0:00:00.036,0:00:05.197
I didn't know when I agreed to do this,

0:00:05.197,0:00:10.740
whether I was expected to talk, or to sing.

0:00:10.740,0:00:15.860
But when I was told that the topic was language,

0:00:15.860,0:00:20.626
I felt that I had to speak about something for a moment.

0:00:20.626,0:00:25.052
I have a problem.

0:00:25.052,0:00:26.838
It's not the worst thing in the world,

0:00:26.838,0:00:28.077
I'm fine,

0:00:28.077,0:00:29.894
I'm not on fire,

0:00:29.894,0:00:31.739
I know that other people in the world

0:00:31.739,0:00:36.123
have far worst things to deal with,

0:00:36.123,0:00:41.770
but for me, language and music are

0:00:41.770,0:00:46.462
inextricably linked through this one thing.

0:00:46.462,0:00:54.062
And the thing, is that, I have a stutter.

0:00:54.062,0:01:00.324
It might seem curious given that I spend a lot of my life on the stage.

0:01:00.324,0:01:03.075
One would assume that i'm comfortable

0:01:03.075,0:01:08.363
in the public's fear and comfortable here, speaking to you guys.

0:01:08.363,0:01:13.073
But the truth is that I've spent my life up on to this point

0:01:13.073,0:01:20.679
and including this point, living in mortal dread of public speaking.

0:01:20.679,0:01:22.683
Public 'singing',

0:01:22.683,0:01:23.646
whole different thing.

0:01:23.646,0:01:25.716
[Chuckles]

0:01:25.716,0:01:28.979
But we'll get to that in a moment.

0:01:28.979,0:01:34.895
I've never really talked about it before so explicitly.

0:01:34.895,0:01:37.321
I think that that's because I've always lived in hope

0:01:37.321,0:01:40.008
that when I was a grown-up,

0:01:40.008,0:01:45.629
I wouldn't have one.

0:01:45.629,0:01:49.559
I sort of lived with this idea that when i'm grown,

0:01:49.559,0:01:52.914
I'd learn to speak French,

0:01:52.914,0:01:55.784
and when i'm grown, i'll learn how to manage my money,

0:01:55.784,0:01:57.921
and when i'm grown, I won't have a stutter,

0:01:57.921,0:02:00.401
and i'll be able to public speak and maybe be the Prime Minister

0:02:00.401,0:02:02.295
and anything's possible and, you know.

0:02:02.295,0:02:07.087
[Chuckles]

0:02:07.087,0:02:10.140
So I can talk about it now,

0:02:10.140,0:02:17.870
because I've reached this point, where, I mean, i'm 28.

0:02:17.870,0:02:20.471
I'm pretty sure that i'm grown now.

0:02:20.491,0:02:22.359
[Chuckles]

0:02:22.359,0:02:24.362
And i'm an adult woman,

0:02:24.362,0:02:28.344
who spends her life as a performer,

0:02:28.344,0:02:31.098
with a speech impediment.

0:02:31.098,0:02:35.462
So, I might as well come clean about it.

0:02:35.462,0:02:39.287
There are some interesting angles to having a stutter.

0:02:39.287,0:02:42.682
For me, the worst thing that can happen

0:02:42.682,0:02:45.930
is meeting another stutterer.

0:02:45.930,0:02:49.215
[Laughter]

0:02:49.215,0:02:52.532
This happened to me in Hamburg, when

0:02:52.532,0:02:54.519
this guy, we met and he said,

0:02:54.519,0:02:58.187
"Hello, m..m..m..my name is Joe",

0:02:58.187,0:02:58.621
and I said,

0:02:58.621,0:03:02.189
"Hello, m..m..m..my name is Mey".

0:03:02.189,0:03:03.827
Imagine my horror when I realized

0:03:03.827,0:03:06.589
he thought that I was making fun of him.

0:03:06.589,0:03:12.833
[Laughter]

0:03:12.833,0:03:17.389
People think i'm drunk. All the time.

