it more their own than Montreal’s Dominique Fils-Aimé.
What makes this a beautiful song:
1. In Nina Simon’s version, the horn section asserts the track’s determined attitude. But here, that energy is distilled down to a quiet acapella humming.
2. Fils-Aimé’s quiet crooning is almost more intense than those who belt the words out; it’s like the intensity of an angry parent who takes their volume down several notches until it’s barely a simmering whisper.
3. Her harmonies take a bit of the edge off the intensity while also giving the impression that the singer is not alone in her newfound freedom.
Recommended listening activity:
Catching a glimpse of yourself in a reflective surface and giving yourself a surreptitious fist-pump.