Every day, every time I sing, I feel blessed, really, to be able

Host: The stage was empty now — just a single microphone standing in the middle of a dim blue glow, like a relic left behind by thunder. The smell of sweat, smoke, and electricity lingered in the air. The echoes of the last chord still seemed to vibrate through the rafters, hanging there like ghosts unwilling to leave.

Jack sat on the edge of the stage, his boots dangling above the floor, his grey eyes fixed on the ceiling as though the sound were still there, invisible but alive. Jeeny stood near the footlights, her face tilted toward the rafters, where dust swirled in shafts of faint light — the residue of something holy and human that had just happened.

Jeeny: “Paul Rodgers once said, ‘Every day, every time I sing, I feel blessed, really, to be able to do that. It's like having wings, in a way. It's a bit like flying sometimes, because you go off into another realm. And a whole lot of people come with you. It's amazing.’”

Host: Jack smiled — that tired, wistful smile of someone who had been to that realm and crash-landed too many times.

Jack: “Yeah. Flying. That’s the word. Singing’s the only legal form of flight left.”

Jeeny: “And you’ve done it, haven’t you? You’ve been up there.”

Jack: “Once or twice. But the fall always hurts.”

Jeeny: “You still go back.”

Jack: “Because the ground never feels like enough.”

Host: The lights above them hummed softly. The stage was half-lit — one side bathed in amber, the other fading into darkness. The place where music and silence met felt like the edge of the world.

Jeeny: “I love that he said ‘a whole lot of people come with you.’ That’s what makes it beautiful — it’s not solitary. You lift, and somehow, everyone else lifts with you.”

Jack: “If you do it right, yeah. If you mean it. Music’s the closest thing we’ve got to collective transcendence. One heartbeat multiplied by thousands.”

Jeeny: “That’s what art should be — a shared levitation.”

Jack: “But it’s not always flight. Sometimes it’s falling together too.”

Jeeny: “Falling’s part of flying.”

Host: The silence between them filled with the ghost of sound — an invisible hum, like memory replaying its favorite note. Jeeny walked onto the stage, stepping into the single remaining spotlight. Her shadow stretched long and soft behind her.

Jeeny: “Do you think that’s why people sing — to escape gravity?”

Jack: “No. To understand it. To make peace with it. You sing because words alone can’t hold what your soul’s trying to say. So you stretch it across melody and hope the note doesn’t break.”

Jeeny: “And when it does?”

Jack: “Then it’s real.”

Host: Jeeny looked out into the empty seats — rows upon rows of quiet expectation. The place still held the residue of applause, like heat after a storm.

Jeeny: “You know what’s amazing about Rodgers’s words? The humility. He calls it a blessing, not a talent. That’s rare.”

Jack: “Because real artists know they’re conduits, not creators. The song passes through you. You’re just lucky to catch it on the way down.”

Jeeny: “So singing is surrender?”

Jack: “Exactly. It’s the most beautiful kind of surrender — the one that turns pain into resonance.”

Host: She turned toward him, her eyes shimmering with the same quiet awe that lived in her voice.
Jeeny: “You talk about it like it’s religion.”

Jack: “It is. Music is the only church I’ve ever truly believed in.”

Jeeny: “And the audience?”

Jack: “The congregation. Each one searching for their own redemption in the same three chords.”

Host: Outside, a faint breeze swept through the open doors, carrying the sound of the street — laughter, footsteps, a passing car — life resuming after transcendence. Jack stood slowly, walking toward her, his boots echoing against the wooden stage.

Jack: “You know, there’s something sacred about the moment before a song begins. The silence is alive, charged — like the breath before a prayer.”

Jeeny: “And when the first note comes, the world exhales.”

Jack: “Exactly. And for a few minutes, you believe in something bigger than yourself. That’s the flight Rodgers was talking about — not ego, not performance, but union.”

Jeeny: “Union through sound.”

Jack: “Through surrender.”

Host: He reached up and touched the microphone, its cold metal catching the stage light. For a moment, he looked at it like a relic, an artifact of connection.

Jack: “You ever think about how strange it is? One voice — just vibrations in air — can move people to tears, or joy, or something they can’t even name. It’s physics turned into prayer.”

Jeeny: “And the singer becomes the bridge.”

Jack: “Between earth and something else. Between what hurts and what heals.”

Jeeny: “That’s why he said it feels like flying. Because for those few minutes, gravity forgets you.”

Host: The spotlight dimmed slightly. The air thickened with that late-night tenderness that only music and memory share.

Jeeny: “You miss it, don’t you? Performing.”

Jack: “Every damn day. Not the fame, not the noise — the connection. That split second when the audience breathes with you, when you’re not separate anymore. That’s not performance; that’s communion.”

Jeeny: “And afterward?”

Jack: “Afterward you fall. Hard. The silence hits like an aftershock.”

Jeeny: “But still you go back.”

Jack: “Because once you’ve flown, walking feels like forgetting.”

Host: Jeeny stepped closer, her voice gentle, steady.
Jeeny: “You know, maybe that’s the secret — to live your life like a song. To keep finding ways to lift, even when there’s no stage.”

Jack: “And when you can’t?”

Jeeny: “Then listen. Someone else is singing for you.”

Host: The room went still. The air seemed to hum again — faintly, invisibly, as if the walls remembered the chords of every soul that had ever sung there. Jack’s hand rested on the microphone. His eyes softened.

Jack: “You ever notice how a good song doesn’t end when it stops playing? It just changes form — becomes heartbeat, memory, silence.”

Jeeny: “That’s because songs don’t die. They just wait for someone new to remember them.”

Jack: “Maybe that’s what Rodgers meant — that when he sings, he doesn’t just fly. He carries others with him — all the ones who forgot how.”

Jeeny: “That’s the beauty of it. Music isn’t escape — it’s return.”

Jack: “Return to what?”

Jeeny: “To ourselves.”

Host: The lights dimmed completely now, leaving only the faintest glow around the microphone. Outside, the city whispered in the language of late hours.

Jeeny’s voice came soft but certain:
Jeeny: “Maybe that’s what it means to be blessed — not to have the gift, but to share it. To lift others while you rise.”

Jack: “And to know that even when the song ends, the flight doesn’t.”

Host: The stage fell silent — the kind of silence that follows something sacred, something that doesn’t need applause to prove it existed.

Outside, the night carried on, but inside, two souls stood still — grounded, and yet somehow lighter.

Because as Paul Rodgers knew, and as Jack and Jeeny had just rediscovered —

to sing, truly sing, is not to perform.

It is to fly —
and to bring the world with you for a few beautiful seconds before gravity, mercifully, calls you home.