While I have to admit the new Hulu drama Black Cake isn’t my thing (I’m not a fan of dramas that flip back and forth in time, especially when they are as confusing as this), it does feature superb performances by the main leads, stunning cinematography and stellar songs on its soundtrack.
Especially the songs that play at the end of each episode of the first three episodes released so far.
That includes the track at the end of Episode 1, which begins playing as Covey is on the boat and leaving permanently, and as she arrives in her new flat share and meets Elly.
That song is Nina Simone’s utterly gorgeous but heart-breaking ‘Lilac Wine‘, the song about losing a lover and drowning her sorrows with wine made from the flowers of a lilac tree.
Is Nina Simone’s ‘Lilac Wine‘ an original release?
Nina Simone’s voice on ‘Lilac Wine‘ is somber and full of longing as she sings about feeling hazy and unsteady due to drowning her sorrows in wine.
A voice that seems to fit that song as beautifully as a bespoke dress sits on a woman’s body, it must have been written for her.
When I think more than I want to think
Do things I never should do
I drink much more than I ought to drink
Because It brings me back to you
But no, as not only was ‘Lilac Wine’ written by songwriter James Shelton back in 1950, it was first recorded by Eartha Kitt 13 years before it was released by Nina Simone.
In the interim years, it was then recorded by Helen Merrill, Judy Henske and several others before Simone released the song in 1966 on her sixth studio album Wild is the Wind.
‘Lilac Wine‘ has since been recorded by a slew of more modern artists, including Miley Cyrus and Jeff Buckley, but it was Elkie Brooks’ 1978 version of the song that made it famous and best-selling.
Simone’s ‘Lilac Wine‘, though, is an even more mournful and almost haunting version of the song only the woman with that deep and melancholic voice could produce.
Listen to Nina Simone’s ‘Lilac Wine‘ as heard on the first episode of Black Cake below, and then tell me later that didn’t stay with you.
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