Watch the YouTube video of Susan Boyle’s TV debut on the singing contest “Britain’s Got Talent”, where she blew Simon Colwell away with her version of “I Dreamed a Dream” from Les Miserables.  (Click here to watch it.)

The lady has enough talent to blow away stereotype and hype.  She’s frumpy, very overweight, and 47, so some think that she won on the show because she is ugly.  She shook her booty on stage, and it turned everyone off.  But when she sang her first line, she showed she has quite a good voice and a great ability to put emotion in it without overacting.  (Click here to listen to her 1999 recording of “Cry Me A River”, which is MUCH HARDER to sing than “I Dreamed A Dream.”)

Boyle clearly had solid vocal training, and it shows in the minimal effort she required to surpass even Patti Lupone’s or Lea Salonga’s renditions.

To be fair to Lupone and Salonga, Boyle skipped the first stanza, which is very difficult to sing because it is in monotone.  After hearing other performances posted on YouTube, I have to say Lupone sang the first stanza best.  And I don’t think Boyle has the best rendition of the song, either.  Out of all the performances on YouTube, I like Liv Unni Larsson Undall’s performance best (click here to listen, and I think it’s in Norwegian).

The best part of Boyle’s performance is that she can put the irony across.  I can sing this song, and I know that the danger in singing it is that it is easy to get too dramatic, just like Lupone and Salonga do.  Coming in hard and heavy will remove the irony.

To understand what I mean about irony, one has to know the context of the song.  “I Dreamed a Dream” is Fantine’s reflection on her life, Fantine being a single mother forced to leave her daughter with a couple in order to go to the city to find a job.  The couple put the child into slavery for them, while writing to Fantine to send more money for her upkeep.  Fantine eventually lost her job,  was prostituted in her desperation, and later became very ill.  (See lyrics below.)

Lupone’s performance (click here) was of a woman who is a little angry at life, who feels cheated, who has to suffer being away from her daughter.  Boyle’s rendition is emotional but not so angry.  She sings like a woman who has accepted that she will never find the happiness she wants, and has decided to move on and accept it.  Salonga sang it beautifully (click here), but it seemed hollow to me because she probably cannot empathize enough with the song’s meaning.  Salonga has been a star of the stage and of TV since she was a child, and she is a star of West End and Broadway; can she know enough bitterness to overcome it and turn ironic?

Boyle’s voice teacher, it turns out, had been trying to persuade her to pursue a singing career for a long time.  Boyle felt she wasn’t pretty enough to become a singer.  But honestly, Beyonce and Mariah Carey and Spice Girls and J Lo and whoever else is famous in spite of your flat voices, I think you should all reflect on your careers and listen to Boyle over and over.  I hope she can inspire you to really work on your singing, and just sing.  No more shake your booty.  Sing.

I Dreamed A Dream

There was a time when men were kind
When their voices were soft
And their words inviting
There was a time when love was blind
And the world was a song
And the song was exciting
There was a time
Then it all went wrong

I dreamed a dream in time gone by
When hope was high
And life worth living
I dreamed that love would never die
I dreamed that God would be forgiving
Then I was young and unafraid
And dreams were made and used and wasted
There was no ransom to be paid
No song unsung, no wine untasted

But the tigers come at night
With their voices soft as thunder
As they tear your hope apart
And they turn your dream to shame

He slept a summer by my side
He filled my days with endless wonder
He took my childhood in his stride
But he was gone when autumn came

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 had a dream my life would be
So different from this hell I’m living
So different now from what it seemed
Now life has killed the dream I dreamed.