Kelly Clarkson can certainly evoke emotions with her singing. But the first winner of "American Idol" performed a song so powerfully Thursday night on the Fox TV show that it brought not only the audience but even herself to tears.
Of course, as she noted, being seven months pregnant and overly sensitive didn't help.
Clarkson had returned to her old stomping grounds to serve as a guest judge as part of the final season of "American Idol" and to perform her new song, "Piece by Piece." Viewers and the audience got a tipoff of what was to come when host Ryan Seacrest referred to it as "a very emotional song" in his introduction.
Then Clarkson began singing about being abandoned by her father at 6 years old:
And all I remember is your back
Walking towards the airport
Leaving us all in your past
As the song, which Clarkson co-wrote, continued, she sang of finding the man who would become the father of her two children:
He never walks away
He never asks for money
He takes care of me
He loves me
Piece by piece
He restored my faith
That a man can be kind
And a father could stay
That's when the audience started to lose it.
