The Susan Boyle phenomenon – what does it all mean? – what will they all do to her?

Don’t miss the links at the end of the article includes her other singing!

The Susan Boyle phenomenon – what does it all mean – what will they all do to her?

Susan Boyle sings and ……who’s cheering – and for what?

Yes along with many others I was deeply moved when I first heard her – for me her singing was extraordinarily powerful rather than beautiful – more like great chanting. She soared.

So much discussion seems implicitly around something like, ‘But she’s ugly – how can she possibly sing beautifully?’ Many good people seem to have concluded that she is a beautiful soul and her outer form is utterly eclipsed by her spirit and singing. Would we like her less if she was beautiful? In our acclaim what are we identifying with, and what are we rejecting?

Is she the American Dream gone global?

She sung as though she was in direct communion with her Maker. I later found that the American comedienne made a similar point (see below).

The experience for me was of a soul connected very deeply to a life purpose – despite a really bad deal. Perhaps the attraction is a matter of idetification, ‘Her singing was me – if only I had really got it together properly!’

The bad deal? Who knows the precise deal she was dealt, let alone the effects on each card. Patrick Foster of The Times points out that most commentators pass over the fact that she

was starved of oxygen at birth and grew up suffering from learning difficulties,

(and was consequently bullied) and more to the point, depressingly, that,

Her awkward mannerisms were deliberately used by the show’s producers masterfully to misdirect viewers into thinking she would implode in the same way that other, more deluded contestants have.

Her dream, and ours, are now inextricably interwoven with the Simon Cowell ‘machine’.  This bring in several flavours of irony if those commentators are correct who say that the ‘SB phenomenon’ is to do with the rejection of  false reality as in the celebrity-fame psychosis that prevails.

But the singing was real and straight as an arrow from a bow. She has always sung – at church and at karaoke evenings.

Perhaps it’s her apparent ‘communication of connection’ through her singing that people are responding to, that and her powerful sense of ‘being in the fullness of her self’, in spite of life’s cards as dealt. She transcends her physical reality, her poverty, her drab surroundings. If she can there is hope for all of us. Its a variation on Obama-rama; yes we can – yes I could – yes I can.

The spiritual nature of the experience she gives people provides existential and metaphysical nuances that are very rare, kept out as they are by the trashy culture, coupled with the sheer struggle of most people lives. She is of course a wonderful ray of hope. (I wonder if she will sing for Barack and the family? She has said she would like to sing for the Queen).  Its difficult to keep up with the numbers and the multiplying possibilities.

The social commentators are still struggling – they still don’t know what to make of her. It’s difficult to articulate all the strands, the cultural and personal meanings of the phenomenon.

Today Matthew Wright, who has a major slot every week-day morning on Channel 5, and is the best popular communicator on UK television, floored himself. Today he struggled to get to the bottom of the Susan Boyle phenomenon via his guest’s comments and a few phone-in viewers. He ended the section by saying that he was thoroughly ashamed of himself, because he included himself in those who ‘read’ people by their appearance – against a falsifying dominant culture. That culture says if you are ugly/poor/badly-dressed beauty can’t come out of you – you have, especially as a woman, to conform to Hollywood-style appearance.

It’s a shame he didn’t have more time because the ‘phenomenon’ isn’t just that of a previously unknown woman singing well it is the challenge to articulate the cultural dynamics that have been set up – and the deep experience, not unlike the ‘death-of-Diana’ phenomenon. Both phenomena have actually brought deep consideration of life, struggle, identity, purpose, realization and the sadnesses and longings around those existential facts up against which we all collide.

I’m still pondering on these

Is Patrick Foster in The Times right to suggest that the only winner will be Simon Cowell? http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/music/article6115838.ece

How much was it engineered by Simon Cowell – they can only have pretended to be hearing her for the first? See good article in TIME by James Poniewozik

Who will win the competition? Have you heard the young Wesh lad in the same competition?

Will it end in tears? – whose tears? Who will look after this vulnerable woman’s interests? Has she already been signed up in ways to regret?

Is she even better than her competition performance?– go HERE to hear her singing Cry Me a River, recorded a decade ago.  Is she to be compared to the exquisite Eva Cassidy?

Today she continues to field unending publicty – see HERE

Is she even better than her competition performance?– go HERE

Interesting US take HERE

– explains the  British term ‘gob-smacked’ for those challenged by Anglo-speak!

FINAL COMMENT – yet again its a comedian who cuts crisply to the real heart of the matter.  

“That moment is what every artist tries to capture,” O’Donnell tells  People. “Here is this freaky miss, a fat, ugly girl, like Shrek comes to life, directing energy towards her soul. This was so rare … something authentic in a world that is usually manufactured. It was a perfect moment which will never happen again.” 

Yes it’s vicious but I believe that the core of what affects us all is that Susan Boyle has come to life and is directing energy to her soul, authentically – that’s where we connect.

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