Susan Boyle – Living the Dream

Susan Boyle had a dream and it did come true. Her story has touched the hearts of millions of people around the world. What dreams do you have? Are you pursuing them even in the face of negativity and mockery?..... Kathryn Johnston

Up until the 11 April 2009 when Susan Boyle auditioned for Britain’s Got Talent (BGT) she lived in obscurity in Blackburn, a small Scottish village in West Lothian. In the months that followed Susan went from anonymity to a global superstar in the making and found she was now – “living the dream”. Until that time Susan spent most of her adult life caring for her mother, who passed away at the age of 91 years in 2007. Susan had a dream of being a professional singer since her 20s and her attempts to achieve her goal included taking singing lessons; auditioning for Michael Barrymore’s My Kind of People; releasing a demo tape; singing on the local Karoke circuit; singing at her local church; and singing at the Marian Shrine in County Mayo, Ireland, as part of the annual Legion of Mary pilgrimage from her local parish church, Our Lady of Lourdes.

Don’t judge a book by its cover

Susan Boyle’s first BGT audition highlighted how insensitive it is to associate the worth and value of people by their appearance. Everyone who has watched the video recording of the audition would have noticed the cynicism of the audience and judges as Susan Boyle, a forty-seven year old woman walks out on stage. What I absolutely loved about that moment was the attitude and presence of Susan with her left hand on her hip – just after saying to the show judges, ‘I’m going to make that audience rock.’ Despite the mockers in the audience and the look of disbelief on the judges’ faces, Susan Boyle did just that - she made the audience rock. Here was a mature woman who did not possess all the glamour and poise of what is often associated with musical entertainment. However, as soon as Susan opened her mouth and sang with what has been described as an “angelic voice”, the judges and audience were shocked, surprised, delighted, and enthralled. Something very special was taking place – a star was being born and Susan Boyle unbeknown to her at that moment in time, stepped onto a roller coaster as she began to realise and live her dream.

In nine days the YouTube video of Susan singing I Dreamed A Dream from Les Misérables had been viewed 100 million times, and by July 2009 the video clip had attracted 300 million hits. As Susan’s story unfolds, even though she was predicted to win the event, she became the runner up of BGT 2009. Instant fame and attention had its impact - Susan describes it as similar to being hit by a giant demolition ball, and to recover she spent five days in The Priory Clinic in London. At this time, the press were in overdrive and Susan, insensitively dubbed by the media as the “hairy angel”, reported that she had lost it and perhaps was not up to a life in the spotlight. As Susan rested others began to try to come to terms with the Susan Boyle phenomenon. Fan club sites were set up capturing every moment of her life and Twitter was busily “tweeting”. After some time out Susan participated in the BGT post show tour - even though she missed four of the early shows, she sang to standing ovations at 16 venues including the Wembley Arena, London’s second largest indoor arena. Today Susan is living in London where she is recording her first CD managed by Simon Cowell.There are also offers of a book and movie deals.

Susan Boyle tugs at our heart strings

While becoming an instant celebrity had its impact on Susan, she was having an impact on the world. Lisa Schwarzbaum gives us a glimpse into what was happening for her and possibly others two weeks after Susan’s first audition. She states, ‘I’m still stuck on Susan Boyle, and still weeping....I play the YouTube clip over and over.’ Further, she says, ‘I’m pondering why the experience of watching and listening to Ms. Boyle makes so many viewers cry, me among them. And I think I’ve got a simple answer, at least for me. In our pop-minded culture so slavishly obsessed with packaging – the right face, the right clothes, the right attitudes, the right Facebook posts – the unpackaged artistic power of the unstyled, un-hip, un-kissed Ms. Boyle let me feel, for the duration of one blazing showstopping ballad, the meaning of human grace. She pierced my defences. She reordered the measure of beauty. And I had no idea until tears spring up how desperately I need that corrective from time to time. Yep. Simple as that! That’s why I weep. What’s your excuse?’ 

Yes, Susan touched a chord so deep in the human heart many wondered through their tears, what was happening. I believe many of us wept out of the sorrow of our own disappointments, and then wept with joy as Susan inspired us and gave hope to a world facing uncertainty through a global economic recession. Here was Susan single-handedly challenging the way so many of us view the world. A view that is pre-conditioned to a standardised set of expectations; one that had become separated from an innate belief in human nature that beauty lies within, radiating out from the heart – reflecting the real person.

The real person - Susan Boyle, reordered the measure of how we define beauty, of how we define success in the post-modern world. We were presented with contradictions of how beauty, winning, success, are defined and with a jolt many had to rethink and redefine the basics of how they understood the world around them. This is what I believe Susan did for us. Not only has she an exceptional voice but she has her own style, her own persona, her own humour, and a down to earth manner that is warm, engaging, and accepting. Susan encourages those who are low on the scale of personal achievements and dreams, and entices those who are successful to re-evaluate their standing and status in a world where fake and pretension is often accepted as a natural part of being.