Knowing me, knowing you

My cousin J.'s son turned thirteen today. He's a nice kid and a very good son to his mother, and I hope he loves his new bike, that we all chipped in to get him, as much as is we loved getting it for him. They live in Germany, where a bike, especially at his age and where he lives, is everything to him right now.

I remember very clearly when J. was thirteen. She and her dad came to visit us for about four weeks, while my aunt took her own vacation (side note: how awesome and sensible was that? I think that was the last time J. ever went anywhere with her parents; afterwards, it was all chaperoned and then non chaperoned backpacking trips or visiting family on her own. Incidentally, the last trip my aunt and uncle ever took together had been 4 years before that...to celebrate the one year birthday of yours truly.)

Anyway, it was always nice to have J. visit because, with only 6 months difference between my sister and her, they got along like a house on fire but, more importantly, I was privvy to their activities without having to suffer my sister's sometimes, uh, evil mental manipulations; she was always on her best behavior when J. was around. Of course, as befitted two teenage girls, a lot of their conversations were around music and that particular summer, just like the ones before and after, there was much trading of music brought over by J. with music bought by my sister.

As it happened, that summer the main attraction for both my sister and J. was the soundtrack--and, of course, dance moves--to a little disco movie called Saturday Night Fever. So, while they jived and pointed and shuffled their way through the songs over and over...and over and over and over...I got to savor J.'s imported stash pretty much all by myself and came across this song which I thought was just tops

(I used to wonder if I really was an angsty teenager in disguise at times, at that young age, or if I was imagining it. Looking at J. and some of the songs he likes and how he sings them? Yeah, I probably was.

Of course, you could just say we're born drama queens.)

Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood (cover) - Santa Esmeralda
I should mention that, thanks to my sister's oversharing of anything she read, I knew a bit about Esmeralda from Victor Hugo's Hunchback of Notre Dame and so, for the longest time, I somehow confusedly thought the song was about her!



It wasn't until several years later, back home, that I heard what I then thought was the original of the song. Suddenly, I was Santa who? and pretty much became Eric Burdon's bitch, if I'd thought of things in those terms back then.

Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood (cover) - The Animals



But...you noticed, right? The Animals version was actually a cover. Because despite what you may have thought--and what the initial introduction by Nina herself in the video below may mistakenly lead you to believe--this song was originally written for and recorded by Nina Simone about a year or so before The Animals got a hold of it but, unlike their version, it failed to chart.

Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood - Nina Simone