Simone was born Eunice Kathleen Waymon on 21st February 1933 in Tryon, North Carolina, USA, one of eight children. Like a number of other black singers in the U.S., she was inspired as a child by Marian Anderson, and began singing at her local church, also showing great talent as a pianist. Her public debut, a piano recital, was made at the age of ten. Her parents, who had taken seats in the front row, were forced to move to the back of the hall to make way for white audience members. This incident contributed to her later involvement in the civil rights movement.
Simone's mother, Mary Kate Waymon (who lived into her late nineties) was a strict Methodist minister; her father, John Divine Waymon, was a handyman and sometime barber who suffered bouts of ill-health. Mrs Waymon worked as a maid, and her employer, hearing of Nina's talent, provided funds for piano lessons for the little girl. Subsequently, a local fund was set up to assist in Eunice's continued education.
At seventeen, Simone moved to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where she taught piano and accompanied singers. She was able to begin studying piano at New York City's prestigious Juilliard School of Music but lack of funds meant that she was unable to fulfill her dream of becoming America's first Black classical pianist. She later had an interview to study piano at the Curtis Institute, but was rejected. Simone believed this rejection, which fueled her hatred of racism, was because she was black.
Simone turned to blues and jazz after getting her start at the Midtown Bar & Grill on Pacific Avenue in Atlantic City, taking the name Nina Simone in 1954; "Nina" was her boyfriend's nickname for her, and "Simone" was after the French actress Simone Signoret. She first came to public notice in 1959 with her wrenching rendition of George Gershwin's "I Loves You Porgy" (from Porgy and Bess), her only Top-Forty hit in the United States. This was soon followed by the single "My Baby Just Cares for Me" (this was also a hit in the 1980s in the United Kingdom when used for television advertisements for Chanel No 5 perfume).
Throughout the 1960s, Simone was involved in the civil rights movement and recorded a number of political songs, including "To Be Young, Gifted and Black" (later covered by Aretha Franklin and Donny Hathaway), "Backlash Blues", "Mississippi Goddam" (a response to the murder of Medgar Evers and the bombing of a church in Birmingham, Alabama killing four black children), "I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel to Be Free", and Kurt Weill's "Pirate Jenny", from The Threepenny Opera, re-cast in a southern town.
In 1961, Simone recorded a version of the traditional song "House of the Rising Sun", which was then covered by folk-blues artist, Dave Van Ronk, and later recorded by Bob Dylan, where it was picked up by The Animals and became their signature hit. Other songs she is famous for include "I Put a Spell on You" (originally by Screamin' Jay Hawkins), The Beatles' "Here Comes the Sun", "Four Women", Bob Dylan's "I Shall Be Released", the Bee Gees' "To Love Somebody", and "Ain't Got No (I Got Life)". The latter, from the musical Hair, was her debut in the UK charts, reaching number two in 1968, and a remixed version of the recording by Groovefinder was a UK Top Thirty hit in 2006.
Broadway musicals also supplied several hits for Simone: "My Baby Just Cares for Me", "Love Me or Leave Me", "Feeling Good", and "Ne Me Quitte Pas". Also "You Can Have Him" on the LP Live at Town Hall recorded when she was twenty-six years old; at the end of this operatic performance, which displays her great skill as an actress as well as a musician, she whoops with joy. This single recording encapsulates her extraordinary power, wit, flexibility, sensuality and occasional menace.
In 1987 Nina experienced a resurgence in popularity when "My Baby Just Cares for Me", a track from her first Bethlehem Records album (1958) became a huge hit in the UK and elsewhere. Nina's versatility as an artist was evident in all her music, which often had a folk-music simplicity.
In a single concert, she moved easily from gospel-inspired tunes to blues and jazz and, in numbers like "For All We Know", to numbers infused with European classical stylings, and counterpoint fugues.
Throughout most of her career she was accompanied by percussionist Leopoldo Flemming and guitarist and musical director Al Shackman.
