Songs That Give You the Chills

In My Humble Opinion
61

I haven’t full read through the thread yet, so forgive me if some of these have been said.

Magic (live) - Ben Folds Five (“You’re the magic that holds the sky up, from the ground…”)
Boxing - Ben Folds Five
No Surprises - Radiohead (“I’ll take a quiet life, a handshake, some carbon monoxide.”)
Street Spirit (fade out) - Radiohead
Nightswimming - REM
Spaceboy - Smashing Pumpkins (“Spaceboy, they’ll kill me… before I’m dead and gone.”)
Everlong - Foo Fighters
Where Is My Mind - Pixies
Who Wants To Live Forever? - Queen (“Who waits forever anyway?”)
Three Libras - A Perfect Circle
You Said Something - PJ Harvey
Northern Lad - Tori Amos (“And if you, could see me now…”)
Wish You Were Here - Pink Floyd (“Running over the same old ground - what have we found? The same old fears… wish you were here.”)

Sniff… I think I have something in my eye. :frowning:

62

Ooops…I forgot to mention that I have more songs, but how can I list most of my CD collection? That would be a lot of songs. I can usually relate to, and sometimes cry because of, a song. It makes it so much more enjoyable.

63

Little Jimmy Scott’s Sycamore Trees. It figured prominently in the Twin Peaks finale, but it is hair-raising even without that attendant creepiness.

64

I am surprised no one has mentioned this one …

Leann Womack’s I Hope You Dance

That one does it for me…

65

Safety In Numbers - Joan Osborne (“since that day I learned the score/I know how to rise above”)

Liquid Diamonds - Tori Amos (“Daddy’s down, preaching back into himself/let’s keep it just between us”)

Burning Flag - Marilyn Manson (“Let’s hear it for the kids/but nothing they say/they gyrate and g-rate on election day”)
I Think I’m Paranoid - Garbage (“bend me, break me, any way you need me/All I want is you”)

#1 Crush - Garbage

Amost Done - Morcheeba (“I thank you/I’d love to cut your throat”)

Dog Coffee - Ani Difranco (“Freedom and democracy/that’s the word from Washington every day/put America to sleep with warm milk and a cliche/some people are expendable along the way/your dollar is dependable, what more can we say?”)

Exit Music (for a film) - Radiohead (“We hope your rules and wisdom choke you”)

Yes, Anastasia - Tori Amos (“we’ll see how brave you are/We’ll see how fast you’ll be running”)

Iron Flower - K’s Choice (“take a jump from your pretty linguistic tower”)

66

Well, I know this is a shock, but “Sam Stone” by John Prine.

Also, “Boom Boom Mancini” and “Charlie’s Medicine” by Warren Zevon.

67

I’ll agree with More than Words — I always feel myself sigh when it’s over, wishing it would go on.

Roberta Flack’s Killing Me Softly and The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face are wonderful, too. And I love too many to name by Gershwin.

When I saw the thread title, I had a different impression of “chills” than was intended in the OP, though. I thought back to a dreadful song called “DOA” which was out some time around 1970 (the year my older sister died — I was 9.) It was a first person account of someone in a terrible accident dying. The lyrics I can’t forget are “Pain is flowing out of my body…God in Heaven, teach me how to die.”

I would get physically ill listening to it. Why the hell would anyone want to listen to that?

68

My picks:
Deftones:
Pink Maggit
Change (In the House of Flies)
Teenager

Poe:
Angry Johnny
Amazed
5 1/2 Minute Hallway
Spanish Doll

Janet Jackson:
Better Days
Trust a Try
Anytime, Anyplace
The Body That Loves You

Massive Attack:
Dissolved Girl
Mezzanine
Angel

Portishead:
Theme from “To Kill a Dead Man”
Strangers
Roads
All Mine
Glorybox

69

Mrs. Lennon by Yoko Ono
Song For John by Yoko Ono
Working Class Hero By John Lennon

When I listened to those songe they were spooky. Now they are some of my favorites.

70

I’ll toss in votes for Street Spirit (fade out) by Radiohead, and Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald by Gordon Lightfoot, and I’ll add;

Caught without an Umbrella - Spearhead
Drink - Junkhouse
Crossing a Canyon - 54-40
Let me In - REM
Wing-stock - Ashley MacIssac
Bohemian Rhapsody - Queen
East St. Louis Toodeloo - Duke Ellington

71

Yum! Sung / played many of the classsical ones in this fantastic list. Don’t forget Vidor’s Toccata, but only when you’re standing right in front of the organ. Goosebumps, electricity crackles up and down my back and moves me to tears every time. Marvelous.

