The song Nina Simone used to attack John Lennon, and he liked it
In 1968, John Lennon really thought he’d come something special when he wrote and recorded ‘Revolution’, a song he considered to be The Beatles’ ultimate political call to arms. However, for Nina Simone, a musician whose whole career was underpinned by protest music and songs that fought for freedom and equality, it was a weak attempt. Never shy about taking a swipe, Simone wrote a cutting song in response.
Back in the late 1960s, protest music was in. With the Vietnam War raging on, the Cold War bubbling away and various movements for racial and gender equality underway around the world, it was a moment of heighten political and social unrest. Music was keeping up as acts like Bob Dylan, Joan Baez and countless other stars of the time turned their pen to these crucial topics in the hope that perhaps art could help.
In 1968, it seemed like The Beatles wanted to get involved. Written by Lennon, ‘Revolution’ was his rallying cry of sorts, but it was always a weak one. Even the rest of the band wasn’t too sure about it as the lyrics expressed solidarity with people fighting for social change but criticised their methods for trying to get it.
“But when you talk about destruction / Don’t you know that you can count me out,” Lennon sings, critiquing more militant protesters. It’s ironic, really, to name a song ‘Revolution’ and borrow from the legacy of protest music while criticising protesting tactics. But that thought seemed lost on Lennon, who pushed for his weak-willed track to be a single for the band.
That didn’t swing with Simone. To see Lennon, a rich and powerful white man who was afforded every privilege in the world, singing about a need for change but cutting down ways of getting it infuriated the singer. While establishing herself as one of the most respected artists around, Simone had also always been bold and forthcoming about her politics. Back in the 1960s, the mere act of being a black woman in the public eye was political, but Simone took it further, using her songs to rally for real change, highlight injustices and shine a glaring spotlight on the ongoing racism in society.
After breaking into the music world with covers of jazz standards, she’d used her platform to turn attention to real issues. On ‘Mississippi Goddam’, she deals with racially motivated murders and lynchings and the lack of justice for the families involved. ‘Old Jim Crow’ dealt with segregation, while ‘Baltimore’ looked at the poverty and defunding of predominantly black areas. Other tracks like ‘To Be Young, Gifted and Black’ and ‘Four Women’ are anthems for the black community that never shied away from getting into heavy topics of politics.
Simone wasn’t scared to lay it out and lay it out clearly, unlike Lennon who seemed to run scared from getting any deeper into his mission for peace. So after hearing The Beatles’ track, Simone wrote a response. In a song of the same name and using the same chord structure, she fought against Lennon’s lax approach and implored a more forthright focus on the battle for social betterment.
In response to Lennon’s lyrics, “You say you’ll change the constitution / Well, you know / We’d all love to change your head,” suggesting that what the world needs is less de facto change and more flouncy changes in thoughts, Simone went straight for the throat. “Yeah, your Constitution/Well, my friend, it’s gonna have to bend/I’m here to tell you about destruction/Of all the evil that will have to end,” Simone sings instead.
She even takes it further, referencing ‘Revolution 9’, another Beatles track that uses a protest title while saying nothing at all about the need for change. At the end of her own song, there is an onslaught of sounds just like the White Album track.
The critique seemed to go over Lennon’s head as he said of the song, “That was very good – it was sort of like ‘Revolution,’ but not quite. That I sort of enjoyed, somebody who reacted immediately to what I had said.”
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