Wow, Bette was terrible. I used to love this song, the movie...and then she bashed W something terrible at her concert a few summers ago. And so my Beaches soundtrack went into the garbage.
Regardless of her cynically audience-pleasing politics, she just can’t pull off a song anymore, even one as good as Wind Beneath My Wings. The first sign of trouble is all the overdone hand gesturing, which is always the sign of lack of confidence in a singer-—lots of eliminated Idol wannabes had that characteristic—things like tapping their chest when when the lyrics had the word ‘heart’, etc.almost as if they were doing sign language. In her prime, Bette Midler had one of the most beautiful sounding voices in popular music.