Damien should win.....

[dleitful]

hyperrune said:

Yeah you're right - it might be a matter of experience though, considering Damien has so much love in his life with his family, but Jess' boyfriend is kind of on again/off again

I think this actually gave Damien a significant advantage in the delivery of the song you know. I won't start on the lyrics (I'm sure you're all tired of me rubbishing them) but there is stuff in there to draw on, and there's obviously some subtle Damo singing to his wife bizzo going on there if you watch the clip again.
Have to say....KUDOS to Damien for NOT taking the predictable route of mentioning his baby son and how this song was dedicated to him and his wife blah blah blah oh isn't my son adorable blah blah in a politician-style grubby vote grab. Yeah he made passing reference to "a night of tears" near the beginning but then moved on. Smacks of integrity. Thumbs up boy.

[Mi chiamano Kami]

Yeah... I actually bothered to listen to the lyrics to the winner's... thing tonight, and somehow it doesn't seem so bad with Damien singing those words. He even sold the 'shooting stars' line, which was where I kind of lost it when I heard Jess singing it (bless her, she did the best she could with a lousy arrangement). Heck, the words sound good. I'm starting to love the song. I'm singing along to it - that has never happened to me with a winner's single, although I was inspired to deliver a touching rendition of "Listen With Your Heart" today when my mother had Anthony's version on repeat. Now, there's a song that no clever arrangement could have saved. I'll shut up about it now because my hate for it is irrelevant here.
The interesting thing about the winner's single for me is that I really didn't pay attention to the lyrics when I was listening to Damien singing it for the first time. Lyrics are important to me so I was confused, especially when it took me a few plays of the mp3 to actually bother picking them out. I think the arrangement, and Damien's vocals, tell the story on their own. Which is why I'm no longer worried about Damien having to release this as his first single if he wins. He sort of cuts through the words and delivers the message with the parts he can influence. Or maybe I'm just distracted by his voice. I don't know why I loved it last night because technically he wasn't as spot on as he usually is, but there was some other quality to his singing that really enthralled me. If anyone can puzzle this out for me it'd be a big help...?

I have to say though I love what Damien said about the song in the magazine my mother bought today - "Did you like the song?" "Yeah, once I'd worked it into something I would sing!" *describes changes made to song in an incredibly complicated way* Nice, tactful way of saying, "It sucked until I came along and fixed it!"

[hyperrune]

I can't stop listening to the mp3 of Night of my Life, and I realized why it was so powerful. For me, he seemed to be saying one of two things:
a) Jess we've made it this far together, but though we're both here under the name Australian Idol, the title can only go to one of us (thus the 'renting someone else's space' line). I just want to tell you that whoever wins, I'm enjoying sharing the experience with you, and we'll always have the memories to look back on, no matter what happens next week.
b) Eileen, I don't know what's going to happen after this comp; I could become famous, or I could go back to gigging. However whatever happens, I can always go home to you and just be a family; and no matter what happens, that night at the opera house will be our night of triumph.
Judging by the way Eileen was standing up during that performance and damien seemed to be looking in her direction when the camera cut back to him, I think the second scenario is more likely.
It's weird - when I heard this song a second time, I thought it sounded like a 'loser's song', in terms of the negative tone, the kind of "I'm gonna fail but oh well I had fun tonight" attitude of it. But I really, really want Damien to win - I love his version of that song, he really made it his own! There's this bit where he says the word 'today' three times and gradually gets higher until her goes supersonic - I hope for the sake of Jess' throat that she doesn't try to match that! It isn't until they both sing the same song that you realize just how superior he is!

[Neski]

Hyp - yes those 'meaning' or storys are likely. I like the second one ;D

[Mi chiamano Kami]

Yes, I love those two scenarios and I personally think Damien was expressing a bit of both, although mostly the second because we know he's so family-oriented. And thinking about it I feel the 'loser' vibe to Damien's arrangement... I guess it was always going to sound a lot more melancholy with the Coldplay makeover, but it's like Damien put a lot of what he's feeling at the moment into that song. Not that he's a loser at all, but I think with his experience of the industry he'd know that most good things really are too good to be true and be wary of allowing himself to build castles on land he might not even get to own. And so, like he said somewhere, he's just going to enjoy what he's got for the moment. And somehow while he was beating that song with a stick to make it something worth his while, he threw his attitude into his arrangement.

Which is another reason I'd love for him to win - aside from the fact that I think it's just awesome to feel all of that from a song, I want to see if he sings it differently a second time, knowing that he's won the competition and has a record contract and all that.

Hmm... I really wonder if it amuses Damien to suddenly have people hyper-analysing everything he says or sings? ;D

[hyperrune]

Perhaps it's just me...hyper analysing is my speciality!
Personally he's probably thinking "Wow, people believe this crap? They actually call it a song??"
Seriously though, he said in an interview (I can't remember which!) that he learn from Celebration that it just won't work if he's not feeling the song. Personally, I was feeling it, and he seemed to be feeling it...anyway, I digress. He managed to cram a feeling into the soppy junk called the winner's song and made it more of a winner...I suppose, if it seems like a loser's song, it could just be the losery lyrics. I wonder what those 18 songs on his proposed album are like...I'm guessing I've already heard 4 of them!

[auntybesure]

I personally thought Jess was really strong on Sunday night and was getting a little worried because although Damo was brilliant in both Never Meant to Fail and Waiting on an Angel, it was more like a personal gig for his fans rather than still being a part of the competition to get new votes. But then I thought back to all Jess's other permormances and you know what, I could hardly remember any of them - they all blurred into one. Whereas with Damien, I can remember each and every song so well that I struggle to remember the versions of the original artists! I was at an Idol party with about 16 people and we were all thinking "oh Damien, not sure if you can compete with the way Jess got everyone up and about in 'together again' - even we were all dancing along. But ha hah! As soon as his version of the winners song started we all breathed a huge sigh of relief and fell on the floor swooning and dribbling, feeling rather victorious at the same time. You just can't compete with that level of originality and pure musical talent - it goes way beyond just having a great voice.
I also like the way that Andrew G said that it was Damien's voice, intelligence and grace (?was it grace?) that got him to this stage of the comp. Oh, and the little shoulder shimmy Damo did when he was singing the lead up to the chorus in the second version ("nothing seems to last forever...")...hmm.
I love reading all your thoughts...it's a pain not being able to share my excitement with my husband who thinks I've lost the plot right now!