What backing singers are really thinking behind the ‘ooh, ooh, oohs’

Have you ever looked at backing singers and thought: what is their story? Do they or have they ever prayed for their time to come? As they are going ‘ooh ooh, ooh ooh’ behind Kylie are they thinking, ‘I want to kill Kylie’? Do they mind that no one knows their name? Do they ever ponder why it’s so often white artists with black backing singers and never the other way round? I have often wondered about all this, and now realise if I’d stopped idling over such questions, got off the sofa and done some digging, I could now be in possession of an Oscar. I’m a fool to myself; I truly am.

So I did nothing, and cleared the way for Twenty Feet from Stardom, which did get off the sofa, and did dig around, and did win the best documentary Oscar — that is, my Oscar — but I’ve decided: no hard feelings, because it’s just such a wonderful film and, get this, actually feels too short at 96 minutes. When have I ever said that before? Almost never, that’s when. I even sat through to the end of the credits, which is something I never normally do, as I wanted to stay with the sound-track as long as I could. The soundtrack is bliss. The soundtrack will make your spine tingle. The soundtrack will ensure you never listen to the Rolling Stones’ ‘Gimme Shelter’ in the same way ever again. Or ‘Young Americans’. Or ‘Walk on the Wild Side’. And yet the soundtrack may even be the least of it. Yes, it will resonate, and you’ll probably come away with an earworm — I came away with ‘Da Doo Ron Ron’ as my earworm — but it’s the extraordinary women, and their stories, that will resonate the most.