4/25/06 Just Once, thank goodness.

AI performance: "JUST ONCE" ("Love songs" theme week)

Taylor’s song choice of "Try A Little Tenderness" was rejected at the last minute by the producers because they said it ‘isn’t a love song.’ Taylor’s song is changed to "Just Once."

The fans are not happy! To try to show support for Taylor and their unhappiness with the song change, fans change their profile pics to Otis Redding. The Taylor Hicks folder on the AI message boards is TAKEN OVER by Otis Redding pics!

I wanted to cry after this performance, and not because it moved me. Some fans love the performance because of the emotion in it. I just can't...he just, missed somehow, on that song. It hurts me to listen to it.



By now I knew Taylor had a HUGE fan base, and I was fairly sure he would survive the night, but just to be sure, I voted 900 times. 900. Yes, 900 times, on my landline. The whole time I am voting for two solid hours I am thinking, "What happened, Taylor?"

I felt worried for him personally. Was he ok? And, am I ok? Why am I worried personally for some person on TV?

The fans on the internet share my sadness. And there is also some anger among the fans over the way his song was changed at the last minute. ‘Try A Little Tenderness’ would have been a PERFECT Taylor song. Many fans had been dreaming of that performance since Taylor’s audition.

People said that the last minute song change was proof that TPTB were trying to keep Taylor down. Some feel that The Powers That Be will never let Taylor win, and it is getting hopeless. Everyone was so sick of the AI crap…the judges, the song changes…we knew Taylor was special, we knew he was the star…we wanted him to be free of the machine and be himself.

4/27/06 Just after 'Just Once,' Vote For The Worst picked him as their contestant because the whole song choice thing proved TPTB were trying to hold him back.

What?! That isn't why they are supposed to pick people! They are supposed to pick the WORST! That was such a moment. People were angry about it, people where happy about it, people where laughing. Hahahaha! But a lot of Taylor fans were really upset.

Not me. Taylor got the most JADED, sarcastic AI watchers in America to vote for him because they LIKED him! I thought that was cool, man.