A couple of years ago, my friend Jeff told me I should listen to The Galaxies, a power pop band that was really knocking him out. I did and I loved it. Great melodies, solid harmonies, and enough hooks to snag a flounder. But one song in particular did something to me.
I had been riding a train home from Jersey, iPod on shuffle, and "An Ocean Between Us" started to play. By the end of the first chorus, I found myself blubbering. Second and third times through were no better. I had to slink down in my itchy seat, fearing an unnecessary concern from a conductor and worried I might have to explain. I didn't want to. I just wanted to listen to the song again, if you can believe it.
Might have been my frame of mind at the time, but I found that subsequent listens, while not as powerful, still left me weak. Time has passed and this song found its way to last week's "Weekend Mix." During playback of that set, it happened again. That song and that chorus triggered that ride, among other things inside of me. I guess that's the way it will forever be with "An Ocean Between Us."
I wrote to Jeff simply to thank him for suggesting The Galaxies and I told him what I just told you.
He replied:
"Great idea for Burning Love? Songs that really get to you in ways that are really wonderful or really awful."
Another one for me is Simon & Garfunkel's "Old Friends/Bookends," a masterpiece of music and storytelling if there ever was one. Of course, the backstory of Paul & Art adds to the drama. Their happiness, their sorrow. Everyone can relate. But it's the strings that really say it all, beginning at the very end of "Old Friends" and continuing into "Bookends." That moment of chaos, the swelling of emotion that slowly and sadly winds down and resolves, is one of the most powerful stretches of pop music ever recorded. In less than a minute and without one word sung, we live a lifetime. It never fails to tear me up.
Any songs and stories you'd like to share on this subject? Wonderful or awful, feel free.
Like more than a few of you, I recently finished Pete Townshend's autobiography and one of the things I wished he had written more about was his use of synthesizers. To me, he was one of the first that made real music with them rather than blurps and blorts.
ReplyDeleteWhich is a long way of getting around to say that Baba O'Riley never fails to stir me. No matter how many ties I hear it, that opening inspires me.
There are so many good ones that it will take me awhile to single one out. As for awful, the song I hate most that does it for me is "The Final Countdown" by Europe. It makes me mad just thinking about it. Runner up is "We Built This City" by Starship.
ReplyDeleteIn 1992, just as Harvest Moon came out, I had a sudden break-up with the woman I thought I was about to marry. That song tore me apart every time I heard it to the extent that I couldn't listen to it for about five years. Not long after the break-up, I was driving down to Washington and I had LIttle Village's CD in the car and I put it on and when it came to "Don't Think About Her When You're Trying to Drive" I got so upset I had to pull over. Needless to say it was another few years before I could listen to that again.
ReplyDeleteThose two songs still give me a little tug, but the woman did me a great favor because it set in motion a series of events that have left me deliriously, happily married (and it turned out, she left me for a billionaire Dr who is a part owner of the SF Giants, so I gather she's happy).
On the other hand, "Reflections of My Life" and Santana's "Samba Pa Ti" never fail to take me back to being 17, living on a kibbutz in Israel and dancing under the stars with a gorgeous Swiss woman who didn't speak a word of English with life and love beckoning from a long road stretched out before me.
John Prine's "The Oldest Baby In The World" & George Jones "A Place In The Country" both can force a tear or lump in the throat on occasion...
ReplyDelete"Cisco Kid" by WAR was playing on the public pool jukebox the day one of my older brothers tried to drown me in the deep end -- etched in my mind as a result.
ReplyDeleteStrange cross memory with "We Built This City" by Starship. Every time I hear it, I think of the exchange student from Panama/nephew of a friend who was going to college at the same time we were in the 80s ... and he essentially learned English by watching MTV. This kid was forever stumbling around, singing, "We bill thees shitty yawn rocky roll." You can guess what his favorite Van Halen song was.
