Clay Aiken - Learning to Sing: Hearing the Music in Your Life

LEARNING TO SING

Learning
to Sing

HEARING

THE MUSIC

IN YOUR

LIFE

Although this is a work of nonfiction,
some of the names have been changed.

Copyright 2004 by Clay Aiken

All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or any otherexcept for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

Published by W Publishing Group,
a Division of Thomas Nelson, Inc.,
P.O. Box 141000, Nashville, Tennessee 37214.

Published by arangement with Random House,
an imprint of Random House Publishing Group,
a division of Random House, Inc.

All photographs are from the authors collection.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication data is available

ISBN 0-8499-0007-7

W Publishing Group books may be purchased in bulk for educational, business, fundraising, or sales promotional use. For information, please email SpecialMarkets@ThomasNelson.com.

Printed in the United States of America

05 06 07 08 09 QW 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3

For my mother,
who sang to me first

The Lord will fight for you.

All you have to do is stand still.

Exodus 14:14

CONTENTS

LEARNING TO SING

If you lack purpose you dont touch that

many people. And you can touch people

through tragedy far better than you can

by having a perfect life.

Faye Parker, mom

CHAPTER ONE
Listen First

W hen I was a kid, the punishment I disliked the most was writing sentences.

Mymotherloved tomakemerecordmytransgressions always a minimum of five hundred timesand she even bought special spiral notebooks for me to fill up.

I will not talk back.

I will not say my dinner is yucky.

I will not say Grannys face needs ironing.

No matter how many notebooks I went through, there was always another one waiting in the kitchen drawer.

Im not sure writing sentences stopped me from acting out. But it did make me afraid of writing.

Still, here goes.

I wanted to write this book primarily as a thank-you to all the people who have helped me become the man I am. So much has happened since American Idol, and in many ways I havent had an opportunity to reflect. I have toured three times. I have moved twice. Ive flown across the country to appear on television programs that I used to watch. I recorded a solo album. A chicken with his head cut off has nothing on me.

My hope is that by writing this book, I will force myself to slow down a little and take the time to savor both the past and the present, to give myself a chance to remember what matters.

I also wanted to share stories about my life in the hope that it might enable a handful of other people to feel better about themselves.

I was dubbed a loser throughout most of my childhood.

As a kid, I was an insult magneta nerd who loved his grandparents, who wore the wrong clothes, who liked the wrong things, who had goofy hair and glasses, who didnt smoke or drink.

It made for a lonely childhood.

More than a decade later, I figured out that the real reason people didnt like me was that I didnt like me. When I learned to believe in myself, to have faith and to remain stubborn in my convictions, my life changed. Once I decided I was okay, other people agreed. And those folks who didnt agree didnt matter so much anymore. My mother taught me that we all have the power to achieve our dreams. What I lacked was the courage. The people I write about in this book gave me that courage. I learned from them, and as a former teacher, I believe that lessons should be passed along.

Many people think they know me from watching me on television, and in some ways they do. I like to think that what you see is basically who I am.

I like to talk. Im a terrible dancer. I love my hometown. I have freckles and oversized ears. Im a geek. I have tried not to hide who I am or what matters to me. Growing up in a friendly Southern town, I wasnt trained for subterfuge. My mama believed in honesty and integrity, and I have endeavored to live up to her example.

No person matures by himself. We have all had someone who reached down and picked us up when we couldnt manage to rise on our own. We have all been carried. I know I have been.

I was blessed with a mother who is strong, smart, and filled with the sort of decency that is out of fashion these days. Her fortitude enabled me to rise above circumstances that otherwise would have crushed me.

Que ser, ser, she would sing to me every night as I drifted off to sleep. Whatever will be, will be.

Mom helped me to see that every person is like a painting. When you come into contact with another life, that individual dabs a little bit of color onto your soul. It isnt always a color you like, but even ugliness provides its own lessons.

I learned this the hard way. There was no shortage of ugliness in my childhood. My daddy drank too much, and when he did, he turned to violence. Mom and I spent much of my early childhood disentangling ourselves from him.

Then I went to grade school and discovered a whole new form of cruelty: the heartlessness of exclusion.

Pain happens to everyone. To grow up, to fulfill your potential, to develop into what God wants you to bethis process takes support. No one succeeds alone.

It is like making an album. I may sing, but someone else writes the songs, someone produces, another person engineers, another person packages, another person markets, another person sells it, another person buys it. To say I created a platinum-selling album is silly. A group created it. Life is collaboration.

Now, Im able to screw things up on my own; thats not a problem. But getting things rightthat takes assistance and guidance.

I believe God has a plan. God has a direction for me. He may put me on a few detours, but the path will ultimately reveal itself. My job is to be a decent human being no matter how rocky the road gets.

Lately, the road has been pretty bumpy. Adjusting to life in Hollywood, far from the comfort of home, has been a challenge. I have had to adapt to so many things. Distance from my family. Traffic. Avocado on all the food.

Most of my new life is amazing. But then there are times when I look around and notice that everyone around me is a stranger. In Raleigh, I had friends for eighteen years. Out in L.A., I spend my days around people who have been in my world for only three months. I may see them every day, but they dont know me.

When I taped the Primetime Live interview with Diane Sawyer, I was struck for the first time with how significantly my life had changed. We were setting up in an old nightclub in New York City. There were arches, banquettes, and a curtained stage. The floor was checkered. It reminded me of the sort of place where Sinatra might have performed.

When I arrived, there were bright lights and cameras everywhere. People scurried around with clipboards and cell phones. There were producers and management teams and makeup artists and wardrobe consultants and camera operators and lighting experts and caterers and assistants for the assistants. I was stuck in the corner and I watched these masses of people rushing and bustling because of me. I wondered: