Tue 24 Nov 2009
Let it move you
Posted by bitterandrew under Music, autobiography
[7] Comments
As a follow up on last week’s pair of posts where I discussed the subjectivity of musical tastes, I’ve taken a few minutes to compile an incomplete list of songs (or parts thereof) that “get to me.” I’m referring to moments that cause me to stop and pause, strike a raw nerve, or trigger some other kind of powerful emotional response…though another listener will most likely experience nothing of the sort.
The list is neither definitive nor in any particular order, and represents whatever instances first came to mind.
- The point in the Rolling Stones’ “Gimme Shelter” where Merry Clayton’s voice cracks as she’s howling “Rape! Murder!”
- The sonic bombardment (copped from Sammy Hagar’s “I’ve Done Everything for You”) that kicks off the Clash’s “Safe European Home.” I shelved Give ‘Em Enough Rope within a half hour of bringing home back in the summer of 1989. There it stayed, unloved and colecting dust, until the late fall of my sophomore year in college. I was walking back past the Arboretum to the Forest Hills Orange Line station after an unpleasant visit to my soon-to-be-ex-girlfriend’s house in Jamaica Plain, and dreading the long ride back to Woburn when the song just popped into my head and struck a chord with my feelings of disillusionment.
After the inevitable breakup I ended up dating, then marrying, a girl who lived a couple miles down the road…a girl whose favorite Clash song happened to be “Safe European Home.”
- Lesley Woods’s deadpan vocals on the Au Pair’s “It’s Obvious,” more caustic than any punk rock growl could ever hope to be.
- The transition in The JAMs “It’s Grim Up North” where industrial dance beats fade into the orchestral bombast of William Blake’s “Jerusalem.” If there was ever a moment where music made me feel like I could bench press the entire planet, that would be it.
- The ferocious roar from Jim Bob that separates the genteel opening of Carter USM’s cover of the Inspiral Carpets’ “This Is How It Feels” from the rave up that follows.
- The local references in the Modern Lovers’ “Roadrunner,” which transform an already great song into a transcendental experience for a listener who grew up a stone’s throw from the traffic-clogged asphalt ribbon of Route 128 and the Stop & Shop store adjacent to it.
- This track, in its infectiously dancable entirety…
Recommended listening: Alan Moorehouse – Beatcoma (from Let’s Boogaloo!, Vol. 3
These are what move me. What moves you?
November 24th, 2009 at 9:16 pm
I hear you on “Gimme Shelter”, I’ve had a really strong reaction there. I’d say mine are
-Ted Leo and The Pharmacists’ “Bridges, Square” when he says really plaintively ‘Nostalgia for gaslit times I’ll never ever see/futurians manifest, internationalists’. The song as a whole can nearly bring me to tears, but that particular line just cuts me like a knife.
-Alejandro Escovedo’s Wave, Or Calexico’s cover of it, when he says that everybody waves goodbye
-Wilco’s “Jesus, etc” where he says ‘each [star] is a setting sun’.
-The plaintive blast of French horn at the end of the Eurythmics “Never Gonna Cry Again”.
November 24th, 2009 at 11:48 pm
- The defeat in Billy Bragg’s voice when he sings “She takes off the Four Tops tape and puts it back in its case.”
- Eddie Van Halen’s guitar on “Girl Gone Bad” (and pretty much all the time)
- When the Clash crank up the end of “(White Man) In Hammersmith Palais” and Jones’ backing vocals on the whole thing
- When Aimee Mann sings “Row, row, row your boat, gently down the stream. Hope you drown and never come back…” in the background of “Choice in the Matter”
And a ton of other moments I’m struggling to describe
November 25th, 2009 at 12:17 am
Oh, and Kate Micucci at 1:32
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ilOx2Jmm1r4&NR=1&feature=fvwp
November 25th, 2009 at 7:09 pm
-The song “Sunday” from the Sondheim musical ‘Sunday in the Park with George’ evokes a really strong emotional response with me. I saw a production last month and I was choking back tears both times the song came up. It causes the same reaction even when I’m listening to a recording.
-The last section of Belle and Sebastian’s “Your Cover’s Blown”. The vocals give me goosebumps.
-Los Campesinos! “You! Me! Dancing!”
-The opening guitar on David Bowie’s “Cracked Actor” makes me want to kick something, in a good way. Makes me understand cock rock.
-The string part on Pizzicato Five’s “Darlin’ of Discoteque”.
November 26th, 2009 at 1:57 am
I think I actually have a folder of such songs, entitled “strong.”
-Frank Black’s “Bullet” (various bits, including the growly low “I’ll take this call from Valhalla”)
-Any one of the understated “Prove it”s in Television’s song of the same name
-The “And he lay on the floor” line in the Clash’s “The Card Cheat”
-Definitely Bowie’s “Teenage Wildlife,” pretty much all of it.
-The Lambchop cover of “Beyond Belief” (at least up until the end, which trails off, and which I cut off of an mp3 version I ripped)
-Michael Nyman/Damon Albarn’s “Boyd’s Journey,” from the Ravenous soundtrack.
November 27th, 2009 at 10:17 am
The part in Hardcore UFO’s, the first track on Bee Thousand Where the solo running beneath the lyric cuts out around 1:22, most likely because of the abysmal production of the album, then triumphantly returns eight seconds later to lead the song to a roaring finish.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I2ICvSl2b38
November 28th, 2009 at 1:57 am
Oh, I almost forgot the yellat the end of Mission of Burma’s “That’s How I Escaped My Certain Fate”. I was later told that this was uttered by the lead singer because he incorrectly thought the tape had run out early, and they just kept that on there.