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Why Nina Simone thought The Beatles were “very lucky”

Sat 30 September 2023 18:30, UK

Nina Simone was one of the rare artists who didn’t need to be impressed by The Beatles. The iconic soul singer had started her career in the same way that the Fab Four did: playing covers in dive bars for little to no money. The only difference was that Simone was a young black woman trying to make her name in a segregated country while The Beatles were riding the popularity of rock and roll that was first spearheaded by black Americans.

Simone never seemed bitter or even particularly concerned with The Beatles. By the time they were both well-known pop culture figures, Simone had been performing and writing since at least the mid-1950s. Nevertheless, Simone saw the culture change around pop music and how it benefited a British act like The Beatles.

“The Beatles are lucky, very lucky,” Simone told Down Beat Magazine in 1968. “But what has happened to them has nothing to do with them, in a sense. They came along at the right time. Attention was focused on them. They’ve had the chance to grow in almost any direction they wanted. Very lucky.”

“They are not exceptionally talented. Uh uh. They may be. But they are just starting to create,” Simone claimed. “They have just discovered that they have talent, friend. Fate was good enough to give them time to think about their talent, to develop it as they please, without fighting everybody around them.”

Simone didn’t exactly have the same luxury. While The Beatles were performing ‘I Want To Hold Your Hand’ on The Ed Sullivan Show, Simone was directly battling racial inequality with songs like ‘Mississippi Goddam’. She became one of the most powerful and respected voices of the American Civil Rights movement, but it undoubtedly hindered he chances at major pop success.

So what would Simone have done had she gotten the same opportunities as The Beatles? “Exactly what the Beatles have done,” she said. “Except I would have done it before now. There are all kinds of things that can be done. You can change rhythms, you can change chords, you can change whole concepts. But it will only work, on a record or in a performance, if you can make the people buy it.”

“If there were no restrictions, the first thing I would have done—six years ago—don’t print this, please…That’s what I would have liked to have done,” Simone concluded. “Would still like to do.” It’s uncertain what she left in that space, but Simone was never shy about wanting an equal platform as her peers.

Check out ‘Mississippi Goddamn’ down below.