God Only Knows on piano, as performed by Brian Wilson himself:
My turn to thank you. That was beautiful!
Here’s one I first heard on a children’s music CD at least a decade ago:
I call this one a beautiful song not because of the melody (though it is rather nice) but the lyrics are incredibly well-textured for such a seemingly simple song…
The song’s narrator is a young girl singing about her babysitter; the first verse is pretty simply descriptive, but the song takes a turn midway through the second verse where we learn that all is not well in the babysitter’s world. By the end of the song, the child still doesn’t quite get all that’s happened but both child and sitter have done a lot of growing up over three verses and a bridge.
I shared that with Mom, and she said, “You sure he has only ten fingers?” That was beautiful. Thank you.
“Contessa, perdono”, by Mozart.
This is how I imagine angels singing.
Tom Waits: Waltzing Matilda
Wish I could find the clip…it was in the episode of House where the little girl has cancer.
Man, what a powerful performance by Christina!
I am building myself a very nice playlist on Spotify of the songs in this thread.
Unfortunately, I won’t be able to add this old favorite:
(Thrasher, by Neil Young)
A bit old, but find three more beautiful voices singing together…
One that has stuck with me since my teenage years 35+ years ago… still moves me to this day.
One from Mary Chapin Carpenter, based upon a poem by Robert Browning, and made into a song by John Lennon. “Grow Old Along with Me”:
Collin Raye’s “Love, Me” is quite touching, telling the story of how Grandma’s parents didn’t like Grandpa when the two were younger, and how they kept in touch in spite of that. The video is out of focus, but the audio is just fine:
And “Where’ve You Been?” from Kathy Mattea. The story of a couple, both awkward in love, but who meet each other, and are happy together for fifty years. Until, “they’re in a hospital in different beds on different floors.” She shuts herself off from everything around her, won’t respond to anybody or anything, and lapses into silence, until somebody realizes how to fix that:
Each song is beautiful, in my opinion, being mostly acoustic guitar and vocals (well, Carpenter’s uses a piano), but each will require extra Kleenex.
Saw this band play when my wife and I randomly walked into this same place for dinner when we were visiting New Orleans. We were just walking around the city and wanted to eat somewhere with music, which of course there, turned out to be a problem more of making a decision among too many choices rather than finding one. We liked what we heard coming out of this place, with this band, so we ate here. We made a good decision. They were excellent, as was the food. We bought a couple of CDs on the way out.
Even if you don’t like country music you can’t deny that this is a most beautiful song:
I think the only things missing from the other beautiful songs here are a Doshpuluur and Igil. Let’s resolve that.
This song gets me every time, no matter how often I’ve played it.
“Come on home, come on home, you don’t have to be alone…”
John Prine - Summer’s End
A traditional Scottish song from the islands, Eriskay Love Lilt, beautifully sung here by Jean Redpath
Martina DaSilva, “The Girl From Ipanema”
“At Last” - Etta James:
Not original to her, but she absolutely recorded the iconic, definitive version played at millions of weddings, and just about any other dramatic, romantic event, since its recording.
Ben(jamin) Woolman plays Soul Discovery:
