Merry Clayton’s haunting vocals and the prescience thereof in Gimme Shelter
End of decade, December, 1969
I was at a party in New Haven where young people were dancing around like simians.
It was remarkable.
*Rape, murder!
It’s just a shot away
It’s just a shot away
Rape, murder!
It’s just a shot away
It’s just a shot away*
Well, then there was the spring of '70.
I was a freshman and you could smell it coming.
I still get chills.
I do love Fountains of Wayne, and just listened to your link, which did make me smile widely. I don’t think I could hum the melody after the first listen, but the playful lyrics and deep arrangements were entrancing.
I think I remember hearing that for the first time. It stood head and shoulders above everything else on Top 40.
Usually it takes multiple listens for songs to click with me, but after hearing Born to Run for the first time, I was desperate to hear that big opening motif again.
My first encounter with Ladysmith Black Mambazo’sRain was hearing it used in a commercial for lemon-lime soda. (Probably 7-Up.) It may have taken two listens for it to slap me in the face.
It might be easier to be stunned by an innovative cover version of a song, since your brain isn’t starting from point zero
As a musician, guitarist and music collector, I can say there’s probably thousands of songs but a few jaw dropping moments where I remember thinking “Wow, Genius!” include:
James Taylor - anything, the first time I heard his voice I was hooked.
Chuck Berry - Johnny B. Goode
Buddy Holly - Peggy Sue
Joe Walsh - Rocky Mountain Way
Peter Frampton - Do You Feel Like We Do
Van Halen- Eruption
Joe Satriani - Satch Boogie
Colin Hay - Waiting for my Real Life to Begin
Five for Fighting - 100 Years
Rush - La Villa Strangiatto
Ramones - Blitzkrieg Bop
Dire Straits - Telegraph Road
I’m sure there are lots more, but that’s a start.
**Chef **- Check out Oliver Sain’s version. He builds up to a climax that will leave you breathless and then sails along ever so smoothly.
Most of it’s just a fairly good but standard FoW song IMO, but it does have a great “cellar door” phrase “they talk about real estate, prostates, Costco.” I just love the way that phrase rolls around in my brain. A couple months ago I started a thread about cellar door phrases (i.e. phrases that sound inherently good just from the aesthetics), and I almost included that phrase as an example.
Alanis Morisette’s “You Oughtta Know” just blew me away.
Heh, that’s one of my favorites too. 
In the early wave of ‘alternative’ music…some of the context of this is I grew up in a small town, too young to go to the big shows, only big mainstream album radio…
A friend came back from LA with a couple of copied cassette tapes for me. Love and Rockets “Express”, and Janes Addiction “Nothing’s Shocking”
Portsmouth Sinfonia with their version of “Hallelujah” caused my mouth to drop open in wonder, but not because they were so good.
Santana’s “Yaleo” did make my jaw drop with wonder and joy due to its goodness, however.
The first time I heard Henryk Górecki’s * Symphony No. 3 “Symphony of Sorrowful Songs.”* I was completely knocked out. Only later did I find it had been a big hit a few years earlier. I just love it.
Possibly Sarah Brightman and Paul Miles-Kingston?
There’s a number of songs that have done this for me but in different sorts of ways depending on why it’s so good. A song that is SO good because of it’s raw beauty isn’t so much likely to make my jaw literally drop as it is to bring tears to my eyes or chills down my spine. When it comes to music, jaw-dropping is more of a literal response when the technical aspects are unbelievable, like some insanely talented guitar solo or drum rhythm or the like. To me, though, they’re essentially the same response, one is just an intellectual one that manifests physically and the other is an artistic one that manifests emotionally.
For the first type, I can say I had exactly that response as recently as the newest Anathema album, Weather Systems, I had chills in the first track and I’m quite certain even my jaw dropped by some point in the second track. I had a similar response to their album before that. Some others I can recall immediately off the top from the last couple years of my head would be Katatonia’s Departer, Dark Sun’s For You.
For the latter type, it really takes a very special musician. I remember seeing Jeff Loomis play live a few times as part of Nevermore and just being in complete awe of some of his most impressive solos, like in Enemies of Reality and The Riverdragon Has Come. I remember listening to Meshuggah’s I for the first time at the gym and had to stop in the middle of a set because it was so impressive and I listened to the rest of that section there with my jaw dropped.
I could probably list a few dozen songs I’ve had one or both of those reactions to.
For me, it’s hearing a completely different style that I nonetheless like. For really great songs I also like you get more of a chill.
I think actual jaw-dropping may have only happened twice. Once was the alternative-with-hip-hip influence of Beck’s Loser, the other is the screamo-with-hip-hop influences of Blood on the Dance Floor.
I don’t know, they both look very familiar but I can’t youtube or listen audibly at work. If though it’s from around that mid to late 80s period on Requiem then you’ve probably found it. Thanks!
[QUOTE=Ludovic]
Once was the alternative-with-hip-hip influence of Beck’s Loser…
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Heh, almost mentioned Loser too. What an extraordinary tune. Beck is a musical god.
For me, the jaw dropping experience occurs when I hear the first time I hear the song is live. A couple of experiences, both from 2006, come to mind.
I was at the Bluebird Cafe in Nashville, in January, just a few weeks after the Sago mine disaster in West Virgina. There were three songwriters in an “In the Round” setup, playing songs their songs in rotation. One of them, a fellow named Austin Moody that I’d never heard of before, said those miners who had died were on his mind, and he played one of his songs called “Thousand Feet Under.” I can’t find a sound file of the song, but the lyrics are here. Those last two lines of the chorus : “You ain’t scared of dying when you’re buried each day / A thousand feet under your granddaddy’s grave” gave me chills. And, yes, my jaw dropped.
Second time was in Atlanta, also an in the round setting. The three songwriters were Marshall Chapman, Ellis Paul, and a fellow I’d never heard of named Tommy Womack. About halfway through the set, Tommy played “Alpha Male and the Canine Mystery Blood”. EVERYONE’S jaw dropped. Ellis Paul, who was next up, turned to Tommy and said, “I’m NEVER sharing a stage with you again!”
You reminded me that “Sinnerman” by Nina Simone affected me that way. It’s also the perfect song for driving in fast traffic.
Emma Gillespie’s cover of Change by the Deftones gives me major cold chills every time I hear it. A great cover version of a good song can be a thing of beauty and this is the way it’s done.
For OP to be more interesting, replace “a song” with “an album”.
The first time that I heard the song named “Dam* Right” from my most favorite singer, I knew that I could not have picked a more precious beautiful sweet hearted teddy bear to be my most favorite. 
God bless you and James always!!!
Holly
I’ll probably be mocked mercilessly for this, but what the hell.
This past holiday season, the radio in my car was tuned to The Wave every time my wife and/or daughter were riding along (and sometimes when they weren’t). The first time I heard the station play Carol of the Bells by Pentatonix, my jaw did literally drop open.
I am SUCH a sucker for masterful a capella close harmony/polyphony.