Why?

After having poured over these two recordings of Kelly Clarkson covering Annie Lennox's "Why?" I just had to blog the lyrics. It's a GREAT song.

For me being obsessive about vocal technique, I'm also cutting and pasting for your pleasure an email I sent to a vocal coach friend of mine in Amsterdam (I think I blogged about him before as my partner in singing/tennis/figure skating crime). My original email, typos included (if there are any). This is with reference to the first of the two recordings I hyper-linked to, above (the YouTube site is AMAZING!), even though the second one is much higher quality (if a bit less exciting in the ending):

**********

KELLY CLARKSON COVER OF ANNIE LENOX

Talk about hard to pull off :)

The recording is awful, and I hate the echo, but you're right -- Christina doesn't really communicate the meaning of a song that well when you hear something like this...you hear this and you BELIEVE her.

I think Kelly is amazing on this kind of thing, and I hate all the crap they're having her sing that has made her so popular these past two years. She has too much soul and talent to sing crap.

Pay attention to 1:45 (also my favourite part in the original...they lyrics are just great) because I think that any student who can't HEAR what it is to have a powerful diaphragm needs to only hear how much power she can get on quick notes on a single pitch like that (with nice fast vibrato, too) to know what proper power from the diaphragm sounds like. I also think that you can hear the perfect example of the "mixed voice" we're always talking about when she transitions up at 1:50. I also love (LOVE!) the TINY voice break at 3:29 at the end of "this is the fear." I've seen a bunch of recordings of this from different cities, and it's definitely on purpose (but you can only do it when you're properly relaxed, you know?).

UGH I WISH I COULD SING LIKE THAT! lol

XOXO

**********

Here are the lyrics:

How many times do I have to try to tell you
That I'm sorry for the things I've done
But when I start to try to tell you
That's when you have to tell me
"Hey... this kind of trouble's only just begun"
I tell myself too many times
"Why don't you ever learn to keep your big mouth shut?"
That's why it hurts so bad to hear the words
That keep on falling from your mouth
Falling from your mouth
Falling from your mouth
Tell me...
Why
Why

I may be mad
I may be blind
I may be viciously unkind
But I can still read what you're thinking
And I've heard it said too many times
That "you'd be better off..."
Besides...
Why can't you see this boat is sinking
(this boat is sinking this boat is sinking)
Let's go down to the water's edge
And we can cast away those doubts
Some things are better left unsaid
But they still turn me inside out
Turning inside out turning inside out
Tell me...
Why
Tell me...
Why

This is the book I never read
These are the words I never said
This is the path I'll never tread
These are the dreams I'll dream instead
This is the joy that's seldom spread
These are the tears...
The tears we shed
This is the fear
This is the dread
These are the contents of my head
And these are the years that we have spent
And this is what they represent
And this is how I feel
Do you know how I feel ?
'cause i don't think you know how I feel
I don't think you know what I feel
I don't think you know what I feel
You don't know what I feel

Great song.

VC