What songs that weren’t released until after it’s creator has died get to you?
For me it’s “Silver and Gold(Before I Grow Too Old)” by Joe Strummer and The Mescaleros
‘m gonna go out dancin’ every night
I’m gonna see all the city lights
I’ll do everything silver and gold
I got to hurry up before I grow too old
[ LYRICS DELETED – CKDH ]
Gets me all teary eyed everytime I hear it. It’s the last song on Joe’s last album. The song also sounds as if it wasn’t competed before his death, which adds an even sadder tone to it. It’s almost as if he knew his time was almost up.
I saw Kris Kristofferson talking once… he and Janis had a thang for a while. After she died, he didn’t even know she recorded it, he heard Me and Bobby McGee on the radio.
Not exactly what you mean, but the Allman’s Melissa always breaks me up. It sounds like it could be about Duane, and his (then) recent passing. And Dickie’s slide… if EVER a guitar was made to cry, that was it. Just destroys me.
Arrrg! I logged in to reply with the same answer and you beat me to it.
The song’s a bit haunting when you consider that he’d finally conquered his
drug and alcohol addictions just before he died in the helicopter crash.
“The Show Must Go On” by Queen. Especially considering how, apparently, Freddie Mercury publicly announced he had AIDS only the day before he died. I see it as a final act of courage.
*Time in a Bottle * by Jim Croce. Actually I’m not sure if he was still alive when it was released, but it ws the last thing he wrote and it breaks me up every time.
I didn’t know about Stan Rogers’ music till after he died in the mid-80s, but I actually didn’t know he was dead until the late 90s. :smack: He died of smoke inhalation after an emergency landing and his aiding others to get off the plane first.
A few off the posthumous release “From Coffee House to Concert Hall…Live” get to me (they all do, because I wish he had been around longer to make more beautiful music, but these more so):
Down the Road
Sun is rising high, burning into the day,
I will say goodbye, I’ll be going away,
I’ll brush away my doubts, what tomorrow will hold,
I’m feeling fine for now, going down the road…
Straight and True
I think I’m ready, my hands are steady, 'though that’s something I’ve not always known,
And even if the West rejects me, there’s some place I hold for my own,
And I soon will be there; do I love it? Yes, I guess that you could say I do,
'Cause I’ll be picking with my people where the music’s always straight and true, straight and true.
Matter of Heart
Put your life on the line,
Give your hand and pledge your time
To the love whose lips inflame you
Like some ancient and golden wine;
And to all it’s a start in fulfilling greatest needs in part,
For in whatever we dream of what we some day want to be
It’s a matter of heart.
Louise’s Song
No! All those shadows on your face,
They look so out of place, they should be sunlight.
I want to take you when the smile returns
And keep you from the night
And wake up to see me in your eyes.
Every song on Zevon’s last CD has that hanging over it; he knew he was dying when he made it. The Rest of the Night might be kinda lightweight, except the circumstances make it sound like he’s spitting in death’s face.
[hijack]
Checking his discography just now I found a CD of various covers of his songs. There’s some serious talent there, and some of them might be great, but who the hell let Adam Sandler do Werewolves of London?
Jeff Buckley was alive when his album Grace came out, but his cover of Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah still feels like it fits in this thread in a large way…
Although it’s instrumental with no words to intensify the feelings, I’ll mention Stan Getz’s last recording People Time with pianist Kenny Barron as one I can’t hear without admiring the courage Getz kept to the last.
Similarly, Paul Desmond’s contribution to a Chet Baker album You Can’t Go Home Again brings tears.
