Susan Boyle

November 13 update. Well, the people promoting her have done a good job of supporting her through her bad patch, she's been eased into more public performances, recorded an album soon to be released, one song I've heard from it making it clear her beautiful voice is holding up just fine, got herself made over in some basic ways that improve her appearance tremendously, and seems to be well on her way to the career she's always wanted. I wish her success and happiness.

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June 10 I'm one of those who is fascinated with Susan Boyle. I can't really explain it. Everybody's been explaining it but none of it suffices it seems to me. There's an amazing amount of interest in her that just keeps going on and on. I also keep checking in to find out the latest news -- and I don't really know why I do. At the You Tube video that's racked up the biggest number of views of her first performance a little group of fans has collected and I go there to see what they're saying. In the last few days I seem to be losing interest though. Maybe some time I'll figure it all out and say more.

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It occurred to me briefly after watching Susan Boyle's final performance on BGT that she might be vulnerable to a nervous breakdown. I hoped not and let the thought pass. But today we're hearing that may very well have happened to her.

She's clearly a vulnerable personality, innocent of the world, and here the world has fallen on her almost literally, all six billion of us or whatever it is now. Her resolute dedication to keeping an upbeat attitude and a generous spirit toward others started to sound brittle and forced lately, after all the media attention of a sometimes very cruel kind. When I think about the unfamiliar and unwelcome thoughts that must have assaulted her over the last days and weeks I'm not surprised if her mind began to unravel. The only real protection against that sort of thing is faith in Jesus Christ but there is no sign that she believes the gospel. Many times in the last twenty years I could have unraveled out to jibbering sputtering incoherence under pressures in my own life if I hadn't had the Lord to cling to.

I didn't want to pray for her to win; it just doesn't seem right to pray that way, but I pray now for her recovery and for people to rally around her to shield and support her, and, yes, that the Lord would reveal Himself to her.

Norman Lebrecht on Susan Boyle

I've been following the Susan Boyle phenomenon all the way down to today, when she placed second in the final of the Britain's Got Talent competition. I was disappointed when her singing on both the semi-final and today's final didn't seem to me to be up to the standard of her first performance. That's easily explained on the basis of nerves, though, after what she's been through in the last few weeks with all the public attention and even harassment. I'm not sure how much it had to do with her losing in any case. This is a call-in public vote competition and it's hard to know what moves people to vote. The dance group Diversity, the winners, were in fact very good and very entertaining. But Boyle is still expected to go on and have the career she's always wanted. It's possible her loss was a blessing too, since it may take some of the glare of the public eye off her for a while.

I don't have the expertise to judge her voice but its richness when she really belts it is wonderful to my ear, and she also has that richness in quieter songs like "Cry Me a River" and "Killing Me Softly" -- old performances of hers that have been found and posted on the net. None of it is my kind of music but I really enjoy the sound of her voice in them.

People who say, rightly or wrongly, that there are other voices better than hers are missing the point. She's been a contestant on an amateur talent show, someone who always wanted a career and is good enough to have it. She doesn't have to be the best who ever lived to qualify for that.

I appreciate what Norman Lebrecht had to say about her voice recently, in his colorful prose:

...a voice as full as Loch Lomond in flood.

...a voice that seemed to come from nowhere, delivering show tunes like a pro.

...Boyle, with a voice that is reputedly untrained, works with comfort within a contralto range, taking the top in her stride and delivering arias with little dynamic variation. The vibrato is well controlled and the pitch is, unlike the still-touring [Paul]Potts, pin-point.

...She could pass any professional audition without difficulty, provided it was a blind audition and the judges weren’t influenced by her middle-aged, dull looks.

His assessment of her voice is to be trusted I think, because he's a music critic by profession.

But then he sums up her talent as "small" which leaves me wondering.

Millions from Kenya to Korea will be rooting for Boyle to win on Saturday night, not because they admire her small and very specific talent but because they live in hope that her dream could somehow be theirs. Boyle is the first heroine of the Yes We Can universe.

He goes on about the fantasy of success her story seems to have generated across the world and I suppose there's a lot to that, and he's not the first to say it. But it's still her voice itself that I enjoy the most, that to my mind not-so-small talent that is "as full as Loch Lomond in flood."

Susan Boyle gains the world

Susan Boyle always wanted to have a singing career and it never worked out. She sang in school and in the church choir, she sang karaoke at the local pub, she sang in local competitions, she won trophies, she even cut a couple of records, one at her own expense, but none of it brought her the career she wanted. Then two years after her mother's death and in honor of her mother's encouragement she applied for Britain's Got Talent and there is now no doubt she will have the career she's always wanted. She showed she has the voice for it, which she always knew.

She doesn't even claim that her voice is particularly outstanding, just that it's a good voice and should be her career. Most of the rest of us do think her voice is outstanding. When I went to other You Tube videos to compare her sound to various singers who were mentioned in comparison to her I didn't think any of them measured up, except Vera Lynn who was famous during World War II. On one of the many TV interviews about Susan Boyle, Amanda Holden, one of the judges at BGT, said what I thought too, that Susan's voice is actually better than Elaine Paige's, the singer Susan said has the success she'd aim for. Ms. Paige's voice is beautiful, but Susan's is extraordinary. Is it as good as Streisand's or Dion's? I can't really judge that because I don't really like their music overall, but I'd have to say it's in that general category of superstrong voices. In any case I'd enjoy hearing Susan sing more than either of them myself.

What about her being such a simple dowdy unattractive woman? That's what got her all the attention. If she'd had the spectacular voice but also the glamorous image of a singer she'd no doubt have received less attention.

But Susan is now famous for her personality as much as her voice. "Guileless" someone rightly described her. She seems to have no interest in living the life of a big star, in doing anything but singing for her living while living the life she's always lived. She's not much interested in having a makeover though she leaves open the possibility. "What's wrong with looking like Susan Boyle?" she asks. Her ambition goes as far as singing for the public, period.

Of course she's in for so many new experiences in the next months and years you have to expect her to rethink things as time goes on. We'll see if things look different to her down the road a ways.

She's thrilled and amazed at all the acclaim but all she really wanted to do was "show them" she could sing and that her appearance didn't matter. "It's not a beauty contest" she said. Well, she showed them. She showed the whole world.

I like a Cinderella story, we all do. I'll be watching for her next appearance on BGT, which I've heard is scheduled for May 23rd, which of course will be immediately all over YouTube and the news headlines.