72

Wow there are a lot of good ones here.

This is going to sound strange, but that little “Teenage Dirtbag” song by Wheatus makes the hair stand up on my arms.

Also, there’s a short (1min) song on the Rounders soundtrack called “Fold” that I can put on repeat for an hour. Lots of movie soundtracks get me: Dead Poets Society, Braveheart, Glory for example.

Ben Harper’s live version of “Sexual Healing” is awesome. In fact I’m listening to it right now.

I’m headed right off to GQ to ask why my hair needs to stand up when I hear this stuff.

73

Great thread, Here’s mine,
Mother’s not Dead (she’s only a’sleeping) and
In The Pines As performed by Bill Monroe

Amazing Grace and May the Circle Be Unbroken

Hero Of The Day From the Metallica w/ SF symphony album.

Changes By Black Sabbath

74

May I suggest you give Eva Cassidy’s version a listen. It’s hauntingly beautiful in a way that would make Cyndi Lauper smear her eye-liner until she looked like Tammy Faye Bakker.

stolichnaya, while I don’t get the chills frim Ben Harper’s version, I do “suffer” other effects from the song. :wink:

75

Lord of the Rings - deMiej
A Lincoln Portrait - Copland
Appalachian Spring - Copland
Theme from JFK - Williams
Duel of the Fates from SW Ep. 1: The Phantom Menace - Williams

There’s more of course. Just about anything sung by Charlotte Church gives me chills. Such a spectacular voice from someone so young (or, really, from anyone) is simply breathtaking.

76

Lots of good choices here. Especially Les Mis and Tori. (Yay, Northern Lad!)

More Tori:
Winter “When you gonna make up your mind? When you gonna love you as much as I do? … You say that things change… so fast”
Jackie’s Strength

Another Les Mis moment:
Just after Fantine’s death, the duet between Valjean and Javert: “And this I swear to you tonight” “There is no place for you to hide” “Your child will live within my care” “Wherever you my hide away” “And I will raise her to the light” “I swear to you… I will be there.”

Metallica’s One gets me and so does Pearl Jam’s Elderly Woman…

77

“Here Comes a Regular” By The Replacements

A little toe-tapper about small-town, drunken human-debris. One bootleg version I have is made especially poignant by a completely hammered Paul Westerberg slurring,

“…opportunity knocks once and then the door slams shut,
all I know is that I’m sick of everything my money can buy,
a foolish waste of life,
God rest his guts.”

78

“Anna Begins” - Counting Crows
“One Caress” - Depeche Mode
“1963” - New Order
“There Is a Light That Never Goes Out” - The Smiths
“Blue Moon Revisited (A Song for Elvis)” - Cowboy Junkies
“Sing” - Travis
“Distortions” - Clinic
“Sulk” - Radiohead

79

Without a doubt, This Perfect World by Freedy Johnson is at once one of the most beautiful and the most creepy songs ever written.

It is told from the point of view of a guy who had killed this woman’s daughter and is now confronted by him in her own home. He is telling her that he still deserves to grieve for her even if he is a monster. Lyrics in part…

  • You outghta lock that door/ somebody might get in/ didn’t I teach you that?*

The last line makes me shiver

  • You outght see your face/ you ought hear your voice/ lock this after me.
80

Great thread topic… Great thread…

“The Water is Wide” performed by just about anyone. When
the lyrics get to: “But not so deep as this love I’m in, I know not if I sink or swim…” That does it for me.

“And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda” and “No Man’s Land,” written by Eric Bogle.

“Soda Machine” by Fred J Eaglesmith, especially as performed by Jenny Whiteley.

“39” by Queen, the best science fiction song I know. The last line: “pity me” makes me shiver.

“The Clone Lullaby” by Zeke Hoskin. Very funny song until the punch line slaps you in the face.

“Hard Love” and “For Real” by Bob Franke.

“Now That I’ve Taken My Life” by Tom Paxton.

“Guenevere and the Fire” by Fred Small.

“Coke Oven Brook” by James Gordon.

“The Kind of Love You Never Recover From” by Christine Lavin

"“Hands on the Switch” and “Evelyn Leaves the Lights on” (coincidence?) by Dave Gordon.

“You’ll be There” by The Foreman, but especially as performed by Rebel Voices.

“Democracy” and Bird on a Wire" and “Famous Blue
Raincoat” and “Ain’t No Cure for Love” by Leonard Cohen,
especially as performed by Jennifer Warnes in many
cases.

“January Man” by Dave Goulder, esp as performed by Pint and Dale.

What can I say? I shiver easily.