Wednesday, April 22, 2009

I *heart* Susan Boyle

Because she's got an angel's voice
Because her voice takes me back to childhood
Because she's got a dream
Because she pursued her dream
Because she triggered a debate on the importance of appearance
Because she reminded us that inner beauty is not an obsolete concept

Check her out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9lp0IWv8QZY

6 comments:

Unknown said...

tiens ❤ tu peux utiliser ce coeur la :)

Maya said...

ton coeur est invisible a mes yeux ;-) il doit etre bien occupe!

Maya said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Unknown said...

Susan Boyle gives voice to all the underdogs

At the last count, there have been more than 100 million views on YouTube of the clip of Susan Boyle singing her way to instant fame on Britain’s Got Talent.

She has indeed got a lovely voice, and her performance on the show was a real barnstormer, although how anybody could judge amid all the screaming and applause is beyond me. Simon Cowell said he knew from the moment she walked out on the stage that he was going to hear something special. Of course he knew, it’s his show, and if the researchers didn’t tip him off they can’t have been doing their job properly.

I don’t think the other two judges knew, though. Piers Morgan isn’t a good enough actor and Amanda Holden’s eyes looked genuinely bright with tears, which brings me to my point: why?

Was it the voice that moved us or the fact that it emanated from such an unlikely source, a dumpy middle-aged oddball who is the first to admit that her lips have never been kissed just as her eyebrows have never been tweezed?

While the voice is very good, she’ll never be in the same league as Elaine Paige or even last year’s surprise winner, the tenor Paul Potts, another loner with a hard-luck story who captivated us, but that’s not the point.

Cowell is already preparing a contract for Boyle whether she wins or loses because he knows what a great story she is. She’s the classic underdog, the victim, the spinster who lives with her cat, whose voice is never heard, opinion never sought, talent never noticed. There are millions of Susan Boyles out there and this was their moment, too.

We want her to win because we probably all have a guilty little secret in our past; maybe we ignored someone like that in the school playground, too busy with our own lives to notice someone’s loneliness. That’s why the words from I Dreamed a Dream touched us with such force. When Boyle sang “I had a dream that life would be so different from the hell I’m living”, it seemed to me that the cheers reached a crescendo.

It wasn’t an accident that when she walked out on stage and said she wanted to be like Paige, the camera closed in on a pert little 20-something sneering and rolling her eyes. As Morgan said: “Everyone was laughing at you. They’re not laughing now.”

They’ll do a makeover on her just as they did with Potts, sort her hair out, fix her teeth, give her some pretty clothes and change her life completely, and why not? One of the most irritating comments on the subject was Holden’s insistence that Boyle should stay the same. How patronising, especially coming from the size-zero Botoxed beauty who has been styled from top to toe by professionals.

It reminds me of a song that Janis Ian sang in the 1970s called At Seventeen all about a girl who learns the truth at 17 “that love was meant for beauty queens”.

The words struck a chord for similar reasons, and the song was a huge hit.
And those of us with ravaged faces,
Lacking in the social graces
Desperately remained at home
Inventing lovers on the phone
Who called to say “Come dance with me”.

That song could have been written for Boyle. In fact, she should sing it during the next round. It would bring the house down.

Maya said...

wow Nathalie,
I loved your entry. I have thought about why was i so moved by her performance and her voice. And, like you said, its because she showed the world that anyone can be special. That whatever backlashes and disadvantages that one has, a moment of glory, of achievement can happen. her story gives hope... I am really looking fwd to her next performance.

Blank-Socrate said...

I love her too much,
I wish I could find my own dream and have her faith and believe.
I wish you all your dreams come true,
thanks for passing by :)