Genesis, "Duke," "Ripples" and "Afterglow": pardon the blatant self promo:
http://poscathst.blogspot.com/2008/12/that-song-insert-genesis-ballad-here.html
"This Woman's Work" by Kate Bush. Even today, after listening to it for about 20 years now, brings a lump to my throat like no other song. If you witnessed your child's birth (and I've done this twice), it hits like a gut shot. Even reading the lyrics on-line just now makes me nostalgic and verklempt.
ReplyDeleteI'd have to think about songs that make me angry, though. I don't know if there really are any that bring up that opposite visceral reaction.
And my list of songs that will always remind me of an exact moment in my life -- is probably way too long a list ("You and Me" by Alice Cooper -- my wedding song... Playing "In Between Days" by the Cure on a guitar on a beach in Greece... The first time I heard The Dr. Demento show on the radio (Fishheads, Pencil Neck Geek, Dead Puppies, OMG...) I'll have to meditate on this one to see if I actually have an interesting "story" behind any of them...
There are so many... off the top of my head, these move me and resonate (there are songs that are emotionally manipulative that move me momentarily but then leave me feeling like I ate too much cotton candy).
ReplyDeleteNot these: "A Change is Gonna Come" Sam Cooke only need apply, I only want his voice. "Arianne" Aaron and the Nevilles. "Angel From Montgomery" Bonnie & John P together, "Yes it Is" by The Beatles, I'm not sure why. I'm sometimes very moved by their early, early stuff in a way that I can't explain, particularly young John. "Nothing Compares to You" (Sinead or Prince, though hers is more emotional, "it's been seven hours and fifteen days, since you took your love away..." Prince has this way with words that is very uniquely him), "Only Living Boy in New York" (S&G), "Beautiful Boy" (especially when John sings "darling Sean" it destroys me), On Saturday Afternoons in 1963 by Rickie Lee J. I know her delivery can be affected, but lord she kills me, "We Belong Together" too. "Racing in the Street" by Bruce, "Romeo & Juliet" Dire Straits, "Boulder to Birmingham" by the sparrow that is Emmylou. "September When it Comes" Roseanne Cash and her Dad (my late mom was born in September and loved Johnny C). I know I'm missing many other less familiar songs.
Last but not least the two that do it to me the most courtesy of Mr. Webb and Mr. Campbell..."Wichita Lineman", my god is this poignant, since I was a little girl this has made me cry. Jimmy just knows how to do that with so few words, and Glen can really turn a phrase. "Galveston" though not as obvious due to I think the arrangement-some people listen and just hear his love for his girl and his hometown but, no, "I clean my gun and dream of Galveston"... really one of my favorite lyrical phrases: "Galveston, oh Galveston I am so afraid of dying before I dry the tears she crying, before I watch your seabirds flying in the sun...at Galveston". Mr Webb, you are a genius.
Sorry I couldn't pick just one! I'm and emotional girl.
Harry Nilsson's version of Without You gets me everytime. Harry's voice conveys the emotion in the words so well. Its to the point that I just can't listen to it much anymore which is a shame because its so great.
ReplyDelete-BlakeS
"They said that it was snowing, in astounded tones, upon the news...". Sandy Denny had just died and I went out and got her most recent album (Like an Old Fashioned Waltz). Middling reviews and youthful poverty had kept me away previously. Sat down alone in my room to play it. Loved most of it, and then the final song started: "No End". And I lost it. So beautiful, so moving, so sad. It still chokes me up when those strings well up and Sandy starts singing.
ReplyDelete"Backstreets" by Bruce kills every time. Twice in concert, he's turned me into a blubbering idiot. "Baba O'Reilly" makes me windmill until I need physical therapy. Duane Allman's solo in "Blue Sky" takes me to another place. This could turn into that scene in "Manhattan" where Woody's recording everything he loves about life...
