Day 25
What songs really “get to you?”
Oh, dear. So, so, so many songs make me bawl like a fool. Maybe it’s because I’m a textbook performer and my sense of empathy is constantly in overdrive. You know, that intrinsic desire to, as BFF Kay says, feel all the feelings? Not always a good thing.
I remember vividly the first song that “got to me.” I was nine years old, and a song called “Honey” by Bobby Goldsboro hit the charts. (Lyrics here.) I couldn’t listen to it without breaking down bawling. As a third grader, I couldn’t hold it together. Is that pathetic? It’s just all very personal and experiential to me. A lot of sacred songs get to me, too. There’s something about the mixture of melody, chord structure and text that pulls on me; something that instrumental music alone (with some major exceptions) can’t accomplish.
Here’s a short list of “get to me” songs, in addition to “Honey”:
- “Love Will Keep Us Alive” – Eagles
- “All I Ask of You” (reprise — sung by the Phantom) – Phantom of the Opera
- “Bring Him Home” – Les Misérables
- “Diary” – Bread
- “The Leader of the Band” – Dan Fogelberg
- “Only the Lonely” – Frank Sinatra (not the one by Roy Orbison)
- “Back Home Again” – John Denver
- “Separate Lives” – Stephen Bishop (Phil Collins later recorded it with Marilyn Martin)
- “Red Cab to Manhattan” – Stephen Bishop
- “Madge” – Stephen Bishop
- “Same Old Tears on a New Background” – Stephen Bishop (you get the idea
) - “Goodnight, My Angel” – Billy Joel
I could go on with this list for days. If you’re curious about any of them, look them up on Grooveshark.
OK, let’s have it. Give me some cool songs to look up. We all need a good weep to celebrate the END OF SCHOOL! I plan to come home today, place a lampshade on my head, and dance about the parlor.
Whoa, this is a toughy. There are SO many! I am with you on #2, #3, and #12.
The most recent one that got me was Laura Alaina on American Idol this week. She sang an original tune titled “Like My Mother Does.” The song is beautiful in itself but the feeling she had behind it pulled on the heart strings, especially when she went out to the audience to her Ma. Check it out.
“I Can Only Imagine” – MercyMe
“How Great Thou Art” – Vince Gill and Carrie Underwood duet
“If I Loved You” – Barbara Streisand version
“How He Loves” – any version but David Crowder and Kim Walker are the most known.
“Hallelujah” – Jeff Buckley
“I’ll Stand By You” – Carrie Underwood
“Because You Love Me” – Celine Dion
“Smile” – Frank
“Amazing Grace” – any well done version either vocal or instrumental
Wow that’s a lot. I’m pretty sure I could keep going but we’ll stop there for now. Good one, Fink! And how was your last day??
WOW…your #1 is my ABSOLUTE FAVORITE Eagles song. I’ll bet I do this one almost every week @ Chamberlain’s! I put that at the top of my list, along with:
“Bless the Broken Road” – Rascal Flatts
“Unforgettable” – Nat “King” Cole and/or the re-issue with Natalie singing with her dad courtesy of modern music technology
“For Good” – from Wicked (probably the only song from that show that I thought would ever be substantial/timeless)
“I Am Changing” – from Dreamgirls. Never heard that song before until I ran sound for Jennifer Holiday (the ORIGINAL Dream Girl from the Broadway show vs. Jennifer Hudson from the movie). She did a benefit concert at our church and this was part of her concert set. I was in tears by the end of her performance.
Oh, lordy… I cited 2 Broadway show tunes…
Oops…forgot one:
“Go Rest High” – either Vince Gill or Michael English
OK, I have two requests for you to add to your rep, if you haven’t already. I would love to hear you sing “I’ll Still Be Loving You” by Restless Heart, and “Vienna” by Billy Joel. Ready, steady, GO.
PS – It’s OK about Broadway, luv. LOL *wink*
And I love “For Good” as well.
I totally have done the Restless Heart tune before – GREAT song! I’m gonna have to look up that Billy Joel one!
