It Isn't Nice

Barbara Dane and the Chambers Brothers - It Isn't Nice.
iMovie sucks.

[@RobertTanguay]

I just listened this for two hours straight. Seriously. Brought me to tears.

[@roland4859]

Found this song today! My goodness......we don't mind !!!!

[@andreagreen2851]

I can’t stop. It rips my heart out. Soul jumping.

[@MrDarthVadersMom]

Me, too. AGAIN!

[@3DDoor]

The song was the opening tune on the album Barbara Dane and the Chambers Brothers in 1966. Credited as: Words by Malvina Reyolds and music by Barbara Dane and Malvina Reynolds. Barbare Dane explains her alterations to the music in the liner notes on the album: This album came together finally after a real heap of obstacles were overcome. We wanted to start it in late spring of 1964 when we were at the Ash Grove together, with the song "It Isn't Nice", but it seemed the record companies were afraid of it. Even now, with all the top-forty-folk-rock protest around, I think they still are because it offers a program of action instead of the aimless complaining so popular now. Malvina Reynolds' powerful words, written after she herself had participated in the San Francisco Palace Hotel Sit-Ins, has helped change the history of hundreds of young people there who kept on insisting on their rights even when the "old-heads" of the established civil rights groups told them "It Isn't Nice", and it has a special and personal meaning for them. I felt that the same sense of courage and commitment was what I wanted to pass on to the young Mississippians and other students working in the South where I was going to sing at Freedom Schools and mass meetings that summer. I wanted to give the music a forceful rhythmic feeling in hopes that this would help the meaning get across and the words be picked up and passed around quicker, so I made a new tune and added a solidrock beat. Lots of people were shocked, including Malvina herself, saying what's the idea of making rock-and-roll out of serious stuff, but I saw no conflict. It seemed to me the more serious the content, the more appealing the form should be. And before long, kids all over the Mississippi delta were harmonizing it and "working out" to it. .. and we got ''folk rock".

[@mortalclown3812]

Thank you.💫

[@lordspucke8938]

wow...what a total flash.thx 4 this

[@mmedefarge]

Songs of my youth; it brings back the hope of the time. I'd love to see a resurgence of that activism though the corporate- controlled media wouldn't broadcast it as they did then, every night on the 7 PM news.

[@mortalclown3812]

True words. I'm about to turn 62. Still got tie-dye in my soul.

[@MrDarthVadersMom]

Coming back for the bajillionth time. Love this song and you, Barbara Dane.

[@68dharmabum]

This is a great version, of a "peoples classic', Do people still remeber Medgar Evers? I do, and I hope you never forget either. I wonder if people still sing this song at rallies? I've bee told it isn't nice to sing at rallies anymore.

[@Mookummockup]

Some animal rights activists sang this after being packed into a bus on the way to jail after rescuing chickens from a factory farm! It was really inspiring

[@mortalclown3812]

It needs to be heard... The good fight is far from over. Loved this music. Peace out, children.☮️✌️

[@MrRazorblade999]

Great voice and I live the sound of the guitar.

[@nikkizthe1]

awesome harmony by some fabulous singers

[@mortalclown3812]

Damn. This is magnificent. Jacob, thank you. I keep coming back to hear it.

[@Madronaxyz]

Malvina Reynolds wrote this and sung it originally. She was an amazing person--she had to be to earn a PhD in the early 20th century. One of my heroes! You can find several versions right here on KZbin. I can't seem to post a link.

[@mattwurth066]

Madronaxyz , She was extraordinary and I just discovered her interesting legacy in 2016...

[@snafutarfu1440]

"The nice way always fails" How true.

[@beachdog67]

Good lord, I haven't heard this in damned near 50 years! Thanks for posting. Wasn't that a time?

[@walteryost9577]

We need songs like just as much today as we did then

[@lauraschlieselhuber8487]

Greetings from France. In the middle of the yellow jackets movement.

[@geezeruser]

beautiful voices, beautiful message

[@C6H12B26]

Great version, indeed ! The Judy Collins version is excellent, too ... Great thanks !

[@MrRockzilla86]

Wow..How amazingly beautiful!

[@ruthzalph1779]

FREEDOM ISN'T FREE. YOU PAY A BIG PRICE FOR FREEDOM.

[@nayaarbiter8912]

June 12th is the anniversary of Medgar Evers murder... Might we all remember his demonstration, inclusive of showing up at the trial for Emmett Till every day. Might we honor Myrlie Evers-Williams and how she continued her march towards freedom for so many

[@susankennedy5739]

Thank you, Nya -- may we all remember.

[@3DDoor]

What a beautiful recording of this song. Lovely, clear and bright, free from all vanity. Pure conviction and talent. Let me quote Bob Dylan speaking about Barbara Dane in the magazine Broadside in 1964: "I mean people like Tom Paxton, Barbara Dane, an Johnny Herald... they are the heroes if such a word has t be used here they are the ones that lose materialistically ah yes but in their own minds they dont an that is much more important it means much more we need more kind a people like that people that cant go against their conscience no matter what they might gain an I've come to think that that might be the most important thing in the whole wide world... not going against your conscience nor your own natural senses for I think that that is all the truth there is... an no more"

[@PeterBurr47]

Another favorite version of this is on Judy Collins' "Fifth Album"....

[@Yourismouter]

this changes everything brought me here!

[@kimmccargo5311]

Great song.

[@GoingBallistickFilms]

This song is so fuckin good

[@bobby.rumble]

amazing song !

[@DuneDingDong]

Wahou! La guitare est géniale! la chanson aussi ^^'

[@Juldanyt]

Check out the original by the writer Malvina Reynolds as well.

[@MrMarkmark57]

I LOVE IT !!

[@davidruizdelvizo2973]

Yeah. Mr. Charlie didn't see us. That's why everything is so messed up.

[@Sackofbooks]

Apparently it isn't nice to kneel now...

[@mortalclown3812]

🙋☮️👊

[@ndf3]

I know!!!! They expect docility

[@michaelsummerleigh4779]

a record that always leaves me speechless with Hope that maybe homo sapiens will somehow stop being a species of destructive assholes

[@BayAreaFlamenco]

check out Barbara Dane's website barbaradane net

[@blaggard132]

I wonder if the Chambers Brothers are playing as well as singing on this?

[@3DDoor]

Yes, you hear the Chambers Brothers both playing and singing background vocals here. Barbara Dane in the liner notes: " The Chambers Brothers could make anybody sing good. One day soon we'll make a blues album together, with plenty of time to work it all out just right, and then you'll hear a lot more of Lester's fine exciting harp, Willie's juicy guitar, and all the rest. I'd love to see them make some Folkways albums by themselves, too, so you could really hear them without echo and amps turned high, just singing their souls."

[@mmedefarge]

I'd almost forgotten how good they were and some really fine a cappella harmonies they sang too.

[@josephhernandez9531]

✊

[@mortalclown3812]

When righteousness had a prayer... Be proud of being woke. Paz y luz.

[@chilblain1]

Medgar Evers (spills drink).

[@grannyjudi1]

Megar just got freedom medal for presiders biden......

[@martinholsinger1932]

Great version of a classic, but the moving image is not nice in a not nice way! 🙂

[@terijian9569]

lots of talent in this song for sure but as a cover i kinda hate it tbh