Susan Boyle’s Next Song
There are some very tarty, stupid versions of this song available at YouTube that it’s best to stay away from. I found the best rendition sung by none other than John Barrowman—yes, our Captain Jack from the Doctor Who spinoff, Torchwood. (And hey, you Toothy Tile freaks, quit trying to turn Jake Gyllenhaal gay and start appreciating a truly gorgeous and versatile actor who is openly homosexual, would you?)
Yes, I’m a fangirl again and proud of it. I haven’t fallen so deeply in love with a singer since Sigrid Wurschmidt died, goddamnit, of breast cancer in 1991 at the age of 37.
- NEW! An eccentric artist named Dan Lacey has created some inspired paintings of Susan, one with a pancake on her head. No idea why.
- NEW! Three very amateur videos of Susan singing karaoke were recently uncovered by the Scottish newspaper, the Daily Record (who I suspect has been championing her all along, or at least since January). Unfortunately, the video where her vocal talent really shines features a TV presenter named Michael Barrymore, who comes off as an incredible jerk. It’s a bummer to watch but a delight to listen to.
- NEW! Someone at Susan’s fan club swears he’s got a friend of a friend who knows Susan and that he’s sussed out the real next song she’s going to sing—“This Is the Moment” from the musical Jekyll and Hyde. It’s a showstopper, all right. How the heck would she top it?
- A ten-year-old recording of Susan singing “Cry Me a River” for a charity album was just discovered. Her versatility is astonishing.
- NEW! Another recording was also recently discovered by the Telegraph of Susan singing Roberta Flack’s hit, “Killing Me Softly”, which apparently was meant to be partly a personal gift to friends and partly a demo. She’s good, but the aim here was evidently toward the commercial.
- Here she is on Larry King singing, a cappella, “My Heart Will Go On”.
- Because of her impressive turn with “Cry Me a River”, my list of songs I long to hear her sing has lengthened: “Fable” from The Light in the Piazza; “Climb Ev'ry Mountain” from The Sound of Music; “You’ll Never Walk Alone” from Carousel; “Being Alive” from Company; “Blow, Gabriel, Blow”, “So in Love” and “Night and Day” by Cole Porter; “Out of My Dreams” from Oklahoma; “I Do Not Know a Day I Did Not Love You”, “The Sweetest Sounds” and “Something Good” by Richard Rodgers; “Falling in Love with Love” by Rodgers & Hart; “The Simple Joys of Maidenhood” from Camelot; “Wouldn’t It Be Loverly” and “Show Me” from My Fair Lady; “You'll Never Get Away from Me” from Gypsy; Earle Hagen’s “Harlem Nocturne”... As I think of more I’ll add them to this list.
- According to her brother John, Susan had a serious girlhood crush on Donny Osmond. Not a bad choice, actually. After a long dry spell following his teenage hit singles, Donny returned to the public eye when Andrew Lloyd Webber himself chose him to star in the 1999 television production of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.
- Susan needs to make two more appearances and sing two more songs before the end of the competition—one during the week-long preliminaries that start in London on May 23, and again for the finals.
- NEW! One of the questions this past few days has been, Did Simon Know in Advance? I’ll concede that to some extent Susan’s audition and gradual “bringing out” have been engineered. There was a very telling gaffe in Google on Monday after the broadcast: one of the viral videos going around had misidentified Susan’s song on BGT as “Cry Me a River”—a full two days before the story of its “discovery” came out in the West Lothian newspaper The Daily Record. So yes, it’s clear that from the beginning—let’s say January, when they taped the show—there has been some organized effort to bring her out gradually. But evidently it’s been done in stages, by two sets of promoters: supporters in the media in West Lothian, for local glory and the story, and the BGT scouts and assistant producers, to benefit the show.
- NEW! Here’s one of her earliest interviews, for the West Lothian Courier.
- Simon actually did hint in a short interview that he as well as the audience (in the playbills that were passed out) had, in fact, been clued in to expect something unusual from Susan Boyle. My guess is that shortly before the taping his staff hinted to him that BGT could get some good TV moments out of Susan’s audition as long as Simon went with his first inclinations the moment he saw her. In other words, pay special attention to her hair, her frock, her age, her eccentricities, and just be the sneering little beast he’s famous for being. (But Amanda and Piers were kept in the dark, because that’s how BGT derives much of its fun.)
- So there were quite a few people who knew she was going to be good. But not THIS good. Plus her instant worldwide fame on YouTube via Twitter wasn’t part of the plan. There’s obviously been a mad scramble this week to build a narrative to match events as they happened.
- For example, it was insisted that Piers Morgan and Amanda Holden apologize on American television for their initially shabby treatment of Susan. Still, there was some sincerity there.
- A few days ago Susan tossed off a remark that she fancied Piers and would like her first kiss to come from him—a remark he faithfully recorded in his blog with the response “Gulp!” I love it when a woman pulls a man’s pants down in public—figuratively, of course. Big weenie had it coming.
- Here’s a nice short clip of Simon Cowell discussing Susan where you can see the dollar signs in his eyes.
- Don’t think that that hip roll Susan flaunted in her audition wasn’t done on purpose for Cowell’s benefit—it was her way of throwing down a challenge to the sneering little brute.
- NEW! For the record, Susan is nine years older than Amanda Holden, three years older than Piers, but two years younger than Simon Cowell, who’s turning 50 later this year.
- After she sang, after she took that stage with all the mastery and confidence of Captain Sullenberger landing his plane, he said to her admiringly, “You’re a little tiger, aren’t you?”
- Whoever produced the 7:34 video of Susan’s audition ought to get an award. It was sheer perfect storytelling from start to finish, with that ubiquitous Geordie pair Ant and Dec smartly providing the bookends.
- In my opinion, this is a watershed moment for social networking, viral marketing and the new paradigm.
- Forget all that tosh about Susan being dowdy, ugly, plain, frumpy or whatever. Pre- or post-makeover, she has quite an interesting face. A portrait artist or a novelist could make much of it.
- NEW! Susan just got a fine new look and she did it all herself.
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