We get a lot of amazing guest entertainers on ships. I’ve met, partied with, shared drinks with and visited ports with some pretty incredible people. But every so often, there comes a chance to shake the hand of someone you never quite expected.
One of the things they do on the World Cruise is bring in at least two headliner entertainers. Two big names; one for the beginning of the cruise, and one for nearer to the end. Last year I stood in the lunch line-up behind Wayne Newton and thought very little of it…that was one of those moments when I realized my life was very strange indeed.
Last night, the headliner was Melissa Manchester. A name that doesn’t mean much to most people my age, but I grew up with music that was several generations behind my time, so I know her stuff, at least her big hits. One, in particular.
One thing I don’t care for about headliner acts is that they often open with their strongest number. They announce it and make a big deal out of it and then it’s done and the rest of the show is kind of …meh. For one thing, Melissa Manchester puts on a great show from beginning to end, and for two, she doesn’t ever mention her biggest hit, the one everyone’s waiting for. Which is of course Don’t Cry Out Loud.
Instead, she left it till last and said nothing about it, just nodded to the band who started the introduction – unchanged after all this time, there was the expected surge of applause, and then absolute silence.
Baby cried the day the circus came to town
‘Cause she didn’t want parades just passing by her
So she painted on a smile and took up…with some clown
While she danced without a net upon the wire…
Not too long ago I wrote about singing that song, it’s one of the charts I use in my busking act, and it’s my fall-back for when I need a pop-chart of an audition. But it’s something more than that as well. It’s been my theme song – or at least the sentiment behind it has – since I was very small. It’s helped me get through some of the hardest days, some of the hardest times, in my life. Its track four on my “Armoury” playlist, the list of songs I listen to when I know I need to pull up all my guards and scale whatever wall is in front of me.
When I was a teenager, I was asked to speak at my Grandmother’s funeral. I stood there, fighting with a myriad of conflicting emotions, and stared out into an audience that I wasn’t really sure I was ready to handle, and then down at the page in front of me bearing the words I was supposed to read. Less than half-way through the reading the words started to swim and I felt the tears start to come, and I remember very clearly thinking: “No! Shaughnessy no! Tears aren’t in your script…”
I think it was shortly after that that I discovered the song, and it’s been with me ever since.
So last night, I stood in the dressing room, and shook the hand of the woman who had brought that song to life before I was even a sparkle in my mother’s laugh..
Thank you…thank you for the song that’s helped saved my sanity so many times.
Sometimes, my job presents me with the most amazing , unexpected, gifts.