Most recently? Kelly Clarkson (with Jeff Beck) singing Patty Griffin’s Up to the Mountain (YouTube).
It was worth the 2 hour ‘Idol Gives Back’ cheese-fest just to see that performance.
I’m surprised by the number of people who are deeply affected by The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald. What exactly does it for you? The fact that it tells a story – a good one at that – instead of blathering on with the usual I-love-you-but-you-don’t-love-me lyrics? Is it the music? It can’t be the music – pretty repetitive. Do any of you come from sea-faring families or from towns with a port? Personally, Lightfoot’s Black Day in July, If You Could Read My Mind or even Canadian Railroad Trilogy do it for me more than TWOTEF.
The very first little guitar part that begins the Grateful Dead’s “Dark Star.” I actually participated in a group levitation of the Hampton Coliseum in 1989 when the played that during their second set. Too much for my brain.
The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald has an almost other worldly feel to it. It cuts across any differences we all might have and speaks directly to our loss. WHATEVER that loss my be. The loss of hope, the loss of innocence, the loss of loved ones …
imho, ymmv
Worth it, and lost on most of their audience. The morning-after discussion here at my office (I didn’t participate) focused exclusively on whether or not Clarkson has gained weight. :rolleyes:x 1000
I’m not sure, really. There’s no single thing I can attribute it to, certainly. I think the fact that the music is repetitive is part of it. There’s a sort of bleak inevitability to it that plays into the tale of tragedy. The lyrics build on that, loaded with cold imagery and a sense of a timeless, uncaring killer. The song brings individuals to the fore just long enough for us to recognize them as people before they’re lost. Finally, it dwells on the mourners in the aftermath.
Taken as a whole, it’s chilling. It makes you feel small and lost, somehow. I can’t tell you why that draws me to it, but I sometimes get a trace of the same feeling when looking at the stars, or when alone in a deep forest. Maybe it’s just a sense I have that there’s a little piece of Truth hidden there, somewhere.
There’s a prayer I read once, “The sea is great, and my boat is small. Have mercy.”
Although I’ve now heard it hundreds of times in my life, I never seem to tire of listening to side two of Abbey Road, and there is a specific moment that still gives me a chill when I hear it: when the descending chord progression at the end of “Polythene Pam” segues into the opening line of “She Came in Through the Bathroom Window.” What a cool transition in a great medley.
When the organ kicks in during the 4th movment of Saint Saens’ 3rd Symphony. From that point until the end. Words cannot describe it.
and the entire soundtrack for Braveheart, but especially during the parts where (1) Princess Isabelle tells Longshanks, after he has lost the ability to speak, that “a child who is not of your line grows in my belly” and (2) when Little Girl Murron gives Little Boy William a freshly-picked thistle at his father’s funeral.
Repeating
ACDC’s For Those About to Rock (We Salute You)
CSN’s Southern Cross
Adding
Holy Lamb by Yes
Shoot High, Aim Low by Yes
Leave It by Yes
Lots more, but I’m listening to Yes right now, so…
Neil Young’s
Needle and the Damage Done
Sugar Mountain
Since I got reminded of this in the what-is-a-remix-thread, the first 5 tracks on Armin van Buuren’s “Boundaries of Imagination”.
“Spokey Dokey” by Ryuichiro Senoo from the Cowboy Bebop anime series
Junior Wells’ harp solo in “Messin’ With the Kid” (but only one version - all others suck). The same goes for James Cotton doing “Rocket 88”.
Tom Waits singing “Shiver Me Timbers” (and a million other songs)
Anything by Ben Prestage. The only guy I know who can go from Chet Atkins to R.L. Burnside in one song and make you want to cry for happiness listening to it.