1. Bright Eyes – recorded by Art Garfunkle, but it came from the “Watership Down” movie.
2. Look at that Face from Roar of the Greasepaint
3. Most of all, You from Major League
4. Somewhere, Out There from American Tail
5. O Holy Night – the last time I sang with my uncle, it was this song in 2003. He was gone by the next christmas, and I’ve never been able to get through this one since.
PK
Awesome list! I need to go check out “Look at That Face.” Did Anthony Newley write that one too?
Yep, and I had a gig where I sang it to my dog – she gazed into my eyes the entire time. Then I walked over and sang it again to my daughter. Not a dry eye in the house.
wow, there are a lot….. pretty much my whole iPod, but I won’t name them all…
You Love me anyway by Sidewalk Prophet
Times by Tenth Avenue North
Hold my Heart by Tenth Avenue North
More Beautiful You by Jonny Diaz
I will rise by Chris Tomlin
I will Lift my hands by Chris Tomlin
Glorious Day by Casting Crowns
Slow Fade by Casting Crowns
East to West by Casting Crowns
and lots and lots more but there are my top few….
There are so many, it was hard to narrow them down. I immediately thought of one of my favorite ladies for melancholy, Joni Mitchell. Funny enough though, it is her more upbeat song “California” that makes me wistful. I can’t hear it without thinking about my mom and missing her. She is from California, and when I was little, she would always sing that song while she was doing something else. I always heard her voice betray a little sadness when she did. Nothing can beat Joni’s heartbreaking sound, though; “Blue” and “River” are woeful number ones for me. Although, it was close running between Joni and Jackson Brown. They are both so great (and sad) LOL. But c’mon who couldn’t be touched by Brown’s “These Days” or “Fountain of Sorrow” to name a couple? (Maybe it’s just me, LOL)
Aside from Joni and Jackson, who seem to own the market on songs like the ones we are discussing, there are exactly two songs that I can’t hear without breaking down and crying. One is “Smokey Mountain Memories” by the Great Dolly Parton, which makes me miss my family terribly. Number two is “Dos Gardenias,” most often recognized from the Buena Vista Social Club. The song and the lyrics are filled with such longing and sadness, it’s palpable. Gardenias were my grandmother’s favorite flowers, and when she died her casket was blanketed with them. To this day, I almost can’t listen to the song through to the end, I always weep thinking about her.
Only a couple come to mind, offhand.
-“Landslide” (the Dixie Chicks version – I am impervious to Fleetwood Mac’s)
-“The Riddle” – Five for Fighting
-“Goodnight, My Angel” – as you’ve already mentioned
More will come when my grandparents, who schooled me in singing in the church pew for so many years growing up, pass on. Lots of old, close harmony and shape-note tunes will probably be added to my list then.
I tend to go teary at the melodies and harmonies I hear. I rang bells in Grand Rapids and now get weepy when I hear ringers. Many Christmas songs can get me teary. Lots of classical music, t00 — Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, Holst’s The Planets. I think a lot of it comes from the kind of music I grew up with and when I hear them I am flooded with nostalgia. If I go back to Michigan in the Fall and hear the CMU Marching Chips practicing (the Fight Song in particular) I get all weepy. There’s a song my Nelly Furtado’s (I think that’s her name) “All Good Things” makes me cry (I am tearing up now!!!) because that song was on the radio when we came home from putting Sasha to sleep:
” Well the dogs were whistlin’ a new tune
Barkin’ at the new moon
Hoping it would come soon
So that they could die
Flames to dust,
Lovers to friends,
Why do all good things come to an end?”
Ok then! Any trumpet or organ music can bring me to tears, too.
Time to go to work, see ya!!
typos galore I was in a rush HAAA bye!
Wow — I have some stuff to look up! See? This is why you are all so fantazz. Many of you listed stuff I like as well (Joni Mitchell, Holst, shape-note singing!), so yeah, music unites us. Good thing is — I will have a bit of extra time in the mornings to Grooveshark all the ones I don’t know. How about THAT? Helen — I will be texting for a Bux date!
1. “Concrete Angel” (Martina McBride)
2. “Held” (Natalie Grant)
3. “You Can Let Go Now Daddy” (Crystal Shawanda)