February 15, 2010
Susan Boyle’s interview with Mark Phillips was featured on CBS Sunday Morning yesterday.
Here’s the video and the supplemented transcript from CBS
“Dream girl”
[VIDEO EMBEDDING DISABLED]
TRANSCRIPT FOLLOWS
MARK PHILLIPS VOICEOVER: Susan Boyle wasn’t just an unknown wannabe when she walked onto that stage ten months ago. She was an innocent, placing herself in the jaws of fame. And they almost chewed her up. It was the beginning of what she now calls her roller coaster ride.
SUSAN BOYLE:
Minding my own business, getting into a talent show, I didn’t even know how I was going to do in the talent show, and suddenly poof! Just like a demolition ball hit me a bit like a demolition ball hit me!
PHILLIPS:
It seems like you’d been hit by a 2×4 or something.
BOYLE:
Something like that! Suddenly it felt that way!
VOICEOVER: All Susan had come to do was sing – a promise she had made to a dying mother. And when she did, the world couldn’t help but stop to listen.
Her performance became a “Where were you when you heard?” event. In a day, she had gone from being a nobody from a place you never heard of, to being one of the most famous people in the world. It was YouTube’s most-played clip of the year – 300,000,000 hits. But if Susan Boyle stunned the world – it was nothing compared to the way the world would stun her.
BOYLE:
Well, I knew I was well enough to sing, but I was just coping with the press and added attention and the stress that brings – it’s been making the stress out of control at that time. There were about 50 television stations outside my door and stuff like that.
PHILLIPS: Including us!
BOYLE:
I’m not saying you! No, no, not at all. And it’s difficult for someone who was really quiet to come to terms with that.
VOICEOVER: She was then a 47-year-old woman who had never left the home in which she had cared for her aging mother, in the down-at-the-heels Scottish town of Blackburn. By her own admission, she had never been kissed, had “learning difficulties,” was bullied at school. And now the world was beating a path to her door.
—Old footage—
PHILLIPS:
You’ve lived a quiet life, looking after your mother and before that your father, in this house. You were known locally, but why did you make a decision to step out?
BOYLE:
I did, yeah, because I felt I owed something back from my mother, so I thought I’d do this as some kind of tribute to her.
PHILLIPS: What do you think she’d think of it now?
BOYLE: She’s probably be very proud of me!
PHILLIPS: Do you have any sense, any idea how your life is going to change?
BOYLE: I have no idea. One step at a time, each day as it comes.
–end–
VOICEOVER: And boy, did it come. She couldn’t get a haircut without the newspapers weighing in. She couldn’t have an argument with a pestering fan without being labeled a thug. Boyle broke under the pressure, and had to retire to a clinic. Her new life wasn’t just chewing her up – it seemed about to spit her out.
BOYLE:
Well, I was like a scared child before, but I’m not the scared person I used to be. I’m more adult in the way I compose myself. I’m more adult in the way I approach the job now. And it’s a very pleasant job. And I’ve met a lot of nice people. I’ve had expertise – experts telling me how to go about it.
PHILLIPS:
You say a scared child – in what ways were you unprepared?
BOYLE:
Well, I had to learn how to deal with a lot of publicity and the glare of attention. And that takes a bit to get used to but, um, I got there in the end.
[they laugh]
VOICEOVER: Where she’s gotten to is the next chapter in the remarkable rise and rise of Susan Boyle.
BOYLE:
Apart from I’ve never really been outside Blackburn.
PHILLIPS: That’s changed.
BOYLE: It’s changed a lot! [laughs] I’m happy to say.
[they laugh]
VOICEOVER: Her new CD, “I Dreamed a Dream,” released late last year, has done what everything associated with Susan Boyle has done: set records. It shot to number one with a bullet, and was the fastest-selling female debut album ever. It’s sold 3.5 million copies so far.
And it wasn’t just a medley of her hits. It showed she is an artist with range, with performances ranging from the torch song “Cry Me a River” and the inspirational “Amazing Grace,” to the Rolling Stones’ “Wild Horses,” and Madonna’s “You’ll See.”
BOYLE:
I like to be challenged, and saw them as a challenge. So if you sing things that are away from what people expect, it shows them what you can do. You see whether or not you are versatile.
PHILLIPS:
Have you surprised yourself with your own versatility?
BOYLE:
I have actually. Absolutely honest, I have.
PHILLIPS:
You didn’t know that you can do that kind of thing before you actually tried it?
BOYLE:
I didn’t know. It was actually an experimentation. But it’s good to experiment. It’s a bit like having a wee flower. If you put wee bit of water, it gradually blossoms. So we see what happens from there.
PHILLIPS: You’re that blossoming flower!
BOYLE: Well, the baby step, yes.
VOICEOVER: Boyle often talks about taking baby steps. She’s had brief forays of travel . . . New York, LA, Japan….has done the morning show circuit in the US. And she’s even hoping she gets to the point where she can go on tour and keep surprising her audience, and herself.
BOYLE:
I think I’m entertaining people. I’m inspiring a lot of people. A lot of people have written to me saying how much they’ve been inspired. And I like to keep on doing that for as long as it lasts.
PHILLIPS: Do you still have to pinch yourself?
BOYLE: [pinches herself] Ooo, yeah, certainly yes!
PHILLIPS: You can vouch for it.
BOYLE: I can vouch for it, I’ve just done it!
