Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood

"Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood"
Song

"Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood" is a song written by Bennie Benjamin, Gloria Caldwell and Sol Marcus for the singer/pianist Nina Simone, who first recorded it in 1964. "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood" has been recorded or performed by many artists, and is widely known by the 1965 blues rock hit recording from The Animals. A 1977 disco/Latin rendition by Santa Esmeralda was also a hit.

Nina Simone original

The beginnings of "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood" came with composer and arranger Horace Ott, who came up with the melody and chorus lyric line after a temporary falling out with his girlfriend (and wife-to-be), Gloria Caldwell. He then brought it to writing partners Bennie Benjamin and Sol Marcus to complete. However, when it came time for songwriting credits, rules of the time prevented BMI writers (Ott) from officially collaborating with ASCAP members (the other two), so Ott instead listed Caldwell's name on the credits.

"Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood" was one of five songs involving the writing of Benjamin and Marcus, presented for Nina Simone's 1964 album Broadway-Blues-Ballads. There, it is taken at a very slow tempo and arranged around harp and other orchestral elements; a backing choir appears at several points. Simone sings it in her usual hard-to-categorize style. Horace Ott's involvement did not end with his initial songwriting; he was the arranger and orchestral conductor for the entire album. Backed with "A Monster", "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood" was released as a single in 1964, but failed to chart.

To some writers, this "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood" carried the subtext of the American Civil Rights Movement that concerned much of Simone's work of the time; while to others, this was more personal, and was the song, and phrase, that best exemplified Simone's career and life.

Decades later, a commercial for Christian Dior's perfume J'Adore, starring Charlize Theron, featured Simone's version of the song. So too did the final scene of the 2009 Polish drama film Rewers.

The Animals version

"Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood"
Song
B-side	"Club A Go-Go "

The Animals' lead singer Eric Burdon would later say of the song, "It was never considered pop material, but it somehow got passed on to us and we fell in love with it immediately." The Animals gave it one of their trademark R&B-unto-rock workups, speeding up the tempo and starting off with a memorable electric guitar-and-organ doubled riff from Hilton Valentine and Alan Price, that was picked out and expanded from an element that originally appeared in the Simone recording's outro. This riff immediately led into Burdon's trademark deep, impassioned vocal line:

Baby, do you understand me now?

If sometimes, you see that I'm mad ...

Don't you know no one alive can always be an angel,

When everything goes wrong, you see some bad.

(group harmony) But I'm just a soul whose intentions are good:

(just Burdon) Oh Lord! Please don't let me be misunderstood ...

The group gained a trans-Atlantic hit in early 1965 from their rendition, rising to number 3 on the UK Singles Chart, number 15 on the U.S. pop singles chart, and number 4 in Canada.

This single was ranked by Rolling Stone at #315 on their list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.

In Animals concerts at the time, the group maintained the recorded arrangement, but Burdon sometimes slowed the vocal line down to an almost spoken part, recapturing a bit of the Simone flavor.

Santa Esmeralda version

A disco version of the song by Santa Esmeralda featuring Leroy Gomez, which took The Animals' arrangement and added some disco, flamenco, salsa, and other Latin rhythm and ornamentation elements to it, also became a hit in the 1970s. First released in summer 1977 as a 16-minute epic that took up an entire side of their Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood album, it was picked up for more worldwide distribution by the label of the time, Casablanca Records. A 12-inch club remix was extremely popular, hitting number one on the U.S. Billboard Club Play Singles chart and in some European countries as well. The single peaked at number four on the Hot Dance/Disco-Club Play chart . Released as a pop single late in the year, it did well as well, reaching number 15 on the Billboard Hot 100 by early 1978.

Santa Esmeralda's rendition then became widely popular with a later generation after its inclusion in the 2003 film Kill Bill Vol. 1, where its instrumental passage plays over the Bride-O-Ren Ishii duel, and the accompanying Kill Bill Vol. 1 Original Soundtrack, where it is incorporated in a full vocal form that runs over 10 minutes. A rendition of the Santa "Don't Let" appears in the 2008 Korean "western" film The Good, the Bad, the Weird, played in the chasing sequence in Manchurian desert.

The Santa "Don't Let" was also used as the opening theme to the pilot for the U.S. game show Bullseye and in the trailer for the 2005 film Kiss Kiss Bang Bang.

Other versions

A version by Joe Cocker (from his first Album 1969) played over the ending credits of the 2004 film Layer Cake. Other artists who have covered the song include The Moody Blues, Elvis Costello, Cyndi Lauper, Place of Skulls, Uthanda, Julie Driscoll with Brian Auger, Mike Batt, Trevor Rabin, Dwight Adams, No Mercy, Alabina (retitled "Lolole"), John Legend, Lou Rawls, Julian Thome, Gary Moore, Robben Ford, OffBeat, New Buffalo, The Killers, the Doug Anthony All Stars and Lyambiko.

Version remixed by electronic music Granite Sugarman and Nicola Fasano(76, Ocean Drive)

In the 1980s concerts, Dire Straits played the central theme of "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood" during an instrumental introduction to their "Tunnel of Love", as Mark Knopfler talked about The Animals' hometown of Newcastle upon Tyne, in whose Spanish City that song is set.

Eric Burdon performed it since the early 1980s in the reggae style. In a different version, it was also performed during the 1983 reunion of The Animals. Burdon made also re-recordings of the song in earlier and later years, especially an 8:25 minute version on his 1974 Album "Sun Secrets".

Rapper Common's song "Misunderstood" sampled Nina Simone's original version on his 2007 album Finding Forever. The song was also sampled for Lil Wayne's 2008 album, Tha Carter III, in the song "DontGetIt".

The song has also been played (in the style of The Animals) by Cutting Crew on their 2008 tour as a tribute to lead singer Nick Van Eede's first manager, Chas Chandler of The Animals. It was performed by Leona Lewis on the 2008 MTV Video Music Awards during a Lil Wayne performance.

Yusuf Islam, formerly known as Cat Stevens, features this song with some lyrics changed on his album titled An Other Cup, released in November 2006. As a young musician, he was pleased to be compared to its first performer, Nina Simone, by an interviewer from Melody Maker magazine. After converting to Islam, and changing his name to Yusuf Islam, and then, Yusuf, there have been several incidents which have involved the former pop star, where he has felt he was misunderstood. They include his recitation from the Qu'ran, in which the press has alleged that he supported the fatwa against Salman Rushdie, (which Yusuf Islam maintains was either a misquote or taken out of context), and deportation from Israel and soon after, the United States for allegedly providing funds to terrorist organizations. The result of the last incident sparked the composition of a new song, "Boots and Sand", as well as his recording of "Don't Let Me Be Understood".

External links

• Eric Burdon Version
• The Animals' version on Last.fm