Feeling Good

Nina Simone recorded "Feeling Good" in New York in January 1965, with Hal Mooney arranging and producing the session. The track appeared on her album I Put a Spell on You that same year, though it was not released as a single at the time. The song itself had been written by English composers Anthony Newley and Leslie Bricusse for the musical The Roar of the Greasepaint – The Smell of the Crowd, with the words usually attributed to Bricusse and the music to Newley. Cy Grant had first performed it in public on 3 August 1964, when the show opened at the Theatre Royal in Nottingham.

Simone's recording found a second life decades later. In 1994 it was used in a British television commercial for Volkswagen, and the renewed popularity carried it to No. 40 on the UK Singles Chart that July. A remix by Joe Claussell followed in 2002 for the first volume of the Verve Remixed series.

The recording also became a frequent source for samples. Huff & Herb used it in 1997, Wax Tailor drew on it for "How I Feel" in 2005, and Jay-Z and Kanye West sampled it on "New Day" from Watch the Throne in 2011. An official music video was finally released on YouTube in June 2021, 56 years after the recording.