ReplyDeleteAh, wedding song. Every time my wife and I hear ours, we stop, look at each other and start slow dancing. This, of course, creates problems when we are driving. The song is "Every Word" by Tish HInojosa, one of the most beautiful ballads I've ever heard. Here's a lousy recording of it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4WEBdK0baM
ReplyDeleteOh man!
ReplyDeleteSal, I already shared at Burning Wood about Springsteen's Independence Day and the death of my Father ... enough said there.
There are a million memories triggered by specific songs. And these days I find myself avoiding music I really like and that is really important to me because of some of those associations. Gotta work on that.
But ... not toxic and not too laden with emotion ...
I was just going through Lucinda Williams albums the other day. And clicked on Right In Time -- the first cut on Car Wheels. Faster than you could say "Beam me up Scotty" I was transported back to the summer of 1998 when Car Wheels came out ... That guitar riff and I can smell the New Brunswick tidal air, I see my kids playing on the beach, I feel the sun on my face, a kite is snapping in the breeze, ... (Okay, maybe a few of those toxic memories too. Yin and Yang baby!)
Music has great power ... Right In Time is just my most recent smack upside my head (and I mean that in a good way!).
There are three songs that immediately come to mind that transport me right back to a particularly melancholy time and place in the late '60s - so much promise, so many losses and shunned opportunities . . . Yet I still find myself irresistably drawn to them: Beck's Bolero, Joni Mitchell's Urge For Going (I first heard the Tom Rush version) and Traffic's Dear Mr. Fantasy.
ReplyDeleteOh, so many. The funniest, most poignant song I can think of at the moment is "Family Reserve" by Lyle Lovett. "But I feel 'em watching, and I see 'em laughing, and I hear 'em singing along." For all the people we've loved and lost. I also have a soft spot for "This Must Be the Place" by Talking Heads. David Byrne dancing with the lamp brings me right back to High School and seeing the film at the Waverly with my Bro.
ReplyDelete"The Mayor of Simpleton" is one that comes to mind, partly the sympathy we feel for the character in the song, but the way he says the word "pauper" gets me all the time.
ReplyDeleteNilssen's version of "She's Leaving Home" is one that is also able to hook me emotionally, just the quality if his voice, so direct, and so much purer than The Beatles version, even though it's sort of cheesed up musically with the tablas and brass band.
One last bit of music is from the film "The Searchers" composed by Max Steiner, the scene where John Wayne finally finds Debbie played by Natlie Wood and lifts her up, and says they're going home. The second the music swells, it makes me cry! It's happened several times, even once when I just happened to switch it on when it was on TV and that scene was on: boom, tears! Don't ask me why...
Johnny Adams' "There Is Always One More Time" and Etta James "At Last" never fail to move me. No other songs have the same emotional power for me as these two. I'm not really sure why that is, they don't relate to any specific memories, just beautiful vocals and arrangements.
ReplyDeleteLike Jeff K, I have to go to the wedding song. (Yikes, 15 years ago!)
ReplyDeleteOurs was Percy Sledge's "True Love Travels on a Gravel Road." More often these days we hear it on Nick Lowe's cover version.
Thanks to Jeff for his choice as well... a killer song by Tish H., a singer who deserves a much-wider audience.
Three come to mind right away. "Life by the Drop" by Stevie Ray Vaughn, and two off of Johnny Cash's American IV: The Man Comes Around. "I Hung My Head" and "Hurt". Great songs all.
ReplyDeleteOur family's been going through a month of hell. When the Beach Boys "This Whole World" came up on my MP3 player today, I found myself tearing up. Doesn't always have that effect, but this perfect gem always gets me, somehow.
ReplyDeleteTodd/Utopia's "Just One Victory" is the universal rallying call, and it never fails to make the hair stand up on my neck.
"Heaven Stood Still" by Willie DeVille makes my heart ache for my sweetie whenever I play it when she's away.
And because I first heard it during another tough time, Emmylou Harris' refusal to be down, "White Shoes," still helps me get in the mood to overcome.
