Susan Boyle takes over reins of “Wild Horses”
Maybe “Salt of the Earth” would have been a more appropriate choice for a Rolling Stones song, but everyone’s favorite underdog Susan Boyle seems to have wowed the masses with her tasteful cover of the rock band’s “Wild Horses.”
The powerful ballad about love and loss is the first single from the British talent-show heroine’s upcoming debut album, and she previewed it for U.S. viewers during Wednesday’s episode of “America’s Got Talent.”
The “live” performance was actually taped the night before, according to the Los Angeles Times, which hailed it as “lovely, inspirational, free of surprises.” Then again, the paper said Boyle’s version lacked the original’s irony, although it’s not clear that there was any irony in the original.
The single version, with Boyle accompanied by a pianist, is perhaps more faithful to the restrained, elegiac tone of the original version. On TV, she unleashed her inner opera diva and also omitted the third verse, which contains the song’s most memorable line, “Let’s do some living after we die.”
If anyone stood to be offended it was picky fans of the Rolling Stones, but a survey of responses on the fan Web site It’s Only Rock’n Roll indicated near-unanimous approval. There was no immediate word from writers Mick Jagger and Keith Richards. Jagger has said that Richards came up with the melody and the phrase “Wild Horses” and that he wrote the rest. The tune is a popular inclusion in the band’s set lists.
Boyle, meanwhile, is scheduled to release her album “I Dreamed a Dream” on Nov. 24 in the United States through Columbia Records. The shy, 48-year-old spinster rose to overnight worldwide fame in April, after tens of millions of people watched her bravura appearance on “Britain’s Got Talent.” Unable to deal with the sudden attention, Boyle was admitted to a London rehab clinic the next month to deal with anxiety.






