‘Let It Be’ is just as beautiful a part of the two-piece as Simone’s vocals glide over notes of wisdom and reconciliation, her seemingly abrupt delivery working effortlessly alongside the swift notes of the accompanying arrangements. McCartney originally wrote the song after his deceased mother visited him in a dream and said, “It will be all right. Just let it be”.

The song already reaches immense emotional heights as a result of McCartney’s sincere delivery, a fundamental aspect that Simone holds in her own reimagination, which somehow seems more akin to a funeral tribute than one solely existing in mere appreciation. Perhaps that’s the poignancy of it: Simone, as always, sings with enough rawness to warrant a mixture of emotions, applying new meaning to a piece that already holds a lot of weight.

The execution of Simone’s version makes it rife with the experiences of her past as an artist who valued both qualities of inciting change and musical innovation. As someone who also once said that an artist’s duty is “to reflect the times”, it becomes a significant indicator of musical excellence to be able to perform ‘Let It Be’ and make it appear as profound as it did in 1970.

Masters of the art like Simone could often put excellence into words, but even greater masters can demonstrate such deliberations in their own work. Simone did so with such ease, adopting what she would describe as defining all “dynamics” of “sound and music” in her voice alone. ‘Let It Be’ might have stemmed from McCartney’s own personal experiences, but it also contains “nuances” that allow for personal interpretation.

As her fingers dance over the musical notes on her piano, Simone’s ‘Let It Be’ is as gorgeous as if it were her own, with a subtle element of melancholy that ensures it is brimming with bittersweet emotion. Simone always had the innate ability to sing with both “love and scorn”, as Nick Cave once put it, and her performance in tribute to the former Beatle perfectly demonstrates the many layers of her talent.

Listen to ‘Let It Be Me’ by Nina Simone below.

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