That’s really the lowest common denominator between the songs to which I react as such. They cross all genres, tempos, some with lyrics, some without…yet they all trigger this physiolgical response.
Far from an unique thread idea, but oh well…
Coldplay - Politik (the end of the song gets me EVERY time)
Loreena McKinnet - Huron Beltane Fire Dance
Billie Holiday - Strange Fruit
Jennifer Nettles Band - Story of Your Bones
David Lynch/Angelo Badalamenti (Twin Peaks soundtrack) - Into the night
Indigo Girls - Ghost
Aaron Copland - Rodeo
“Rhapsody In Blue” by George Gershwin.
“Fanfare For the Common Man” by Aaron Copland.
“Miserlou” by Dick Dale and the Del-Tones.
And I was just telling a friend, you could show me video of two teenage boys repeatedly hitting each other with barbed wire, and as long as you play the theme music from The West Wing over it, it would still fill me with swelling joy and pride in being an American, and a sense of honor and loyalty and humility.
Goosebumps of the uncomfortable variety:
Pink Floyd’s EchoesAbout 14 minutes into the +/-24 minute song; underneath those dolphin FX: That wailing sound reminds me of young children being slaughtered to the point it makes my skin crawl.
Goosebumps of the tingly variety:[ul][li]Leonard Bernstein conducting / altering Beethoven’s 9th @ The Brandenberg Gate following the collapse of the Berlin Wall.[]Any version of Tchaikovsky’s 6th Symphony / Pathetique[/ul][/li]Goosebumps from recalling past loves[ul][li]Hold On Hold Out - Jackson Brown[]Slide - Goo Goo Dolls[/ul][/li]Goosebumps for unspecific reasons[ul][]America - KBC Band[]Video Violence - Lou ReedLow Spark of High Heeled Boys - Traffic[/ul]
Beethoven’s 9th Symphony, specifically The Ode to Joy.
In The Music Man, the musical interlude from Marion the Librarian where the kids are dancing on the tables in the library. Just that tiny bit of music in the middle. Gets me every time.
The musical swellings in the Beatles A Day in the Life.
This thread jogged my memory about a particular piece of music at the end of Waking Ned Devine. Five or so of the main characters are hiking with a whiskey bottle to a field atop a cliff, overlooking the Irish Sea. They raise a toast to the title character, who we never see in the movie (aside from his corpse).
As the camera pulls back, an Irish drinking song called The Parting Glass fills the soundtrack. It’s a sad song, but instead of an expected dirge-like tone it’s done in an exuberant, energetic style, with a chorus and timpanic crescendo. I believe this version was done by the former lead singer of Hothouse Flowers, whose name I’m too lazy to look up.
I agree with one of the reviewers at Amazon.com: “I can think of no better song to have sung at my funeral.”
Poe’s album “Haunted” has a number of goose-bump inspiring songs, especially the songs Haunted and Amazed.
I also really like the Frontier Wives song that goes:
Big River, deep river
Is gonna set me free
If I die in the night don’t you bury me
Just drop me in the river and I’ll float out to sea
Into the water with me
When I’m gone I’ll be gone forever
And when I die I’ll be free, forever…
I’d love to put all the lyrics here, but I know I mustn’t.
Oh yes! My favorite songs by each person. I don’t know the others you listed yet.
Hallelujah by Jeff Buckley (goosebumps along with a lot of tears)
Night of the Swallow by Kate Bush (just about anything by her)
San Jacinto by Peter Gabriel
The Vigil by Jane Siberry
The Chariot by Happy Rhodes (the link goes to an mp3 of the song, which I do have permission to post. The song, which Happy explained at a concert, is from the point of view of a child from an abusive broken home. Her non-custodial mother comes to visit and take the kids out for treats, then takes them back. To the child, the mother driving down the street in a big car is like god in a chariot. The child pleads not to be taken back, and it just gets me every time I hear it. It affected me emotionally before I even understood what it was about, then, after finding out, it causes goosebumps. Here are the lyrics.)
Good goosebumps Promise Me You’ll Remember, by Harry Connick Jr. More, as sung by Frank Sinatra
Bad goosebumps I Am Stretched on Your Grave, by Dead Can Dance I Will Wait for You, by Connie Francis (thanks to that Futurama episode)
And I second Strange Fruit. I love Billie Holiday, but there’s something about this song that just creeps me out.
Fantastic goosebump song. I also love the piping introduction (“Cé Hé Mise Le Ulaingt”) to “The Two Trees” on The Mask and Mirror, and “Santiago” on the same album.
Actually, well-played bagpipes often give me goosebumps. I especially like some of the rollicking stuff by folk band The Tannahill Weavers.
I know it’s probably a bit cliched, but i still get goosebumps listening to Orff’s Carmina Burana. The most obvious candidate is the opening and closing segment, “O Fortuna,” but there are plenty of great bits in between.
Another one that never fails in Nina Simone’s “My Man’s Gone Now” from The Blues.
And Jeff Buckley’s “Last Goodbye,” from Grace, also sometimes has the right effect.