Cynthia Erivo: Reviewed

The best songs have double meanings; "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" could be about Oz, but it could also be about fleeing pogroms in Eastern Europe.

"Killing Me Softly" was intended in a literal way; it really was about seeing a male performer, feeling "understood" by an artist. When I watch a Nicole Holofcener movie, I feel she is "strumming my pain with her fingers"; she understands who I am. This is the kind of artistic connection that Roberta Flack describes.

However, on another level, "Killing Me Softly" is about sadism. It's about helpless love. The speaker is in thrall to a man, and the experience is painful: "I prayed that he would finish, but he just kept right on." The man is especially seductive because he isn't really "invested": "He sang as if he knew me, in all my dark despair. And then he looked right through me, as if I wasn't there."

This is blinding, irrational love. Nothing is resolved; no one is empowered. The speaker repeats one phrase over and over--"killing me softly"--as if she can't quite believe what is happening.

Cynthia Erivo did a memorable version on PBS.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=cN2MYU67Q7s

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