All Susan Boyle, All the Time (and All in One Place)

Photo: Andrew Milligan/AP

Susan Boyle, the 47-year-old “spinster” singing sensation from Scotland, was clearly the Internet star of the week and will likely continue to fascinate people until she is eliminated—or far more likely wins—season three of “Britain’s Got Talent.” The media coverage of Boyle will likely keep racing ahead. But we’ve pieced together the best multimedia and most interesting aspects of Boyle’s ascent—so far.

Boyle, a self-deprecatingly funny woman who’s never been kissed, hails from West Lothian, a village community in Scotland. She’s so far spent most of her adult life caring for her mother, who recently died. Her mother loved “Britain’s Got Talent” and wanted her daughter to audition for the show. As is often the case in middle age, the death of Boyle’s mother actually inspired her to finally take the plunge, singing “I Dreamed A Dream” from “Les Miserables" in front of a tough crowd that included judge Simon Cowell.

Boyle proved that age is no obstacle in the pursuit of a lifelong dream, namely to become a professional singer. She also gave the audience a “wake-up call,” as one “BGT” judge put it: Her humble appearance prompted many people to assume she wouldn’t be a good singer at all.

Of course, there’s plenty of precedent for wacky auditions. Season one winner Paul Potts was rather insensitively described by that same judge as “a lump of coal,” clearly no indication of his (what she went on to call) “diamond”-like talent: Potts has gone on to sell upwards of four million copies of his debut opera album.

Boyle performed “I Dreamed A Dream” again for U.S. audiences via satellite on “The CBS Early Show” on April 16. The nice thing about this recording is that there isn’t the background noise of “BGT”’s enthusiastic audience.

A 1999 recording of Boyle performing “Cry Me A River” has also turned up on YouTube. It’s only the audio version, but it’s stunning just the same:

Liz Colville
Senior Writer
Audience Development

Comments

[RB]

So inspirational! Nice coverage.

[James V. O'Connor]

Surprise surprise! "Britain's Got Talent" judge Amanda Holden doesn't want Susan Boyle to undergo a makeover. She wants to maintain the mystique, which will certainly be lost, but I think most people in our beauty-centric culture want this woman to be reconstructed as part of her success story.

Other bloggers have beefed about the fact that so many people were shocked to hear such an unattractive woman sing so well. I think it was her age, more so than her looks, that surprised people. Where has this talented woman been? Imagine if she were an equally frumpy 22-year-old woman. Would the global response been the same? Not even close.