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Mon 15 December 2025 2:00, UK
Contrary to popular belief, Black Sabbath didn’t always get their inspiration from the funerals of dictators. Their lead singer held particular affection for blues and classic rock, with his favourite songs mostly being anything by the Beatles.
Nina Simone, nor any woman for that matter, made it onto Ozzy Osbourne’s best-loved list, possibly as a symptom of his love of the darker elements. But The Animals’ rendition of Simone’s ‘Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood’ has “always been a favourite of mine.”
The unexpected choice shows the metal rocker’s versatility. He even covered the song in 1975, recording vocals that were only pressed onto about a hundred records. The Osbourne collector’s item has a stronger keyboard presence, a laid-back tempo, and a more present, classic rock guitar melody than its 1965 inspiration.
The Animals’ blues-rock rendition of Simone’s instant classic combines the boyband element with her already frisky Elvis-like chords. Adjusted for contemporary standards, this version is fast, morphing Simone’s plea for understanding into feisty defiance. The depth of Eric Burdon’s vocals brought fiery insubordination into electric blues-rock, challenging the original slow-hitting orchestra jazz in the first track of Nina Simone’s Broadway-Blues-Ballads album.
The Animals’ sound was evocative of the British invasion of the time, and this song captures the immense emotion held in many of their other work. The addition of an organ, played by Alan Price, broadens the song’s emotive range, attracting lauds across the Atlantic for its poignant hybrid of R&B and soul.
The song was a hit, and much more so after The Animals made it theirs. This was not without controversy, since it perpetuated a stereotype of white artists appropriating black genres and messages. Simone’s languorous lyrics were inspired by a desire to belong, but while her music was embraced, it was mainstream bands and white faces that brought it to its largest success. A line like “Sometimes I find myself alone regretting some little foolish thing” doesn’t seem quite fitting to the appetite for heartthrob boybands of the time, yet it gained greater traction when The Animals were the ones to deliver it.
The song’s infusions of struggle, however, meant that it resonated widely and was adopted into various versions by artists fighting battles of their own. Bruce Springsteen’s notable mental health struggles equally found solace nestled between the lines of Simone’s poetry, as did Cyndi Lauper’s issues overcoming substance and childhood trauma. Not that you need to be battling demons to sing the guts out of an already brilliant song, but if Ozzy Osbourne had something to prove, it’s that demons make a song great.
Burdon even covered his cover, taking different approaches to evolve The Animals’s hit into various arrangements over the decades since he left the band – including one attempt at reggaefying it, possibly over-doing the appropriation of black voices thing at this point.
Anyone who covered the song after The Animals had most likely heard the song because of their rocked-up arrangement. Their version remained the archetype, inspiring Osbourne’s favour and musical inspiration.
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