Everything about this song is epic and designed to make you, the listener, feel epic. It’s from the musical Man of La Mancha – which is a version of the Don Quixote story. The song was given a new lease of life by the Honda ad in which a guy drives a speedboat over the edge of a waterfall. It remains an awe-inspiring song, here given a breathtakingly sensitive reading by Andy Williams. The sentiments of the song are uplifting and genuinely inspiring in a way a speech by Kier Starmer never will be. It’s a kind of anthem, without dance.
Thanks in part to my uncle Barry, who loved the Williams track Happy Heart, I think of Andy Williams as the crooner’s crooner. He sings with such an even and balanced tone. He is a tenor with a wide range – he has a great falsetto and is really light and bright on low notes. Such is his silkiness as a singer, he puts the oooh into smooth.
This is a song celebrating losers, those with seats on the last train to Loserville. (They are reimagined or reframed as unsung heroes.) For those unfamiliar with the Don Quixote story, he is a mad knight who jousts with windmills thinking they’re evil giants and attacks an inn that he thinks is a castle. The song (his defence of and explanation of the meaning of his quest) consists of back-to- back paradoxes:
To dream the impossible dream
To fight the unbeatable foe
To bear with unbearable sorrow
To run where the brave dare not goTo right the unrightable wrong
To love pure and chaste from afar
To try when your arms are too weary
To reach the unreachable star
So, on one level, the song describes behaviour that is delusional. If his quest is to fight the unbeatable foe, he is picking a fight he can’t win (e.g., against someone like Thanos in The Avengers). This is the definition of futility. To try when your arms are too weary creates an image of infinite exhaustion, of persistence past the point of no return. There’s a later line about marching into Hell for a heavenly cause. This evokes a journey to a destination you can’t return from – the site of eternal punishment. But, and this is the paradox, the journey is worth enduring, it is suggested, if the cause is good enough.
In other words, all these actions that are part of the quest have failure baked into them. But nevertheless, the musical suggests, there’s something great about Quixote. And what’s great is the quality of his dream, and his dedication to pursuing it. Hence the song title Impossible Dream. The song suggests that the (heroic) failure of the quest – because of the manner in which it has been pursued – will inspire others. This is what is implied in the line – and the world will be better for this. The quest is not about self-aggrandisement. Paradoxically and very democratically, the little guy is allowed to be a hero (even if only in his own mind), the song says. All he or she has to do is believe in belief.
What’s great about the performance is: Andy Williams avoids bluster and bombast. There’s real pain and sorrow here. He humanises the mad knight. For me, this is the definitive version of the song. He adds the emotional colouring and shading that really allows the listener to connect with the meaning of the song’s words. When he sings to bear with unbearable sorrow, he drops to a much lower pitch relative to the previous line, creating a sense of plumbing the depths emotionally. Plus, he sings the line in a way that really emphasises the more open vowel sounds of ‘bear’ and ‘unbearable’ suggesting real pain and genuine sorrow. The meaning of ‘to bear’ - carrying weight and responsibility - is foregrounded. An active, rather than a passive, quality is suggested; strength rather than weakness.
But it’s in the ending of the song that his peerless technique is most visible:
And I know if I'll only be true to this glorious quest
That my heart will lie peaceful and calm
When I'm laid to my restAnd the world will be better for this
That one man, scorned and covered with scars
Still strove with his last ounce of courage
To fight the unbeatable foe
To reach the unreachable star
When he sings That my heart will lie peaceful and calm/when I’m laid to my rest, he sings it with such a dying fall. In contrast to the previous line, the lines are sung much more quietly, but with a sweet lightness and brightness that perfectly captures the longing for peace. Paradoxically, it’s only when he’s given everything that he can even contemplate rest (something he is desperate for, on one level). This is the part of the song that shows the extreme emotional cost of heroism.
The way the final two lines are performed is awesome. Williams gently presses the accelerator – to produce a sense of ever-increasing and sustained power (the opposite of a fade). Thus, the song ends with a sense that the good fight is ongoing, that Quixote’s indomitable spirit is unresting. I don’t know another singer who could deliver those two lines with such control and with such a sense of subtle drama.
Epic is right, so good and a spot-on appreciation that gets it exactly (pretty great ad too!)