Susan Boyle is one of the most virtuosic singers to emerge from any talent competition — full stop. She was a complete revelation when she first appeared on Britain’s Got Talent in 2009, stunning the world with a poignant cover of “I Dream a Dream” from Les Misérables. Over the past 15 years she’s gone on to put her stamp on a number of classic songs — from Madonna to Celine Dion to, well, basically every holiday tune there is.
Which leads us to “Silent Night.” Boyle included the beloved Christmas carol on her record-breaking 2009 album, “I Dreamed a Dream,” and her version is so good, it would make literal angels cry. Yep!
Susan Boyle’s cover of “Silent Night”: listen
Don’t believe us? Listen for yourself, below. The moody, atmospheric production is subdued enough to let Boyle’s heavenly voice take center stage. Later on the track, she’s joined by a full choir, adding even more dimension to this cover.
“I come from a musical family,” Boyle told Revive magazine. “My mum was a singer, my dad was a singer, and even my nine siblings were passionate about music, so I had a great support network.”
“Our expectations were quite low, but she is the perfect example of never judge a book by its cover,” Simon Cowell said on an episode of America’s Got Talent recalling Boyle’s BGT Audition. “She is just the most incredible person. This was a lady who lived on her own in Scotland, and she came on the show and everything changed. Because up until that point, there was a perception that you had to look this way, or be this age, and she just changed the rulebook.”
“I’ll never forget this,” Cowell said about watching Boyle in 2009. “I was having a terrible, terrible day, and I remember saying, ‘I really, really hope she’s not gonna sing,’ because there were so many bad singers that day and I thought, ‘I just can’t take another one.’”
Thankfully, Boyle wasn’t bad. Far from it, in fact.