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ReplyDeleteBonnie Raitt - "I Can't Make You Love Me" for reasons I probably could never explain. Especially when I listen to it with my wife. The whole thing just goes very deep. Tears up every last shred of an argument that man was meant to live alone.
ReplyDelete"Gimmee Shelter" Rolling Stones and maybe the Phil Lesh & Friends cover with Chris Robinson singing lead. But please, not the Grand Funk Railroad version which I heard for the very first time on Sirius this weekend. (So that version maybe goes in the 'awful' category?!?) I spent one night in jail. They took my glasses for reasons only Arlo can explain. When I woke, nose pressed to the wall next to my 'bunk' I could read the words" "It's just a shot away". Game, set and match. And also, not a song but an album: "If Only I Could Remember My Name" - David Crosby et al. Captures completely my rapture and enthusiasm for the "San Francisco Scene".(A term which I loathe – the Dead, the Airplane and friends, wonderful production values, intense vibe)
Well, it would seem inpossible to list every song that makes me cry. I never know when THAT one will come up as I'm trawling through my playlists. TYhat said, these are the first ones that came to mind:
ReplyDeleteArt Garfunkel's (written by Jimmy Webb) 'All I Know' and Ringo's 'Photograph' will always send me back to the evening I was in the parking lot of a local college where my Freshman girlfriend had just started in 1972. I had just gone to see her and been confronted with her 'new' college boyfriend (I was 21, she was 18). Both of those songs appeared in a one-two punch as I sat in my car and listened to the radio and I couldn't help bawling and moaning and getting out of the car and falling to my knees. Both songs have remained on my instant tear list until this day.
'Rise From The Ashes' by Roseanne Cash comes from a bleak period in my life after my Mother died and I sank into a deep depression. Different kind of tears through the pain and sorrow and search for hope in the Spring of 1994. "I hold on to hope inside my fear...I know someone's listening when no one is near...my heart is my compass, my soul is my guide, I'm going to rise from the ashes and be alive, be alive, I'm going to rise from the ashes...". It still moves me to this day and is a linchpin in my performing setlist.
Last but not least, 'Red Dress' by Lee Clayton from his debut LP on MCA circa 1972. I received a promo back in my record store buyer days and shared it with my uber-singer friend, Dave Donnelly, who saw this song, a tale of circus roustabouts (I spent a summer in the circus myself circa 1973) and behind the midway lost love for the classic it is and proceeded to mnake it a staple of his set for the next 40 years. I lost track of him and the song after I ceased playing with him in the mid-80s, but it haunted me eventually and I searched for it in my memory and found it again as Dave and I reunited 5 years ago. The last gig I played with him in 2009 I requested it anbd he played iut. He died last year and even the thought of it makes me misty. Killer line:"the child must be nearly seven now, I dread the look on his face".
Also rans this moment: Beau Brummels "Cherokee Girl", Vogues "Magic Town", Marti Jones "Follow You All Over The World", Clannad "I Will Find You", Bruce Cockburn "The Whole Night Sky", Steve Young (written by David Olney) "If My Eyes Were Blind"...
You guys are amazing!
ReplyDeleteThanks for the honesty.
Thank you for sharing.
I love this.
My oldest daughter was married this summer and the song we agreed to dance to was Paul Simon's Father and Daughter. So you can guess what that did to us as 200 people looked on.
ReplyDeleteTHE song that can bring me to tears is I Am Yours from Layla. What emotion from Eric who would not come close to it again for 20 years until the worst tragedy a parent can experience happened to him.
Wind Chimes from SMILE ! always takes to my zen place. NO 1 on most played list on my Itunes
Great subject Mahalo
Wind Chimes does the same for me. In fact, the whole Smile album really. Its the album I listen to at the onset of Spring.
Delete-BlakeS
i think the list of songs that has made me cry would as duncanmusic said be impossible, and it gets worse as i get older. damn in the last 5 years i have teared up or outright cried so many times; it happens at movies too.
