A wonderful song - here’s a splendid version:
The Voice UK 2013 | Bronwen Lewis performs ‘Fields Of Gold’ - Blind Auditions 6 - BBC
A man and a piano in perfect harmony:
Bridge Over Troubled Water - John Legend - North Sea Jazz 2013
This singer had experienced pain and suffering growing up - you can hear it in her voice (and the judges’ comments show how they felt):
Sharon Murphy song “Forever Young” - The Voice UK 2015 | Blind Auditions 4
Good timing, this thread. I just encounted this footage of the incomparable (and cute) Judi Dench performing “Send in the Clowns” from A Little Night Music. See if it hits you in the feels:
Little Green by Joni Mitchell. A song about placing her daughter for adoption.
Oh yes, that’s a heartbreaking song.
And when we first heard the album, none of us knew what it was about.
Sometimes there’ll be sorrow…
I first heard the “Blue” album and the song about 35 years ago, so 20 years after it came out, and I don’t know if the secret already had been revealed, but I at least didn’t know about the adoption until much later.
Wow, how did you miss it? No matter, as far as I’m concerned it is the greatest singer-songwriter album ever. The emotion in the lyrics: as Kris Kristofferson said during the recording sessions: “Joni! Keep something for yourself!”
And the musical proficiency… multiple mastery of many instruments and different tunings.
We shall not see its like again soon…
Easily explained, I was only three in 1971 and only got to Joni Mitchell in my early twenties.
I cry at almost anything anymore. I’m very sentimental. I even cry at *Santa Claus meets the Purple People Eater * 'cause he saves Christmas.
Infamous rock photographer Joel Bernstein was for many years Joni’s tuner. He and others have produced a definitive book on her guitar works.
I cry at everything.
That said, I remember the first time I heard Nina Simone’s version of George Harrison’s Isn’t It A Pity… maybe 20 years ago driving home listening to a local jazz program on the radio. I sat in my driveway listening through to the end. I was floored.
Paulina “Pau” Villarreal is the drummer for the Mexican hard rock trio The Warning. In 2020, during the pandemic, they recorded their third album. The record company insisted they needed one more song to complete the album. Pau had written a song that she called “a panic attack set of music”. She reluctantly agreed to include the song under two conditions; she would only record it alone, at home, on the piano she and her bandmates had learned to play on and she would never be required to sing it in public.
Fast forward to 2023 and they were playing a sold out set of shows at the Pepsi Center in Mexico City in celebration of there tenth year as a band.
On the first night, she decided to play the song. Here’s how it went.
For non-Spanish speakers, here is what Pau said before playing.
“Well, this next song, I said I was never going to play it live because it’s a very personal song, but seeing all of you gathered here, it’s incredible to think that there are 8,000 people here right now who are here for us.
And honestly, I’m kind of sick, my voice isn’t in great shape, but I still want to sing this for you.”
Wow!
(and for discourse: 5 caracters)
The final five minutes of Stravinsky’s Firebird Suite.
These two take me back to 15–23 June 1975, the happiest week of my life:
Leon Russel. “A song for you”
Here, at Willie Nelson’s 70th birthday party, Leon stars it off, Willie sings a verse and Ray Charles closes it out. Willie himself looks close to tears:
I also can only say “wow.”
Harry Chapin “Dreams Go By”
Just remembered. ‘Fairytale of New York’ by the Pogues. My husband and I listened to it and he said it set off memories of his deceased father who died of acute alcoholism (suffered PTSD from WWII and led a tragic life). We both sat there crying our eyes out and much much later, my husband passed away in similar tragic circumstances… Though I love the song, I just can’t.
My late wife and I attended a Moody Blues concert some years ago when they had a full orchestra. She just started crying in the middle of “Isn’t Life Strange” for no apparent reason. At the break, I asked her if there was a problem. She said, “No. It’s just so beautiful.”
That was more than 25 years ago and it’s been over 20 years since she passed away. Now I cry when I hear it…still.
