Cynics Beware

Greetings again from my little computer desk in Portland, CT. Yesterday my husband sent me a link to YouTube on the Internet. I figured it was just something silly and I would watch it later. When he came home, he asked me immediately if I had seen it. He brought me into the computer room and we watched it together. It was a video of a woman from Scotland named Susan Boyle who was a contestant on Britain's Got Talent, the brainchild of Simon Cowell, of American Idol and America's Got Talent fame.



Before I continue, let me make it clear that I have never watched American Idol, America's Got Talent, Dancing with the Stars, or any other stupid "reality contest" on TV. I hate most of what is on American TV right now (yet another blog). However, this was different. A woman came on stage. She was frumpy; no other way to describe her. She was from a small village. She told the audience that she had lived with her mother until she died; she had never been married. She now lived with her cat. She said her dream was to be a professional singer. She was wearing what was likely her best dress and shoes. The judges snickered as did the audience. She announced she would sing "I Dreamed a Dream", a song from the operetta Les Miserables. The audience again snickered, as anyone familiar with this song knows it is an unbelievably difficult song to sing.



The music started and she began to sing. There was complete silence as this woman's voice filled the studio. And she was amazing. I mean, she was beyond talented. She hit every note perfectly and belted out this song as if she'd sung it on Broadway for years. The audience went nuts; with each passing lyric the applause grew, and the people jumped to their feet clapping and cheering. The judges were speechless. Even Simon's jaw dropped; soon after, he was grinning from ear to ear, (likely thinking of all the percentages he'd get from her recording contract).



The judges, of course, gave her high marks, and she will likely win the contest and become quite famous. She already has 12 million hits on her YouTube page.



Anyone who knows me well knows I am extremely cynical. I usually dislike stories of filled with shmaltz and sappy stuff. As Bette Davis said in All About Eve "I detest cheap sentiment." But this was different. Here was a woman, slightly brain-damaged at birth, who had lived mostly as a shut-in, singing a song that she seemed born to sing. It is not a cheerful song. In Les Miserables, it it sung by the character of Fantine. The song is about how when she was young, she was full of life and hope; then some guy came along, knocked her up, and left. She was then forced to give the child to an innkeeper and his wife, who used the child as a slave. Fantine was forced into prostitution to send money to what she thought was a sick child, and then she dies tragically (while singing a song, mind you), still hoping the bum would come back. Some of the lyrics are "...And still I dream he'll come to me, that we will live the years together...but there are dreams that cannot be, and there are storms we cannot weather. I always dreamed my life would be so different from this hell I'm living...so different now than what it seemed...now life has killed the dream I dreamed. " Not exactly uplifting.



But what was uplifting was that this woman who - , as one reporter said, "looked so different than anything we imagine a star to look like" - had this amazing voice that brought the house down. And that is a gift. It is something that cannot be taught; you either can do it or you can't. I dug out my CD of the Les Miserables music and listened to the woman who sang "I Dreamed A Dream" in the original production in London. The woman from Scotland was just as good; not as polished, since she was not a professional, but just as gifted.



Since I cannot sing at all, I find this talent to be incredible. And I don't mean the talent of crappy pop singers. I mean people who can truly sing. The only thing I find more incredible (in the world of music anyway) is that people took Victor Hugo's book and made it into a musical with incredibly powerful music. I read the book Les Miserables...it was at least a million pages and seemed it. But I saw the play twice and loved it, which is interesting since all the main characters except two are dead at the end. I am not sure what that says about me. All I know is I have have watched Susan Boyle sing 3 times already...and I have a feeling I may listen to her at least 3 more times before I go to sleep tonight.