0:03:17.389,0:03:21.251
[Laughter]

0:03:21.251,0:03:29.420
People think that I've forgotten their name, when I hesitate before saying it.

0:03:29.420,0:03:31.658
And it is a very weird thing, because

0:03:31.658,0:03:36.065
proper nouns are the worst.

0:03:36.065,0:03:39.918
If i'm gonna use the word, 'Wednesday', in a sentence,

0:03:39.918,0:03:42.591
and i'm coming up to the word,

0:03:42.591,0:03:45.633
and I can feel that i'm gonna stutter or something,

0:03:45.633,0:03:50.993
I can change the word, to 'tomorrow', or 'the day after Tuesday',

0:03:50.993,0:03:55.053
or something else, you know, it's clunky,

0:03:55.053,0:03:58.474
but you can get away with it.

0:03:58.474,0:04:05.639
Because over time, I've developed this loophole method of using speech

0:04:05.639,0:04:12.523
where right at the last minute you change the thing and you trick your brain.

0:04:12.523,0:04:15.915
But with peoples' names, you can't change them.

0:04:15.915,0:04:19.360
[Chuckles]

0:04:19.360,0:04:22.431
When I was singing a lot of jazz,

0:04:22.431,0:04:27.919
I worked a lot with a pianist whose name was Steve.

0:04:27.919,0:04:33.470
As you can probably gather, 'S's and 'T's together, or independently,

0:04:33.470,0:04:36.118
are like Kryptonite.

0:04:36.118,0:04:38.081
[Chuckles]

0:04:38.081,0:04:39.926
But I would have to introduce the band

0:04:39.926,0:04:43.487
over this rolling vamp, you know,

0:04:43.487,0:04:46.058
and when I got around to Steve,

0:04:46.058,0:04:51.795
I'd often find myself stuck on the 'St'.

0:04:51.795,0:04:57.530
And it was a bit awkward and uncomfortable and it totally kills the vibe, you know.

0:04:57.530,0:04:59.750
So after a few instances of this,

0:04:59.750,0:05:04.115
Steve happily became 'Seve'.

0:05:04.115,0:05:05.781
[Laughter]

0:05:05.781,0:05:10.832
And we got through it that way.

0:05:10.832,0:05:12.695
I've had a lot of therapy,

0:05:12.695,0:05:19.878
and a common form of treatment is to use this technique that's called , 'Smooth Speech',

0:05:19.878,0:05:25.489
which is where you almost sing everything that you say.

0:05:25.489,0:05:32.125
You kind of join everything together in this very sing-song, kindergarten teacher sort of way,

0:05:32.125,0:05:35.347
and it makes you sound very serene, like you've had lots of valium,

0:05:35.347,0:05:36.009
[Laughter]

0:05:36.009,0:05:39.819
and everything is calm.

0:05:39.819,0:05:42.918
That's not actually me, you know.

0:05:42.918,0:05:51.814
And I do, I do use that, I use it when I have to be on panel shows,

0:05:51.814,0:05:56.255
or when I have to do radio interviews,

0:05:56.255,0:06:00.774
when the economy of airtime is Paramount.

0:06:00.774,0:06:04.262
[Laughter]

0:06:04.262,0:06:08.794
I get through it that way, you know, for my job.

0:06:08.794,0:06:11.362
But as an artist who feels that their work

0:06:11.362,0:06:17.666
is based solely on a platform of honesty,

0:06:17.666,0:06:21.429
and being real,

0:06:21.429,0:06:25.450
that feels often like cheating.

0:06:25.450,0:06:32.056
Which is why before I sing, I wanted to tell you what singing means to me.

0:06:32.056,0:06:36.077
It's more than making nice sounds,

0:06:36.077,0:06:41.524
and it's more than making nice song,

0:06:41.524,0:06:47.012
it's more than feeling known, or understood.

0:06:47.012,0:06:53.232
It's more than making you feel the things that I feel.

0:06:53.232,0:06:55.920
It's not about mythology,

0:06:55.920,0:07:00.984
or mythologizing myself to you.

