15 Songs I'm Digging Right Now: #14
Stop chopping up Cynthia Erivo footage while she's singing!
Hello, my wonderful readers. For the rest of the month, I’m saving the song-by-song in-depth analysis for the one-off, niche-r newsletters Christmas-themed newsletters coming out this month, in addition to my mega year-end newsletter. (Kind of impressed with how many hyphens I just used?) Don’t worry, there’ll still be 15 of my favorite songs this week curated by yours truly. I’m just saving all the geeking out for my Christmas newsletters. And remember, it’s not your fault. Your father and I still love you very much.
"Opening / Mysterious Ways" - 2015 Broadway Cast of The Color Purple (2015)
Spotify | Apple | YouTube | TIDAL | Amazon
Musical Theater | Soul | Gospel
My Cynthia Erivo love was born in 2016 when I saw her in The Color Purple on Broadway. Can I show you something truly insane? Here it is:
The joy of Cynthia Erivo is being able to watch her sing. It’s an Olympic feat. This is why I was upset there were so many cuts during “Defying Gravity” in the Wicked movie. I was practically shouting, “STAY STILL!” at the camera. The last number is such a power ballad and you can see from the clip above that she’s bursting with power. I wish we, the audience, could have watched her sing it. It’s one of those things that, if I try to fix it in my head, it doesn’t work. For the sake of storytelling, they had to show Elphaba in motion. But man, it really cuts the magnitude of “Defying Gravity” right in half if you can’t watch just how much is required to sing it. Anyway, rewatching that clip has given me goosebumps all over…all over again. She’s incredible.
Don’t tell Patti LuPone I showed you this, but I really do recommend watching the full opening number if you can. It makes me cry every single time.
Congratulations, @tribal.twins! You are Video Of The Week!
To get the full playlist, subscribe to Grace Spelman Music Project for $5/month!