Nina Simone - Love Me Or Leave Me (Bethlehem Records 1959)

"Love Me or Leave Me" is a U.S. popular song from the 1920s. The music was written by Walter Donaldson and the lyrics by Gus Kahn. The song was introduced in the Broadway play, Whoopee!, which opened in December 1928. Ruth Etting's performance of the song was so popular that she was also given the song to sing in the play Simple Simon, which opened in February 1930.

Eunice Kathleen Waymon (February 21, 1933 – April 21, 2003), known professionally as Nina Simone, was an American singer, songwriter, musician, arranger, and civil rights activist. Her music spanned a broad range of musical styles including classical, jazz, blues, folk, R&B, gospel, and pop.

The sixth of eight children born to a poor family in Tryon, North Carolina, Simone initially aspired to be a concert pianist. With the help of a few supporters in her hometown, she enrolled in the Juilliard School of Music in New York City. She then applied for a scholarship to study at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, where she was denied admission despite a well-received audition, which she attributed to racism. In 2003, just days before her death, the Institute awarded her an honorary degree.

To make a living, Simone started playing piano at a nightclub in Atlantic City. She changed her name to "Nina Simone" to disguise herself from family members, having chosen to play "the devil's music" or so-called "cocktail piano". She was told in the nightclub that she would have to sing to her own accompaniment, which effectively launched her career as a jazz vocalist. She went on to record more than 40 albums between 1958 and 1974, making her debut with Little Girl Blue. She had a hit single in the United States in 1958 with "I Loves You, Porgy". Her musical style fused gospel and pop with classical music, in particular Johann Sebastian Bach, and accompanied expressive, jazz-like singing in her contralto voice.

Simone was diagnosed with bipolar disorder in the late 1980s. She was known for her temper and outbursts of aggression.

According to a biographer, Simone took medication from the mid-1960s onward, although this was supposedly only known to a small group of intimates. After her death the medication was confirmed as the anti-psychotic Trilafon, which Simone's friends and caretakers sometimes surreptitiously mixed into her food when she refused to follow her treatment plan. This fact was kept out of public view until 2004 when a biography, Break Down and Let It All Out, written by Sylvia Hampton and David Nathan (of her UK fan club), was published posthumously.

The documentary Nina Simone: La légende (The Legend) was made in the 1990s by French filmmakers and based on her autobiography I Put a Spell on You. It features live footage from different periods of her career, interviews with family, various interviews with Simone then living in the Netherlands, and while on a trip to her birthplace. A portion of footage from The Legend was taken from an earlier 26-minute biographical documentary by Peter Rodis, released in 1969 and entitled simply Nina. Her filmed 1976 performance at the Montreux Jazz Festival is available on video courtesy of Eagle Rock Entertainment and is screened annually in New York City at an event called "The Rise and Fall of Nina Simone: Montreux, 1976" which is curated by Tom Blunt.

Love me or leave me and let me be lonely
You won't believe me but I love you only
I'd rather be lonely than happy with somebody else

You might find the night time the right time for kissing
Night time is my time for just reminiscing
Regretting instead of forgetting with somebody else

There'll be no one unless that someone is you
I intended to be independently blue

I want your love, don't wanna borrow
Have it today to give back tomorrow

Your love is my love
There's no love for nobody else

Say, love me or leave me and let me be lonely
You won't believe me but I love you only
I'd rather be lonely than happy with somebody else

You might find the night time the right time for kissing
Night time is my time for just reminiscing
Regretting instead of forgetting with somebody else

There'll be no one unless that someone is you
I intended to be independently blue

Say, I want your love, don't wanna borrow
Have it today to give back tomorrow
Your love is my love
My love is your love
There's no love for nobody else

Видео Nina Simone - Love Me Or Leave Me (Bethlehem Records 1959) канала RoundMidnightTV