Last month’s Kennedy Center Honors had a finale to die for. When it was over, I grabbed the phone and called a friend to say I’d just seen one of the musical highlights of my lifetime. She agreed. Since then everyone I know who saw it agreed.
After tributes to Seiji Ozawa, Rita Moreno, Cicely Tyson and George Lucas, the last person honored was Carole King, who wrote dozens of songs over a period of five decades, standards you like to sing in the shower and the car.
And then came Aretha. She walked onstage in a full-length fur coat and sat down at the piano. Carole King jumped out of her chair and never sat down. As Aretha’s voiced soared through “You Make Me Feel Like a Natural Woman,” the audience erupted in song, smiles and tears. President Obama sang along, but skipped the words “like a woman.”
I especially appreciated the plus-aged and plus-sized back-up singers.
And then — and then! — Aretha got up from the piano, walked to center stage, and as she continued singing, dropped the fur to the floor! Now, a word about women and fur coats. With all respect to animal rights, I can’t think of a woman who doesn’t look and feel fabulous when she puts on a fur coat. I guess I’m channeling the last century. I’m thinking of Betty Grable in a short fur coat over a bathing suit, and Lauren Bacall or Rita Hayworth or Bette Davis dropping a fur to the floor.
I remembering having lunch with a friend several years ago. We went to the Drake. She turned down a table for two because she needed an extra chair for the mink. I guess you don’t trust a mink to the coat check. I also remember my aunts and my mother, all of whom had fur coats and kisses that smelled of face powder and Persian lamb.
I’ve had several fur coats, all of them used. I think you’re justified in wearing fur if you live in Chicago, but I’m probably wrong.
But I’m not wrong about this: When Aretha Franklin dropped the fur coat, it was the perfect “I’m Aretha, and you’re not” moment.
And then — AND THEN! — she lifted her bare arms above her head to sing and thus made the world safe for women my age with flappy underarms! As if to say to the size 2-4 girls, “Get over it; it happens.”
Finally a word about the song: If you’re a woman, it’s a good life if you’ve ever experienced the perfect intersection of sex and love that makes you sing “You Make Me Feel Like a Natural Woman” in the mirror, in the car or at the kitchen sink.