Covering

Cover songs offer glimpses of the ways that artists can also be fans. This chapter tracks Simone’s career-long practice of covering other artists, in order to demonstrate how, within the mutable boundaries of fantasy space, speaking for someone and speaking as someone can line up, run together, break away again. Beginning around 1968, Simone’s repertoire shifted toward rearrangements and covers of songs by contemporary artists—including George Harrison, the Bee Gees, Randy Newman, Leonard Cohen, Pete Seeger, and especially Bob Dylan—nearly all of whom were white men. This shift allowed Simone to speak to and through the power that adheres in race and gender privilege, as well as to use these positions to explore sexual fantasies. This chapter considers songs including “Pirate Jenny,” “Suzanne,” and “Just Like a Woman.”