Wendy Matthews - The Day You Went Away:
I don’t know why, but this song always makes me fearful of the day that one of my parents will pass away, which just chokes me up.
Eric Bogle - The Band Played Waltzing Matilda:
Whenever I hear this, or try to sing even the smallest part, particularly on Anzac Day, I just cry.
R.E.M.'s “Find the River” (off Automatic for the People). I can sometimes do all right until the lines, “The river to the ocean goes/A fortune for the undertow”, and then I lose it completely.
John Doe No. 24 by Mary Chapin Carpenter. I have learned the guitar part, and all the lyrics, and can put them together fine in bits, but if I start singing the whole song, I just lose it.
I was standing on the sidewalk
In 1945
In Jacksonville Illinois.
When asked what my name was
There came no reply.
They said I was a deaf and sightless
Halfwit boy.
But Louis was my name
Though I couldn’t say it… (cue jjimm’s voice wavering and cracking uncontrollably)
(tries to get through the rest of the song)
While I drew breath, noone missed me
So they won’t on the day that I cease.
Put a sprig of crepe jasmine with me
To remind me of New Orleans… (cue jjimm breaking down into floods of tears)
Mitch Benn’s A Minutes Noise for John
Let’s have a minute’s racket, though he isn’t coming coming back it
Seems we understand the need to play something loud and at the wrong speed.
Cos a minute’s silence wouldn’t show him how we feel,
Let’s have a minute’s noise for Peel
That’s verse three, I challenge anyone who grew up with Peely to make it though verse one.