Ever since a would-be assassin shot her and 18 others during a meet-and-greet outside a Safeway supermarket in Tucson, Arizona, one January morning in 2011, former U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords has struggled to speak. The bullet that entered an inch above her left eye and tore through her brain left her with aphasia, along with a paralyzed right arm and other physical impairments, making it a daily battle to get the words in her head to come out of her mouth.
When Giffords sings, though, the words are right there, bypassing the damaged language circuits and flowing as effortlessly as they once did. As it happens, Giffords is a born performer and a bit of a ham, and within minutes of arriving for an interview in Los Angeles, she lets out a big smile and raises her left arm as she croons one of her favorites: "Country Roads" by John Denver.
"Almost heaven, West Virginia, Blue Ridge Mountains, Shenandoah River," she sings. "Life is old there, older than the trees/ Younger than the mountains, blowing like a breeze."
