Songs can be powerful. And none more so than when on national television at unexpected moments. Stormzy taking Glastonbury ‘to church’ with his song ‘Blinded by Your Grace’. Even Susan Boyle on Britain’s Got Talent. Her rendition of ‘I Dreamed a Dream’ from Les Misérables was all the more powerful because it was so unexpected.
I remember as a kid watching the Beatles sing ‘Hey Jude’ on
Top of the Pops. It was like nothing I’d heard before. And the audacity to keep
on singing at the end well beyond the usual three-minute pop song time limit.
I was taken aback again this week, watching (belatedly) The Voice on ITV. Part way through, the audience cajole Tom Jones, one of the judges, into singing. At 82 years old, he’s not lost his ability to sing. But it was his choice of song that got me.
He lost his wife to cancer a few years ago. It was a
turbulent marriage on occasions, but one that lasted. A friendship that started
as 12-year-olds, they were married for nearly 60 years. As he began to sing,
the emotion in his voice was unusual. About someone being there for another,
but not crumbling if they fall. He explained at the end that it was about being
there for his wife, Linda, and promising her he would carry on after she had
gone. These were his words:
“My wife, you know, she was dying of lung cancer, so I said,
you know, I was always able to fix stuff, to do things if she needed me, I was
always there. She said, 'Don't crumble with me, don't fall now, you've done
everything you can, you must carry on and do what you do.’”
It’s hard to be there for someone close to you but see that
for once you can’t ‘fix stuff’. His response in song was poignant.
At the end, another of the judges, Anne-Marie, said it was
one of the best moments in her life. And it wasn’t TV hyperbole for a change.
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