Every so often, miracles happen. Aretha Franklin was a miracle.
We’re used to the world working one way. We have a voice. We can sing. We’ve heard lots of other people sing: our friends, our grandparents, those famous people on the radio. Music is the performance of notes written on paper. “Happy Birthday.” “Take Me Out to the Ballgame.” A night of drunken karaoke. That’s the way the world works for most of us.
But Aretha was different. The notes on the page were simply the starting point on a journey to something otherworldly. She approached a song as a dangling thread, and when she grabbed on and pulled, you found it was connected to an undiscovered part of your soul.
Watch as she performs “A Natural Woman” at the Kennedy Center Honors in 2015. Carole King wrote that song. She heard it in her head before anyone else. She’s heard it covered a million times. She knows what it means. She knows what that song aspired to be. Yet when Aretha performs it, she takes the original idea and elevates it to such truth, the author is left in awe.
You’ll also notice President Obama wiping a tear from his eyes. The President later explained, “American history wells up when Aretha sings. That’s why, when she sits down at a piano and sings ‘A Natural Woman,’ she can move me to tears—the same way that Ray Charles’s version of ‘America the Beautiful’ will always be in my view the most patriotic piece of music ever performed—because it captures the fullness of the American experience, the view from the bottom as well as the top, the good and the bad, and the possibility of synthesis, reconciliation, transcendence.”
Even “transcendence” feels inadequate to describe her talent. Revolutionary? Genius? Inspiring? Words fall short when trying to capture her. Thankfully, when words fail, we have music. Aretha was music. Aretha was truth. Aretha was the Queen.
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