Lyrics to
My Father

This version of My Father was released by Nina Simone in 1978.

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My father always promised me
That we would live in France
We’d go boating on the Seine
And I would learn to dance

We lived in Ohio then
He worked in the mines
On his dreams like boats
We knew we would sail in time

All my sisters soon were gone
To Denver and Cheyenne
Marrying their grownup dreams
The lilacs and the man

I stayed behind the youngest still
Only danced alone
The colors of my father’s dreams
Faded without a sound

And I live in Paris now
My children dance and dream
Hearing the ways of a miner’s life
In words they’ve never seen

I sail my memories of home
Like boats across the Seine
And watch the Paris sun
As it sets in my father’s eyes again

My father always promised us
That we would live in France
We’d go boating on the Seine
And I would learn to dance

I sail my memories of home
Like boats across the Seine
And watch the Paris sun
As it sets in my father’s eyes again

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Want more lyrics and songs by Nina Simone?

Nina Simone has released many songs over the years besides My Father. Nina Simone released songs from 1958 to 1987 spanning across albums like Little Girl Blue, At Town Hall, The Amazing Nina Simone, At Newport, Forbidden Fruit, At The Village Gate, Nina Simone Sings Ellington, At Carnegie Hall, Broadway Blues Ballads, Folksy Nina, Nina Simone In Concert, Pastel Blues, I Put A Spell On You, Nina Simone With Strings, Wild Is The Wind, Let It All Out, Nina Simone Sings The Blues, High Priestess Of Soul, Silk And Soul, Nuff Said!, Nina Simone And Piano!, To Love Somebody, Black Gold, Here Comes The Sun, Emergency Ward, It Is Finished, Baltimore, Fodder On My Wings, Nina's Back, Let It Be Me, and Live At Ronnie Scott's. Decade Lyrics has over lyrics & songs by Nina Simone.

If you're a fan of 1970s songs looking for more songs from 1978 or the 1970s overall, you've come to the right place!

About Lyrics and My Father by Nina Simone

The lyrics for My Father are defined as the words making up the song released by Nina Simone in 1978. It also includes the verses and words used by the background chorus in the song. Like many hit songs, the lyrics to My Father have different meanings to different people. While it is clear in some of the lyrics what the artist is trying to really say, only Nina Simone and those working with them know all of the meanings behind all of the lyrics to their songs.

Some folks are interested in word and phrase etymology. It is easy to understand the lyrics to My Father by Nina Simone if you think through it. The word "lyric" itself derives from the Latin word lyricus, with the actual English word lyrics applied to the definition "words set to music" listed in Stainer and Barrett's 1876 Dictionary of Musical Terms. Continuing the chain, the Latin word lyricus derives from the Greek word λυρικός or lyrikós. This somewhat means "poetry accompanied by the lyre" or "words set to music." You can easily see that by looking at the background of the word lyric, that the "lyrics to My Father" means the words set to the music of My Father, or poetry accompanied by the lyre played by Nina Simone. The singular form "lyric" is still used to mean the complete words to a song. However, the singular form lyric is also commonly used to refer to a specific line (or phrase) within a song's lyrics. Hence, by this analysis of word structure, you could say that the lyric to My Father and the lyrics to My Father are both one and the same thing. None of this talk about the word Lyrics is really relevant to fans of Nina Simone who came here looking just for the lyrics to My Father, but we feel it is still fun to learn what's behind commonly used words and lyrics in songs.

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