In 1971, Simone left the United States following disagreements with her agents, record labels, and the tax authorities, citing racism as the reason. She returned in 1978 and was arrested for tax evasion (she had withheld several years of income tax as a protest against the Vietnam War). She lived in various countries in the Caribbean, Africa, and Europe, continuing to perform into her 60s. In the 1980s, she performed regularly at Ronnie Scott's jazz club in London. In 1995, Simone reportedly shot and wounded her neighbour's son with an air pistol after his laughing disturbed her concentration.
She had a reputation in the music industry for being volatile and sometimes difficult to deal with, a characterization with which Simone strenuously took issue.
Though her onstage style could be somewhat haughty and aloof, in later years, Simone particularly seemed to enjoy engaging her adoring audiences by recounting sometimes humorous anecdotes related to her career and music and soliciting requests. Simone's regal bearing and commanding stage presence earned her the title the "High Priestess of Soul."
In 1993, she settled near Aix-en-Provence in the south of France. She had been ill with cancer for several years before she died on 21st April 2003 in her sleep at her home in Carry-le-Rouet.
Simone was the recipient of a Grammy Hall of Fame Award in 2000 for her song "I Loves You Porgy." She has also received fifteen Grammy Award nominations. On Human Kindness Day 1974 in Washington, D.C., more than 10,000 people paid tribute to Simone. Simone received two honorary degrees in music and humanities, from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and Malcolm X College. She preferred to be called "Dr. Nina Simone" after these honors were bestowed upon her. Only two days before her death, Simone was awarded an honorary degree by the Curtis Institute, the music school that had refused to admit her as a student at the beginning of her career.
In 2002, the city of Nijmegen (The Netherlands) named a street after her, the Nina Simonestraat. Simone lived in Nijmegen between 1988 and 1990.
Simone was inducted into the North Carolina Music Hall of Fame in 2009.
In 2010 a statue in her honor was erected in Trade Street, Tryon, North Carolina, her place of birth.
*Official site
Little Girl Blue
Nina Simone Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
What can you do
Old girl you're through
Sit there, count your little fingers
Unhappy little girl blue.
Sit there and count the raindrops
Falling on you
All you can ever count on
Are the raindrops
That fall on little girl blue
Won't you just sit there
Count the little raindrops
Falling on you
Cause it's time you knew
All you can ever count on
Are the raindrops
That fall on little girl blue
No use old girl
You might as well surrender
Cause your hopes are getting slender and slender
Why won't somebody send a tender blue boy
To cheer up little girl blue
The lyrics of Nina Simone's "Little Girl Blue" speak to the feelings of sadness and hopelessness experienced by the titular "little girl." The first few lines describe her sitting and counting her fingers with a sense of defeat; as if she has no other options or dreams left. The line "old girl, you're through" almost sounds like a harsh admonishment, as if someone is scolding the little girl for not being able to accomplish more. But it's also clear that the singer empathizes with her, as they affectionately refer to her as "little girl blue."
The following verse continues this sense of despair, as the little girl is told to count the raindrops falling on her. The singer suggests that this is all she can ever count on; that nothing will ever change for her. Yet, despite this bleak outlook, the singer returns to the image of the little girl counting raindrops. They ask her to sit there and continue counting, almost as if encouraging her to acknowledge her sadness rather than trying to push it away. And finally, the last lines offer a glimmer of hope: the suggestion that a "tender blue boy" might come along to lift the little girl's spirits.
This song is a poignant commentary on the difficulties faced by many people, particularly women and girls, who feel trapped by their circumstances and have no one to turn to for comfort or support. The lyrics are simple but powerful, capturing the sense of resignation and despair that can accompany such struggles. By offering a glimpse of hope at the end, Simone creates a sense of possibility and encouragement that keeps the song from becoming completely overwhelming.
Line by Line Meaning
Sit there and count your fingers
Remain idle while numbering your fingers.
