I don’t believe in ranking art. You can’t compare art across times, or genres, or cultures, or purposes, or intended audiences.
But there’s stuff out there that is so great that time stops and my eyes start to water just in sheer awe and base jealousy.
We were blessed with one of those moments during the Olympic Opening Ceremony. And I’m not even referring to the well-sung version of the iconic song of the current zeitgeist, Leonard Cohen’s admittedly magnificent “Hallelujah.”
Skew older. A song from the 60s. Joni Mitchell’s “Both Sides Now.” But not the thin 1969 acoustic piano original or the bubbly Judy Collins cover. A song so new, so changed, so laden with years of wisdom and learning and weight that only a women three decades farther on in a deeply-lived life could have created the arrangement. A jazz arrangement, suitable as the blues for expressing emotions, and better for bittersweet, conflicting, both ways emotions.
The self cover appeared on the 2000 jazz album Both Sides Now. It famously surfaced at an iconic moment in the movie Love, Actually, tearing into the soul of every adult whose heart had been shattered at a moment they could not take the time from others’ lives to handle. The words are ice in the veins, hope to be clutched and held close, longing for the unattainable, wistful memories of sun and joy, and backed by an arrangement that is utterly perfect in every note, one that lifts and sustains and moves forth the hoarse cigarette aging voice of too many nights needing to sing those sentiments and yet knowing that they only strive to be saving grace. The combination is perfect. Very little is perfect. I have that infallible detector. Perfection makes me want to cry. Not sadness or loss or horror. Perfection.
The mature “Both Sides Now” is the best sad song we’ll ever hear. It’s a happy song, too, filled with symbols that Mitchell implies we all should embrace. It is a bittersweet masterpiece. Greatest interpretation of one’s own song ever? I don’t know and I don’t care if that can’t be answered. I have the song. It is sufficient.
Happy? Wonderful? Ladies and gentlemen, please check out the awesome Manhattan Transfer performing “Operator” (not the Jim Croce song!) - yowsa!!! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Or8286teVgc
Saddest song ever? I give you Richard Thompson’s End Of The Rainbow (lyrics here). There is no hope at all in this song, but it describes the fate of many poor souls in the world. It couldn’t get any more gloomy, but it’s a great song.
WordMan, the NPR station in Kansas City has a blues program on Friday and Saturday nights called “The Fish Fry” and they always play that song to start the show. I’ve been listening for years and never get sick of hearing it!
He’s the freakin’ best - Nobody Here But Us Chickens? Is You Is or Is You Ain’t My Baby? Caledonia? Salt Pork, West Virginia? The man could entertain, I tell you.
And given Kansas City’s rep as a huge music center back in the 30’s - 50’s, it is cool that show exists. Charlie Parker and (I think) Big Joe Turner and other important artists are either from KC or made it a regular stop…
There’s something about Sigur Ros’ Hoppipolla that makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. It’s so happy and sad and hopeful and uplifting all at the same time.
(Plus the video makes me giggle every time I watch it)
Actually, most Sigur Ros songs tend to affect me that way. Must be why they tend to be the band of choice for scoring any generic uplifting montage for TV and film.
I’d use the word “pessimistic” rather than “sad” for that one.
Speaking of “Hallelujah,” the all-time winner for most iconic happy song may be Handel’s “Hallelujah Chorus.”
More recent happy songs include Stevie Wonder’s “Sir Duke,” Madness’s “Wings of a Dove,” and (for a mellower happy) Simon & Garfunkel’s “Feelin’ Groovy.”
To me, the saddest songs are the “final goodbyes” kind (like some of Warren Zevon’s last songs). The Lost Dogs’ Rebecca Go Home always brings tears to my eyes.
I don’t have one of my own to add at the moment but the OP is so beautifully written and I agree wholeheartedly with his comments about it’s use and effectiveness in “Love Actually”.
When the remake came out I saw Ms. Mitchell perform it on some award show and to be honest, it broke my heart and not in the way intended. Of course I didn’t expect her to be the same beauty she was thirty years ago but she looked so gaunt and her voice so reedy that I almost wanted to cry. I thought I detected a slight tremor as well, so perhaps she’s suffers from a neuromuscular disorder.
I’m so glad that song found it’s way into a wonderful movie that was enhanced greatly by it’s use.
I find “Hey Jude” a depressing song. I remember my parents listening to it over and over again on a rainy Sunday afternoon when I was around ten and my dad filled the house with the smell of his cigar. Thirty years later, whenever I hear “Hey Jude” or smell a cigar I want to vomit.
Great lyrics by the original writer, but this is the best performance.
This is one to break your heart. I think this is his best performance of this song, strange to think, the older he gets, the more authentic the performance.
