Who recorded it first

Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood

Not an Animals original — Nina Simone got there first, a Philips single in October 1964

The Animals’ 1965 single is so completely the version people carry around that the song reads as theirs — Rolling Stone even ranked their single at No. 322 on its 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. But the first recording is Nina Simone’s, released as a Philips single in October 1964 and opening her album Broadway-Blues-Ballads the following month. It was written for her by Bennie Benjamin, Horace Ott and Sol Marcus — Ott arranged and conducted her session himself. Simone’s slow, harp-and-choir reading was not a hit; the Animals recorded their own on 16 November 1964 and it was a transatlantic smash by the spring.

The record

Who recorded it first

Record
“Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood” b/w “A Monster”
First release
October 1964 · Philips Records · US 7-inch single
Album
Broadway-Blues-Ballads, Philips, November 1964 — opening track
Session
New York City · produced by Hal Mooney · arranged and conducted by Horace Ott

Released Issued as a US 7-inch single on Philips Records in October 1964, backed with “A Monster,” and in November 1964 as the opening track of the album Broadway-Blues-Ballads. Recorded in New York City, produced by Hal Mooney, arranged and conducted by Horace Ott — one of the song’s three writers.

Charted No chart placing on record. Wikipedia’s article gives chart positions for the Animals’ single and for Santa Esmeralda’s, and none at all for Simone’s — the original is the one version of the three that left no mark on the charts.

Hear Nina Simone’s 1964 original — the slow, harp-and-choir Philips recording, not the Animals’ arrangement. www.youtube.com · The auto-generated “Nina Simone - Topic” channel. The description carries the machine-written “Provided to YouTube by Universal Music Group” line, a ℗ 1964 UMG Recordings credit, and session credits naming Horace Ott as conductor and arranger and Hal Mooney as producer — and it runs 2:44 against the 2:45 MusicBrainz gives the 1964 master, so it is the original recording rather than a later re-cut. Then compare The Animals’ 1965 Mickie Most–produced single — the growling organ-driven hit most people picture when they hear the title. www.youtube.com · Auto-generated upload on the “The Animals - Topic” channel, carrying the line “Provided to YouTube by Universal Music Group” with ℗ 1987 ABKCO Music & Records, Inc. and a stated release date of 1965-02-01. Runtime 148s, matched against the MusicBrainz recording at 147s that sits on the 1965 single “Boom Boom / Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood” — 1s apart. Noted discrepancy: MusicBrainz carries a wide spread of Animals entries for this title (135s–162s, plus 223s live/BBC cuts) scattered across compilations; I anchored on the 1965 single release rather than the compilation cluster, and the copyright line is the 1987 ABKCO reissue of that 1964-recorded master, not a re-recording.

How we know

Wikipedia’s article on the song ↗ states that it was written by Bennie Benjamin, Horace Ott and Sol Marcus, that Ott credited Gloria Caldwell in his own place because BMI/ASCAP rules barred the collaboration, and that Simone’s Philips single appeared in October 1964 — ahead of the Animals’ 29 January 1965 release.

The MusicBrainz entry for the recording ↗ dates the master to 1964-10 on a US single and lists it again on Broadway Blues Ballads in November 1964, running 2:45.

Songs With Earlier Histories Than the Hit Version ↗ names Nina Simone’s 1964 recording as the first and lists no version before it — we found none either.

The Animals’ own claim on the song is chronological only in the sense of what came second: the album Simone opened with it ↗ was already out on Philips, produced by Hal Mooney, when their single reached the shops.

Songs With Earlier Histories Than the Hit Version: Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood
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Fact-check

Setting the record straight

The Animals’ single is the version in everyone’s head, and Rolling Stone ranked it among the 500 greatest songs ever recorded. It is still a cover.

The beliefCover, 1965

The Animals

Recorded 16 November 1964 and released 29 January 1965 in the UK (Columbia Graphophone) and February 1965 in the US (MGM), produced by Mickie Most. No. 3 UK, No. 15 US, No. 4 Canada — and No. 322 on Rolling Stone’s 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.

The originalFirst recording, 1964

Nina Simone

Released as a Philips single in October 1964 with “A Monster” on the B-side, and in November 1964 as the opening track of Broadway-Blues-Ballads. Produced by Hal Mooney, arranged and conducted by Horace Ott.