What can you do
You are powerless to act.
Old girl you're through
Your days of success are long gone.
Sit there, count your little fingers
Indulge in your emotional pain and anxiety.
Unhappy little girl blue.
Experiencing deep sadness and pain.
Sit there and count the raindrops
Sit down and watch the rain fall.
Falling on you
Landing on your body.
It's time you knew
It's time to realize.
All you can ever count on
You cannot rely on anything else.
Are the raindrops
Only the rain can provide you a constant.
That fall on little girl blue
And only you will endure them.
Won't you just sit there
Why not just remain where you are.
Count the little raindrops
Focus on the small things that you can control.
Cause it's time you knew
Because you need to understand.
No use old girl
There is no point, my dear.
You might as well surrender
Give yourself up to it.
Cause your hopes are getting slender and slender
Because your optimism is quickly fading.
Why won't somebody send a tender blue boy
Why can't someone send a caring partner.
To cheer up little girl blue
To ease the sorrows of the hurt lady.
Lyrics © BMG Rights Management, Universal Music Publishing Group, CONCORD MUSIC PUBLISHING LLC, O/B/O DistroKid, Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC, Warner Chappell Music, Inc.
Written by: LORENZ HART, RICHARD RODGERS
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind
@patrickstocks3576
Sit there and count your fingers
What can you do?
Old girl you’re through
Sit there, count your little fingers
Unhappy little girl blue
Sit there and count the raindrops
Falling on you
It’s time you knew
All you can ever count on
Are the raindrops
That fall on little girl blue
Won’t you just sit there
Count the little raindrops
Falling on you
‘Cause it’s time you knew
All you can ever count on
Are the raindrops
That fall on little girl blue
No use old girl 👧
You might as well surrender
‘Cause your hopes are getting slender and slender
Why won’t somebody send a tender blue boy 👦
To cheer up little girl blue
@jokie1236
Discovered this song while studying abroad to Edinburgh. We were in an Airbnb with a record player and a record of Nina Simone. Suffice to say this song has been ingrained in one of my favorite memories of watching out the window on a rainy day of Scotland :))
@spmoran4703
This song tell me that some people will not have a Happy Christmas . The tune hits me like a arrow to my heart.
What a exceptional musician Nina Simone was .
@christopherlyons5900
How about a little love for the equally exceptional man who wrote those words for her to sing, long after he died of a what they called pneumonia, but it was really a broken heart? And his songwriting partner, who was at times rather a nasty individual, but as Noel Coward put it, somewhat enviously, "The man pees melody."
I bet she had some.
Behind every song ever written worth singing, there's a story. Then a story behind the story. Probably a story behind that.
This is the saddest rendition I've heard to date (and there have been many). Therefore, the truest.
@patrickstocks3576
Sit there and count your fingers
What can you do?
Old girl you’re through
Sit there, count your little fingers
Unhappy little girl blue
Sit there and count the raindrops
Falling on you
It’s time you knew
All you can ever count on
Are the raindrops
That fall on little girl blue
Won’t you just sit there
Count the little raindrops
Falling on you
‘Cause it’s time you knew
All you can ever count on
Are the raindrops
That fall on little girl blue
No use old girl 👧
You might as well surrender
‘Cause your hopes are getting slender and slender
Why won’t somebody send a tender blue boy 👦
To cheer up little girl blue
@Gaseoushead
This work of art really demonstrates to the listener what mastery of the art she possessed.
@ishwarjethnani3637
Listening to this...I am lost....lost....away from this world....
What a voice..great
@bettygordon4683
She makes you live this song!! and weep!
@sarahgreenberg5000
So gorgeous!!!! More volume than the version she did at the Montreaux Festival album in the 1970's. None like her!!!!!!!!
@johnadlesic6800
For the Aztec Princess, though she may not know: her tender little blue boy is here.
@dianesparrow1592
Just incredible talent