ReplyDeletei had a long, long drive last week. i brought some CDs. damn if i didn't cry five different times listening to jackson browne's the pretender, an album that i would not have siad meant that much to me. but i think what it meant to me was that i was young once, engaged once, and the walls i built since then have hurt not protected me.
others that tear me up include stardust by crosby, dr. wu by steely dan (when the hard ones break it gets to me), the golden state by john doe, the promise by bruce (which i have to say he nailed the vocal on the version he released on that album), and ticket to ride.
I had an affair with "The Golden State" for about a year. I'm still not over it. Melancholy, triumphant, romantic, bittersweet. It's near-perfect. And the way Doe and Kathleen Edwards harmonize on the chorus just fills me up.
DeleteOne of the most touching songs I've ever heard is Til I Die by the Beach Boys. I can only imagine what was going through Brian Wilson's head when he composed that song! Also I Never Cry by Alice Cooper and Late For The Sky by Jackson Browne both take me back to the dark corners of youth. I can also relate to In My Room by the Beach Boys as well as anything off Double Fantasy which immediately takes me to those
ReplyDeletethe seniors in my high school had their own patio in the cafeteria where they could play music. Alice Cooper's "Generation Landslide" and Edgar Winter's "Frankenstein" always conjure up that cafeteria for me.
ReplyDelete"We're an American Band" always produces a memory from later that summer riding shotgun at night, windows down, in a Mustang Mach 1 (the shittiest Mustang ever), returning home from working in the kitchen at a horse track.
"When No One Cares" by John Doe is my breakdown song; the whole Freedom Is album brings back a hard couple of years in San Diego and seeing John perform multiple times at the Casbah.
"Gimme Shelter" is a once favorite song that was ruined for me at a dinner party of aging boomers complaining about the real estate tax bills they just received, then putting on Let It Bleed and doing some geriatric ass-shaking. My eyes!
"1-2 Crush On You" by the Clash, because I had one when it came out.
ReplyDeleteIt took a couple decades, but I eventually got the girl.
Sometime in 1991-2 I was in "Smash" on St Mark's when I picked up a used japanese import cd of "Smiley Smile". I was not a fan and had never owned a Beach Boys album, but I remembered hearing something about "SMiLE".
A complete stranger said, "Don't by that, get this (the twofer reissue), because you need the bonus tracks."
Thankfully I took his advice. "Been Way Too Long" and the liner notes really got me. I was hooked on SMiLE".
I bought XTC's "Drums and Wires" just prior to the dumping of my life. Over 3 decades later I still can't enjoy it.
Songs that get me every time:
ReplyDeleteThe aforementioned 'Father & Daughter' by Paul Simon. That song was also included at the end of a kid's movie called The Wild Thornberrys. When my oldest daughter was 4 or 5, that was her favorite movie; we would sit and cuddle and watch it together. Someday when she is older and gets married, I'm quite sure it will gut me again.
'Land of Hope & Dreams' by Bruce. When the Live in NYC album came out, I was going through a very stressful period and felt I had the weight of the world on my shoulders. I would listen to that over and over, especially the line "leave behind your sorrows/let this day be the last/tomorrow there'll be sunshine/and all this darkness past". I have never felt before or since such a complete belief that the singer was singing directly TO me.
'Grace Like Rain' is a contemporary Christian song that is built on the foundation of 'Amazing Grace'. There are numerous versions out there, but the one that does me in is sung by the Worship Band at our local church. You see, earlier this year, my 11-year old daughter was invited to join this otherwise all adult band. To see her stand up in front of the church with these wonderful musicians who treat her as a peer and to watch her discover her own beautiful voice as she sings "Hallelujah, grace like rain/falls down on me" is the single greatest gift music has ever given me.
