As a young student, it was part of our A Capella group's repertoire. The words, the music, the experience became a set of unforgettable memories. The words became a soundtrack to life, hooking onto the emotions that came and went all throughout the many years that followed.
The words became a creed of sorts, an anthem, an ideal. Now, looking back, it suddenly occurs to me that perhaps moments like these, songs like this one, contributed to the ideas behind this very project, a quest to Fall in Love with our natural selves, our natural curls, as one way to "feel like a natural woman"
Thank you Aretha, for lifting us higher, and for making my world a little more soulful, a little more….beautiful, all in the space of a single song.
The 2015 performance at the Kennedy Center Honors:
The original 1967 recording: