Having a Voice
There’s a bit of a background to this, so bear with me. As readers here likely know, I’m a big fan of the Australian group The Seekers, who had major hits with songs including “Georgy Girl,” “I’ll Never Find Another You” and “A World of Our Own.” And one of their huge hits, though not remotely as well-known in the U.S. as in Australia – where it’s beloved and is considered the unofficial national anthem – is a song co-written by one of the group's members, Bruce Woodley, “I am Australian.” (Quick side note: Woodley also co-wrote “Red Rubber Ball” with Paul Simon!) “I am Australian” is a wonderful song, and – as a core part of the background to this tale, which I'll continue below – here are The Seekers singing it in their farewell concert tour in 2014.
And now on to the main part. Though I haven’t watched The Voice in a long while, I actually enjoy watching special clips of international versions of the show. They often do off-beat things which I find adds an emotional sense of drama. I’ve posted a few of them in this past, and this is another perfect example of that. I don’t want to say why, in this case, and it has several wonderful, surprising twists in it. All I’ll say is that contestants here are two men, aged 79 and 74. It runs around 12 minutes, but all worth it. And I’ll add an admonition, watch the clip to the very end. If you want to jump to the end, fine, but jump to the end at the 10:55 mark. Though if you do, you’ll miss some wonderful material in between. It’s all very moving, sometimes very funny, often very entertaining, and a total joy.
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