Two of mine were mentioned by other Burning Lovers:
ReplyDelete"I Can't Make You Love Me." I can only name about five other Bonnie Raitt songs, all singles, and I don't like any of them. But the simplicity and beauty of the lyric and the melody, and Raitt's performance gets me every time. And it's a song by and for an adult. (Have Mike Reid and Allen Shamblin ever written another song 1/10th as good)?
(If you love this song, may I propose another of fave mournful song, "Dear John," written by the late, great Kirsty McColl. I prefer Eddi Reader's version. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ms5RQefyJLs&feature=related)
"Dr Wu" has one of the most beautiful melodies I've ever heard, and I think it would get to me even if the lyrics weren't so full of regret and longing. But they are.
"Don't Dream It's Over" -- I just never get tired of this song. I'm not sure I understand all the lyrics, but the love behind it is so pure and strong.
"Angel" by Aretha Franklin. The wailing guitar and the spoken introduction at the beginning of the song are enough to reduce me to mush, and then when the vocal and the lyrics kick in -- yikes. Why wasn't this a bigger hit? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w5z5vulgiGI
It's hard to take it out of context from "What's Going On," but when Marvin Gaye sings "Save the babies" in "Save the Children," I lose it. The whole 40 seconds or so from 2:24 to 3:04 gets me every time.
Here's a weird one. When I was 13 (when it was released), the only song I'd ever heard that could make me cry was "The Old Crowd," the flip side of the Lesley Gore hit, "She's a Fool." What a strange kid I was -- falling for the nostalgia of something I hadn't yet experienced. I still think it's a terrific pop song, which a killer melodic hook: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1JMk-YEhwvI
After all this crying, how about a shot of pure joy and exuberance? My nomination is Stevie Wonder's (but only if you include Parts 1 & 2. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k3ubgVjp3CY
Yikes. If it wasn't obvious, my burst of joy was a reference to Fingertips Parts 1 & 2 (I'm especially partial to Part 1). It annoys me to no end that Stevie Wonder refused to play it live for the last 47 years or so.
DeleteSpringsteen's "Kingdom of Days" moved me from the first listen, and to be able to hear him play this live on my wedding day locked it in as one of my all-time favorites.
ReplyDeleteOf course, as we all know, different days bring different faves. "Forever" by Little Steven and the Disciples of Soul, Rundgren's "Couldn't I Just Tell You," and "Whenever You're on My Mind" from Marshall Crenshaw never fail to make me stop and catch my breath.
And, it wouldn't be right to leave "I Don't Want to Spoil the Party" by the Beatles off my list.
A recent song that has simmered to a permanent spot on my emotional list is Bruce's "Wrecking Ball." After closing my business and feeling the after effects for 4 solid years...the idea of standing up to adversity and begging to bring it on really hit home. It was the worse stretch of my life, both financially and emotionally...and hearing The Boss repeat "hard times come and hard times go and hard times and hard times go and hard times come" as many times as he does, reduces me to mush still.
ReplyDeleteFor me, since 1980, 'Angeliou' by Van Morrison has never failed to make the hair on the back of my neck stand up. After hundreds, maybe thousands,of listens over the years, it still does it for me -pure, raw emotion.
ReplyDeleteIn the past year, I've found myself going back to 'Keep the Window Open". by Chuck Prophet. It a deceptively profound song, that I will listen to 4-5 times in a row. It speaks directly to something inside of me.
'In The Sun' by Joseph Arthur will always bring me some peace of mind, no matter how bad the day.
This post would not be complete if I didn't mention 'Misfits' by The Kinks. We're everywhere.
So many songs have grabbed my ear and hung on for various lengths of time, but the one song that's never-fail is "Inside of Me" by Little Steven and the Disciples of Soul. The horns pump me up, the words remind me of my late friend George and the drums make me move. Oh, and Big Star's "When My Baby's Beside Me", my wife's favorite song from a wedding tape I made. Oh, and...
ReplyDeleteNot what you asked for, but I just bought that Galaxies CD based on the mention here.
ReplyDelete