I am enough of a David Bowie fan but not a rabid deep fan.
I am enough of a David Byrne fan but not a rabid deep fan.
For some reason this performance just wrecks me. Perhaps it is the layered generations of civilians singing with love, pain, joy, honesty and soul. Perhaps it is what David does with David’s composition.
Here’s David Byrne and a chorus of fans singing David Bowie’s “Heroes” at Joe’s Pub in NYC.
What’s your easy cry?
Oh god, too many to mention. But off the top of my head I’d go with Bridge Over Troubled Water. Eric Clapton’s Tears in Heaven is also a strong one.
Dylan’s Lily, Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts and in particular, the line near the end: Lily had already taken all of the dye out of her hair. I’m not quite sure why, but it has since I first got that great album. It’s a long song, and I love the narrative story-telling and all the drama, but the way he sings that one line gets me.
The similar thread I started 21 years ago:
Braddah Iz’s version of What a Wonderful World does that to me. I put together my brother’s memorial service, and the service opened and closed with that. I still can’t hear it without my eyes welling up.
“The Last Time I Saw Her Face” by Gordon Lightfoot, especially this last part…
*The last time I saw her face
Her eyes were bathed in starlight
And she walked alone
The last time she kissed my cheek
Her lips were like the wilted leaves
Upon the autumn covered hills
Resting on the frozen ground
The seeds of love lie cold and still
Beneath a battered marking stone
It lies forgotten*
I can think of two, offhand. “Being Alive” from Company (situational: I saw the show just about the time I had an engagement fall apart), and Springsteen’s “The Rising” once I realized what it was about.
Two for me. First, the live version of Van Morrison’s “Listen To The Lion” on “It’s Too Late To Stop Now”. The studio version already was very intense, but this version is 9 minutes of drama. And at the finish of the song, a woman in the audience cries out “All right!” like after a catharsis. This cry gets me every time.
The other is Kurt Cobain’s rendition of the folk classic “Where Did You Sleep Last Night” (In The Pines) on MTV Unplugged. Here, you see a tortured man, giving all he has to give and making the strongest statement of his whole career. In a shabby cardigan, sitting on a chair playing acoustic guitar. A few months later, he was no more.
Paraulas d’amor, by Joan Manuel Serrat. Perhaps the most tender love song ever sung. Still gets me after… how many years? This version is from 1968. I was a little boy, and Serrat was soooo young.
And 54 years later, the song starts at 2:30
The simple orchestration of the original feels better, but the spectators singing as one in the second is great too.
Puff the Magic Dragon - once I had kids and realized that I was going to be Puff someday.
Far from the Home I Love from Fiddler on the Roof. And the spoken lines right after the song are absolutely crushing:
Hodel: Papa, God alone knows when we shall see each other again.
Tevye: Then we will leave it in His hands.
Oh my gosh, I’m sorry I didn’t do a Search before starting this thread. I dunno. 21 years… Mods, if you need to kill this one and merge into commasense’s, please do.
Peter Gabriel’s performance of Here Comes The Flood from the Growing Up Live Tour.
Chorus of the Hebrew Slaves from Verdi’s “Nabucco”. It’s considered by many to be the best chorus ever written for opera.
Thanks, I liked seeing the old poster’s names. Also, finding out what I said 21 years ago, it still stands! When She Loved Me, from Toy Story II.
One that used to just tear me up when I was young and thought I was in love was “I’ve Been To Town”, sung by Glenn Yarbrough
Bette Midler’s “The Rose”.
It’s an odd association, and not very direct.
But for some reason it always reminds me of a good musician friend who committed suicide some years ago. To this day we don’t really know why: depression is a horrible disease. And if we’d spotted it earlier, we might have been able to get him some help.
RIP Rob: there was so much more music left to make…
A wedding in an episode of the brilliant Better Things featured the song Martha, written by Tom Waits. (Bette Midler also performed it on her one and only appearance on SNL.) A man named Tom Frost reaches out a past love about their relationship from 40 years ago. In a few short verses we get blissful memories (“Days of roses, of poetry and prose”) and the reality that time has passed (“I feel so much older now/ And you’re much older too/ How’s the husband and how’s the kids? / You know that I got married too.”), ending with “And I remember quiet evenings/ Trembling close to you.” It’s a beautiful memory of how wonderful love can be, even if our lives and loves have changed.
Can We Still Be Friends, by Todd Rundgren, kind of wrecks me. There’s no deeper reason for it, as it’s played no part in my life, but when I hear it I remember just how it feels when your heart is broken.
Molly - Biff Rose
This performance of “Memory” from Cats. I’ve heard others sing the song but for some reason Elaine Paige’s version hits me differently.
