Music produces a kind of pleasure which human nature cannot do without. ~ Confucius
This quote was courtesy of @DrewTek, a studio rat with a serious colada addiction. Seeing this flitter across Twitter, it got me thinking about the music in my life. Everyone has different albums which define major periods of their life (hell they made a movie about it), from the days of rebellious youth (Nirvana – Nevermind) to quieter times of self reflection (Kruder and Dorfmeister – The K&D Sessions) to the always popular “party days” (Urbal Beats 2). But then I started digging deeper, thinking about the music that has evoked strong emotions (some good, some bad) no matter when or how often I’d listened to it.
Emotionally, all of these albums/songs have hit me intensely, all for different reasons, but all equally powerful.
I’ve written about this song before. It is one of the most perfect examples of an entire life captured with just a voice and a guitar. Strangely enough, I first heard this song while eating at an Einstein Brothers, prompting me to give my girl a quizzical WTF look. I had no idea who was singing, but was trying to imagine why Trent Reznor would let anyone re-record his work.
Then I saw the music video. I was floored. Now I understood why Reznor said, “…that song isn’t mine anymore…”. A hard life earned, not given, flavored his music and lyrics. Like only a few artists (Sinatra, Waits), Cash poured every ounce of himself into his voice, pulling you into the moment as if you lived it yourself.
“Hurt” was my gateway into Cash’s world.
Nick Cave & the Dirty Three “Dread the Passage of Jesus”
This was a hidden track on the album Songs in the Key of X: Music from and Inspired by the X-Files. It wasn’t your usual “let the last track keep playing” hidden track, but a real “if you don’t know how to get to it, you ain’t hearing it” track. The liner notes make a vague reference to it with Nick Cave & the Dirty Three reminding you that zero is a number, which honestly sounded like the standard issue weird shit you get from Cave.
I still vividly remember the night I found it. Messing around with my boombox (yes I dated myself), I hit the back button one too many times while cycling through the album which made the track time suddenly read in the negatives. Before I could do anything, violins started playing for a song I had never heard before. I was genuinely surprised, since I had listen to the album countless times before and never discovered this song, followed by a deep fear in the pit of my stomach that wouldn’t be able to reproduce the accident. I sat in the dark, absolutely enraptured by the song, absorbing every single note not knowing if I’d ever hear it again.
Even now that I have it on MP3, whenever I listen to it I still get that mixture of surprise, fear and awe.
The best way to describe this album is the mutterings of a Beat poet with a two-pack-a-day voice set to music. From the incredible sadness of the first track “Tom Traubert’s Blues“ to the tongue in cheek humor of “The Piano Has Been Drinking (Not Me)”, this album is pure lyrical poetry. Waits’ world weary voice exposes the raw emotion in every word, refusing to hide behind any studio trickery.
It plucks at different parts of me whenever I listen to it, stinging me with its regret or making me laugh with its drunken antics. If I ever want to dive deep into myself, this is one of the first albums I grab.
From the moment I saw this film it was ingrained in me. A tragically beautiful performance by Brandon Lee set to a haunting score by Graeme Revell and drenched in the pain and anger of the comic’s author James O’Barr. The sound
track for this film is one of the few that I feel compliment the movie without being an obvious cash grab like so many others.
The bittersweet twang of the guitar in “Big Empty”, the unbridled rage of “Ghostrider”, all ending in the cautiously hopeful “It Can’t Rain All The Time”, this blending of emotions encapsulates the core themes of the story. If I start playing any of the songs in this album, I almost always find myself listening to the entire thing.
As hard as this music can be, I find it calming and cleansing. When I was still buying music in physical form, I had the Crow in all it’s variations. Every MP3 player I’ve ever had, has this and the score as permanent residents. It’s like a comfortable sweater I can slip into on chilly nights. With many of the songs falling into the Industrial category, it may sound like an odd analogy, but it works for me.
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All of these songs punch me in the gut with extreme nostalgia, but at the same time provides emotional shortcuts which are extremely useful in my writing. If there’s a certain state of mind I need to get into, this music is a bullet train into my brain.
What music hits you powerfully every time you hear it?
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{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
Twitter: retrohack
January 15, 2010 at 10:19 am
Nice pun in the title, nice alliter’ in the flitter of the twitter…great all around post.
For me, the songs that stand out all have deeply personal connections….something about them paralleled something in my life at the time I first heard them. I think that is key; it is not enough to have an emotional connection, there must also be a temporal and personal connection, as if somehow your life experience opened the door which allowed the song to become.
Mad World – Tears for Fears
Freedom – George Michael
Fortress Around Your Heart – Sting
Whiter Shade of Pale – Procol Harum
Good post, Gabriel. I’m with Ed on the power of Mad World by Tears for Fears. I also completely wore out my tape of Kronos Quartet Performs Phillip Glass – wore it out.
Mostly classical music, art songs and opera:
This brasillian art song – “Melodia Sentimental” by Villa-Lobos really touches me every time I hear it. I listen to it again and again. I heard it once many years ago, found it recently and cannot stop listening to it.
Schubert songs:
Ave Maria, here sung by Barbara Bonney – the best version on YouTube
Auf dem wasser zu singen
Serenade
many other art songs.
Lots of other operatic music like (in no particular order):
Vissi d’arte from Tosca by Puccini
Casta Diva from Norma by Bellini
almost anything by Verdi like the whole of La Traviata, Rigoletto, Luisa Miller or chorus Va Pensiero from Nabucco .
Poeme D’Ossian from Werther
Lots of other stuff, but there isn’t much space here to list, plus the question is about songs not arias…
Oops, wrong link for Schubert’s “Staendchen” (little serenade)
Music is capable of conveying emotion and meaning beyond the capability of mere words.
Johnny Cash’s rendition of Hurt is absolutely amazing, he took the rough stone of Reznors song and created a masterpiece. The video was perfect.
Bobby Darin was told to not record “Mack the Knife” and it has become the song associated with him, he was right, he would sing that song for the rest of his life.
Carl Orff, Oh Fortuna, magnificent work. Fitting use in Excalibur as well as Jackass, the song simply thrives and brings forth various emotions, statu variabilis.
Ave Maria, sung by Mario Lanza, his voice an instrument to convey the feelings within that song.
Frank’s (Mr. Sinatra to you), My Way, absolutely haunting.
Wagner’s Prelude to Parsifal (Unfortunately corrupted by the Nazis, damn them to hell) and Ride of the Valkyries (Correct version will have the fat lady singing, the fat ladies will not be denied or you get left on the field of combat to rot), Siegfrieds Funeral March, Entry of the Gods into Valhalla, the entire Der Ring Des Nibelungen Opera is simply tremendous.
To be carried off to Valhalla by Valkyries, could there be any finer ending?
JS Bach, Tocatta and Fugue in D minor, MUST be played on a pipe organ for full effect.
Richard Rodgers, Victory at Sea.
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