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Please, wild horses, drag Susan Boyle away
The reality TV winner has turned a classic Rolling Stones love song into a saccharine ballad
Someone has to stand up for rock 'n' roll against the sinister
forces of Simon Cowell - and it looks like it's going to have to be The First Post. Susan Boyle, the Scottish spinster who became an unlikely international star thanks to her rendition of I Dreamed a Dream on Britain's Got Talent, has chosen a far more improbable song for what will become the first single off her debut album.
The 48-year-old from West Lothian has dragged the Rolling Stones’ emotionally complex love song, Wild Horses, through the talent show wringer and turned it into a saccharine ballad.
On Thursday night, dressed in a floor-length black gown and bathed in white light, Boyle unveiled her cover on American television in a pre-recorded session that was shown to an audience of 25 million viewers during the final of America's Got Talent.
The huge majority of comments have been favourable. But the beginnings of a backlash can be detected in the critiques by professional pop writers and Rolling Stones fans who cannot believe that one of the most haunting rock 'n' roll love songs from the 1970s has been turned into such a dreary experience.
Neil McCormick of the Daily Telegraph writes: "There is a bleeding despair at the heart of that song that she can never touch, especially in a version as musically anodyne as this, where all the nuance is reduced to a plodding piano and identikit orchestration, the sound of a million middle of the road ballads."
Ann Powers of the Los Angeles Times says: "Devotees of the original Rolling Stones version... might object to Boyle's stolid rhythmic sense, her utter lack of irony (irony is, after all, the essence of Mick Jagger), and her artistic choices, which transform Wild Horses from a complicated account of emotional confusion to a simple exclamation of longing."
NME accuses her of "slathering" Wild Horses with "the inevitable topcoat of Elaine Paige-style, quivery-lipped schmaltz" while online comments include this at the Guardian: "Susan has made Wild Horses sound like the theme tune to an 80s American soap opera."
It used to said that the song, from the Rolling Stones' multi-platinum selling 1971 album Sticky Fingers, was about Mick Jagger's break-up with Marianne Faithfull. But Jagger always denied it, preferring to call it "a sad love song". Keith Richards, the Stones' hard-living guitarist who also wrote the lyrics, came up with the title.
Boyle is not the first female singer to attempt to cover the song. Alicia Keys and Sheryl Crow have both released versions, as have the Sundays and their lead singer Harriet Wheeler. The latter appears to be the inspiration for a very cool 'bedroom musician' who currently has what she calls "a cover of the Sundays cover" airing on YouTube. With her acoustic guitar, perched on a chair, 'lilsingerchic' knocks Susan Boyle off the stage.
Elevator installation technicians might wish to know that the Boyle album will be released on November 23.
COMPARE THEM HERE:The Stones originalThe Susan Boyle versionLilsingerchic
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Comments
Nigel, really!! One of the most haunting and complex love songs from the 1970s??? You must have been more drunk and more loaded than the Stones themselves to remember it that way! Boyle's reinterpretation is both wistful and musical and brings much more to the song than the Stones did. Kudos to Jagger and Richards for writing a song that could be interpreted so differently than their version, and to Boyle for doing exactly that. Her performance is both lyrical and poignant and brings life to the song that it never had before.
I really can't add much to what has already been said by those commenting here. I am not a fan of saccharine love ballads. Obviously, the writer of this article wouldn't know one if it hit him in the face. First of all, I find watching her sing this song one of the most profound experiences I have ever had and I am in my seventh decade. Music is life to me. She doesn't just sing this song you ignoramous, she feels this song. Her facial expressions, body language and voice convey the most earnest longing I have ever heard. As someone said above, I play this over and over in my car. Maybe it's my age, but this song speaks to me of love lost, regrets and being resigned to life's bittersweet memories. It is brilliantly done by the Stones, but Susan Boyle takes it to another dimension and I thank God for that.
As a musician and someone who knows the Rolling Stones version extremely well, I really couldn't disagree more with the pitch and tone of this article and find it quite fascinating that all the comments so far have come out against it.
I've often wondered just what exactly qualifies someone to be a critic and in many cases it seems to be the ability to spew forth sophisticated scorn and not very well disguised anger toward others while not offering anything useful or truly talented themselves.
I love the original and I love this version by Susan and I really couldn't care less about who chose it, whether it's this or that or not.....I think that her spirit comes through it.
I did also read Neil McCormick's review and particularly the comments on his article: http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/culture/neilmccormick/100003297/susan-boyle...
and I notice that most people disagree with him also..
If you don't like something I think it's reasonable to express an opinion which other people can then decide for themselves but when there appears to be such a need to fly a flag and rally people to your negative cause as in the title of the article above, I have to wonder about the subconscious motivation being expressed...
Susan Boyle brought a beautiful poignancy and a sincere sense of longing to the Song Wild Horse. This beautifull song and lyrics were completely wasted on the Rolling Stones.
Le'ts weigh this: Rolling Stones scratchy off pitch rendition , or
Susan Boyle's beautiful sweet voice? hmmmmmmmmmmm Susan Boyle's beautiful sweet voice!!!!! HANDS DOWN
By the way, thumbs up and hoorah to Jerome Peters comments.
Susan Boyle's version runs enormous rings around the others. I can't stop listening to it over and over again. Your headline is very nasty. (However thanks for providing the other links for comparison.)
Ann Powers also said " We should stop being startled by her performances and respect her for the qualities she's cultivated: scrupulousness and dependability." Sounds to me like Ann is describing a professional singer, not a rock star. Mick Jagger described the song as " a sad love song" and Ann Powers describes Susan's version as "a simple exclamation of longing". Susan transformed Mick's song into what he would have liked it to have been. Ann continues in her nostalgia by describing The Stones version as " a complicated account of emotional confusion" ... Emotionally confused, no doubt, ...complicated , not hardly.. The Stones version is an original and a classic. The two singers share sincerity in their expression. The emotion behind Susan's vocals is no less sincere because it appeals to "mainstream America". Stoners aren't the only people with valid emotions. Mick makes a regretful departure from someone he loved. Susan maintains her focus; her longing reaches beyond the confines of the lyrics, truly ethereal. Keep paddling around in your nostalgia, stick to your guns, its manly, its cool, but it's so eighties.
Just today I was thinking how much I despise music critics. I think it was Bernard Shaw who said 'Those who can do, those who can't teach'. He should have said those who can't become critics. Everything is taken apart by these pretentious wannabe intellectuals to be analysed to death. They don't have a clue what they are talking about anyway. The most analysed guy of the lot must surely be Bob Dylan, who once said that he just wrote the words to fit the music. Parasitical critics and self appointed 'experts' have actually written books about Dylan and made a living feeding off of his scraps. Does anyone ever ask the person who wrote the song what the words mean, or did it ever occur to them that something either sounds good, great, really great, or boring or rubbish, according to the opinion of whoever is giving the review? After all, it really is that simple. These critic morons are continually looking for hidden messages in the mostly meaningless lyrics of half drunk drugged up rock stars and attempting to fit their own psycho-babbling (psycho being the word) interpretations to them. Now I think of it, take away the music and would they analyse the lyrics on their own as poetry? I thought not. I'd never heard this song before the much hyped Ms Boyle sang it, but I have played it again and again since. And if I were given half a newspaper page to analyse it, I'd say it was really fab and spend the rest of my words hammering music critics. That said, art critics are worse.