0:07:00.984,0:07:10.775
Somehow, through some miraculous synaptic function of the human brain,

0:07:10.775,0:07:16.561
it's impossible to stutter when you sing.

0:07:16.561,0:07:20.116
And when I was younger, that was a method of treatment

0:07:20.116,0:07:22.473
that worked very well for me.

0:07:22.473,0:07:24.788
Singing.

0:07:24.788,0:07:26.266
So I did it a lot.

0:07:26.266,0:07:28.163
[Chuckles]

0:07:28.163,0:07:31.993
And that's why i'm here, today.

0:07:31.993,0:07:42.464
[Applause]

0:07:42.464,0:07:47.134
Singing for me is sweet relief.

0:07:47.134,0:07:55.635
It is the only time when I feel fluent.

0:07:55.635,0:07:59.484
It is the only time when what comes out of my mouth

0:07:59.484,0:08:01.448
is comprehensively exactly what I intended.

0:08:01.448,0:08:04.139
[Chuckles]

0:08:04.139,0:08:10.950
So I know that this is a TED talk, but now i'm going to TED sing.

0:08:10.950,0:08:12.543
This is a song that I wrote last year.

0:08:12.543,0:08:13.960
Thank you very much.

0:08:13.960,0:08:14.970
Thank you.

0:08:14.970,0:08:27.721
[Applause]

0:08:27.721,0:08:43.203
[Piano]

0:08:43.203,0:08:47.048
I would be a beauty

0:08:47.048,0:08:50.466
but my nose

0:08:50.466,0:08:54.234
is slightly too big

0:08:54.234,0:08:57.752
for my face

0:08:57.752,0:09:01.712
And I would be a dreamer

0:09:01.712,0:09:05.183
but my dream

0:09:05.183,0:09:08.659
is slightly too big

0:09:08.659,0:09:12.267
for this space

0:09:12.267,0:09:16.445
And I would be an angel

0:09:16.445,0:09:19.450
but my halo

0:09:19.450,0:09:23.344
impales in the glow

0:09:23.344,0:09:26.903
of your grace

0:09:26.903,0:09:30.755
And I would be a joker

0:09:30.755,0:09:39.359
but that could look silly when you play

0:09:39.359,0:09:43.174
your ace

0:09:43.174,0:09:56.111
[Piano]

0:09:56.111,0:10:00.102
And I'd like to know,

0:10:00.102,0:10:03.840
Are there stars in hell?

0:10:03.840,0:10:07.510
And I'd like to know,

0:10:07.510,0:10:10.941
know if you can tell

0:10:10.941,0:10:18.025
that you make me lose everything I know

0:10:18.025,0:10:24.585
That I cannot choose to or not let go

0:10:24.585,0:10:38.499
[Piano]

0:10:38.499,0:10:42.635
And I'd stay forever

0:10:42.635,0:10:46.023
but my home

0:10:46.023,0:10:49.398
is slightly too far

0:10:49.398,0:10:52.606
from this place

0:10:52.606,0:10:56.771
And I swear I tried to

0:10:56.771,0:11:00.380
slow it down

0:11:00.380,0:11:07.408
when I'm walking at your pace

0:11:07.408,0:11:09.168
But all I could think

0:11:09.168,0:11:14.616
Is land through the cities,

0:11:14.616,0:11:21.858
Do I look pretty in the rain?

0:11:21.858,0:11:25.677
And I don't know how someone

0:11:25.677,0:11:29.296
quite so lovely

0:11:29.296,0:11:34.662
makes me feel ugly

0:11:34.662,0:11:37.465
So much shame

0:11:37.465,0:11:44.149
[Piano]

0:11:44.149,0:11:47.836
And i'd like to know,

0:11:47.836,0:11:51.425
Are there stars in hell?

0:11:51.425,0:11:55.050
And i'd like to know,

0:11:55.050,0:12:06.350
know if you can tell that you make me lose everything I know

0:12:06.350,0:12:12.007
that I cannot choose to or not let go