The writersComposition

Bennie Benjamin, Horace Ott and Sol Marcus

Written for Simone. Labels and rights databases credit Bennie Benjamin, Sol Marcus and Gloria Caldwell, because BMI/ASCAP rules of the day stopped Ott from being named alongside his partners and he used Caldwell’s name instead.

The third layerCover of the cover, 1977

Santa Esmeralda

Santa Esmeralda’s disco reading — a 16-minute side-long epic in summer 1977, picked up by Casablanca, with the December 1977 7-inch reaching No. 15 on the Hot 100 — is often assumed to reach back to the source. It does not: it reworks the Animals’ arrangement with disco, flamenco and Latin percussion.

First recorded by Nina Simone in 1964; released on Philips in October 1964.

Context

Why the cover swallowed the original

Simone’s record and the Animals’ record are barely the same object. Hers is slow, orchestral, built on harp and a choir that keeps drifting in behind her; the Animals’ is a two-and-a-half-minute rhythm-and-blues charge with Mickie Most driving it. Only one of those was going to be a 1965 pop single, and only one of them charted — No. 3 in the UK, No. 15 in the US, No. 4 in Canada — and then kept charting, in a sense, forever.

The deeper reason the original vanished is that every later version copied the copy. Santa Esmeralda’s 1977 disco reading, a side-long album epic whose 7-inch edit went on to reach No. 15 in the US, took the Animals’ arrangement and dressed it in flamenco and Latin percussion — not Simone’s. So the trail of covers leads back to January 1965 and stops there, and the October 1964 Philips single sits just out of sight behind it.

The chronology, step by step
  • Horace Ott writes the melody and chorus after a falling-out with Gloria Caldwell, then takes it to Bennie Benjamin and Sol Marcus. BMI/ASCAP rules push Ott to credit Caldwell in his place.
  • 1964: the song is one of five Benjamin–Marcus songs presented for Nina Simone’s Philips album Broadway-Blues-Ballads. Simone records it in New York, produced by Hal Mooney, arranged and conducted by Horace Ott.
  • October 1964: Philips issues it as a US single, backed with “A Monster.”
  • November 1964: Broadway-Blues-Ballads appears on Philips with the song as its opening track.
  • 16 November 1964: the Animals record their version, produced by Mickie Most.
  • 29 January 1965 (UK) / February 1965 (US): the Animals’ single is released on Columbia Graphophone and MGM. Cash Box reviews it on 6 February 1965.
  • December 1977: Santa Esmeralda’s disco single is released; it peaks at No. 15 on the Billboard Hot 100 in early 1978 — working from the Animals’ arrangement, not Simone’s.
Every later version covers the cover.

The original recording artist

Nina Simone

1933–2003 · Tryon, North Carolina · singer, pianist and composer

Born Eunice Kathleen Waymon in Tryon, North Carolina, Simone trained as a classical pianist and built a career that refused to sit in any one genre — classical, gospel, blues, jazz, folk and pop all at once. In 1964 she was newly signed to Philips, and Broadway-Blues-Ballads was her first studio album for the label, following the live Nina Simone in Concert earlier that year. Benjamin and Marcus brought five songs to the project; this was one of them. She took it slowly, over harp and orchestra with a choir surfacing behind her — a reading that several writers have since heard as carrying the subtext of the civil rights work that dominated her music at the time.

Popularly credited as the original

The Animals

Newcastle upon Tyne · British rhythm-and-blues band fronted by Eric Burdon

The Animals were five months past “The House of the Rising Sun” when the song reached them, and Eric Burdon later said of it that it was “never considered pop material.” Mickie Most produced; the band recorded it on 16 November 1964 and turned a slow orchestral ballad into a hard, driving blues-rock single of two and a half minutes. Their version reached No. 3 in the UK, No. 15 on the US pop singles chart and No. 4 in Canada. The record is genuinely great and its arrangement is the one nearly every later cover follows — the only error is chronological.

The songwriters

Bennie Benjamin, Horace Ott & Sol Marcus

Credited on the label as Bennie Benjamin, Sol Marcus and Gloria Caldwell

The melody and chorus came from arranger Horace Ott after a falling-out with his girlfriend and wife-to-be, Gloria Caldwell; he took it to his writing partners Bennie Benjamin and Sol Marcus to finish. Rules of the era barred a BMI writer — Ott — from formally collaborating with ASCAP members, so Ott put Caldwell’s name on the credit in place of his own, which is why record labels and rights databases still list her. Ott was not just a name on the paperwork: he is credited as arranger and conductor on Simone’s own 1964 recording.