People who... whatever

At the very end of her concert at Madison Square Garden last night, Barbra Streisand sang "Just Smile" as an encore.

In ballads like this, custom permits a singer to drop out at the start of the second verse and let the music play alone until she rejoins for the final chorus. In performance, a singer like Streisand might draw the ears of the audience in closer during the pause with a brief, spoken remark intended to express something personal.

Last night, as the orchestra flowed into the second verse of "Just Smile" Streisand started to murmur a few words about the airplane accident on the East Side that had happened earlier in the day. She spoke as she went along, heartfelt and consoling, but a little aimlessly. As the music inched closer to the chorus, she suddenly ran out of time to talk and floundered, “Our hearts go out… to… all those who… whatever.”

At least I think that’s what she said. Many times in the course of the evening words were lost in the Garden’s inapt acoustic. So I may have misheard her fumbled remark. Whatever the case, I shook with the giggles all the way to the end of the song.