There have been many threads where people have shared music that affects them emotionally and physically. Threads asking for “chilling” music…music that gives you goosebumps…music that makes the hair on the back of your neck stand up.
So I’m tossing another one to the hamsters…share pieces of music that just simply overwhelm you, regardless of how they do so.
My first offering is “Good Things” off of the BoDeans live album, Joe Dirt Car, released in 1995.
The crowd participation combined with the extended conclusion and the jaw-dropping drumming culmination of the song just bring undiagnosed tears to my eyes at least once every 4 times I listen to it.
Most of the songs that do it to me are religious – there are a number of hymns that “get me” (my mom, too, which made me *soooo *embarrassed as a teen because she’d get all teary in church. Now I do it.).
The first song that comes to mind, though, is from Handel’s Messiah: “O Thou that tellest Good Tidings to Zion.” (warning, midi. Not a great one, at that.) I love the music, and I love the words.
One that isn’t religious at all is Alison Krauss’ “Ghost in this House.” It’s about the saddest song – purely sad, not sad and angry, or sad and bitter – I’ve ever heard. And her voice is so clear and pure, and haunting in this song. It’s beautiful.
My personal favorite (although Beethoven’s 9th is right up there) is a performance by Joan Sutherland of the final scene in Anna Bolena. She is singing with a chorus, the chorus is lamenting her impending execution, and her voice soars, seemingly endlessly, over the chorus, and just when you think she has to take a breath the key shifts up and she just keeps going. Thrills me just thinking about it.