happy shiny people singing songs

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

For the life of me, I do not understand why people seem to be so genuinely amazed that a plain woman can sing beautifully. Susan Boyle seems a lovely person; charming, cheeky and cherub-faced, her willingness to face the likes of Simon Cowell and whatever dim duo of dyspepsia he has keeping him company this week strikes me as nothing short of courageous. Because you know that they were setting her up, in the best tradition of current reality programming, for public humiliation. And she wasn't having it.

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

So what was so shocking to the judges and the sniggering audience about her performance? A woman dares to be plain and still believe herself capable of beauty. Oh, dear.

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

Of course, the people who write the songs that make grown men cry are not, as a rule, the fair of face or physically blessed by birth. But performance has increasingly become the sole province of pretty people, and never more so than now. It's all about marketing and always has been, they tell me, although they didn't seem quite so slickly savvy back in the days of Ella or Janis, back when the music was the message and the messenger an artist. But it's not called Britain's Next Top Model after all, it's called Britain's Got Talent. The delightful MS Boyle will get her hair done and her eyebrows waxed; a fleet of stylists will be summoned and before you can say guest appearance on Oprah she'll be happily on her way to fulfill her dream of singing for the queen.

And we can all wipe away our tears of incredulous joy that beauty really can come from within and go back to watching glossy, witless young things plumbing their meager depths to find the meaning in songs of haunted love and devastating loss, of shattered illusions and dreams made and used and wasted. I'll pass. Give me a homely artist with soul over a pretty one with a mirror any day.

I'll see you down at the karaoke bar. Drinks are on the pretty girls.

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.