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I wanted to start a new thread based on comments made by various people on the WORST SONG thread, notably Rubberball, who said: Quote:
Mr. Bojangle's dog dying does not seem like manipulation to me, just part of the story.
I'm curious to hear what songs have moved you emotionally without making you feel manipulated. And I'm not just talking about sad songs... I'm talking any emotional appeal... inspiration, retrospection, aspiration whatever.
If we can pin down exactly what appeals to us in other people's lyrics, it may help us to write something commercially viable too.
your thoughts...?
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jury's out on BUTTERFLY KISSES by Bob Carlisle https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vmC3rJR7E98&ob=av2eAny daddy who's ever raised a little girl to adulthood has probably had some tough moments listening to this song. I've heard of big ol' lumberjack lookin' men who pulled their pickups over to the berm because they couldn't see the road through the tears. Yet, it has a bit of the same shameless heart-snitting that made HONEY hard to hear for a lot of people. But, lots of people like it. Its a perennial favorite at weddings. From a commercial standpoint, it fills a recurring niche that wasn't previously filled by anything else.
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Two songs that really touch me emotionally are "Arise, My Love" by NewSong and "American Dream" by Casting Crowns.
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Lee Ann Womack's I HOPE YOU DANCE works for me https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RV-Z1YwaOiw&ob=av2eas one of this world's many quiet people who have a hard time making a firm decision to wholeheartedly embrace the simple joys of life, this song gives me the permission I never asked for. I think an awful lot of people identify with the message in this song. And commercially speaking, strong emotional identification is the home run that most song writers never manage to hit.
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Steppenwolf's BORN TO BE WILD appeals in different ways to many. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tnB-dnJVlcsto some its testimony to who they are... to others its a testimony of who they'd like to be but for better or for worse, the song does tend to stir the imagination,
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Quote:
......I'm curious to hear what songs have moved you emotionally without making you feel manipulated. And I'm not just talking about sad songs... I'm talking any emotional appeal... inspiration, retrospection, aspiration whatever......
I think mentioning a dog made me think of this, but 'Old Shep'(Red Foley I think) is a heart tugger that helped Elvis win a lot of contests and perhaps contributed to his career. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nKuiS3J52pw
Inspiration, aspiration: 'Angels' is one of many that gets me. (Enya) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tqVnOLiH0FM
But I nominate 'So Far From The Clyde' (Knoppfler) as a very good example of how music can manipulate us without us feeling manipulated. I mean, he's singing about a boat for goodness sakes. 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UrTOeje9Rhs
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That's easy. Handel's Messiah. All of it.
--Mac
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Quote:
That's easy. Handel's Messiah. All of it.
--Mac
you win
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speakin' o' ships and (emotional) payload... I am reminded of the Edmund Fitzgerald https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hgI8bta-7awthere's something fascinating about: 1) the awesome power of nature and our comparative smallness 2) the drama and heroism of a team trying to survive in a hopeless situation 3) being musically projected into someone else's last moments 4) symbolically experiencing the grief of the families left behind this song has all that
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Quote:
That's easy. Handel's Messiah. All of it. -Mac
I just listened to the 'Hallelujah Chorus of Handel's Messiah. Wow! I'd sort of forgotten about that one. Good call.
Quote:
speakin' o' ships and (emotional) payload... I am reminded of the Edmund Fitzgerald
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hgI8bta-7aw
there's something fascinating about:
1) the awesome power of nature and our comparative smallness
2) the drama and heroism of a team trying to survive in a hopeless situation
3) being musically projected into someone else's last moments
4) symbolically experiencing the grief of the families left behind
this song has all that
Well said. Another one of my favs that I've not listened to in awhile.
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Hey Pat, I can think of a million that manage to get to me in someway. One of the more recent ones that I've heard is at .... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vHf7DtRa5TY&NR=1It's a song that Beth Nielsen Chapman wrote following her husband's death. I was fortunate enough to hear Beth sing it at a songwriting workshop last year. It was very powerful. There wasn't a dry eye in the room afterwards. I also stumbled across the below performance by Wynonna Judd recently and all I could think afterwards was "Wow! What a singer! What a song!" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tlv62wB4VNsI also find Dolly's response to 9/11 an incredibly uplifting work. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vMQWYxPsGqw Lastly, the Mormon Tabernacle Choir singing the "Battle Hymn Of The Republic" gets to me every time. The sound is simply magnificent. (Unfortunately Youtube is unable to do justice the sound of 500 or so choristers. The below link is the best I could find.) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o2x8MtHyx20Regards, Noel
MY SONGS...Audiophile BIAB 2026
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Quote:
I just listened to the 'Hallelujah Chorus of Handel's Messiah. Wow! I'd sort of forgotten about that one. Good call.
If you can ever get your hands on a complete CD of the entire thing... Just. Do. It.
I still, at the age of 60, repeat something I've done since maybe around high school age with The Messiah, and recommend it to all practicing musicians, composers, arrangers, whatever -- also obtain a copy of the score, or at least one of the transcriptions for voice and organ, etc. -- and follow along with the performance as it plays.
There are two Classical works that I think *every* aspiring jazz musician should know inside and out, The Messiah is one of them and Bach's Well Tempered Clavier is the other.
By "know" I don't necessarily mean being able to play these pieces, although that would certainly be a goal as well, but there is so much to learn about the art and science of MODULATION, methodology of SEQUENCING, VARIATION that makes sense, so many things that are readilhy transferrable to Modern Jazz as well as all other modern musics that the experience is well worth the effort and slight expenditure. IMO
Analyze 'em. Then see what you might come up with when substituting the tension chords in there, b5, #5, b9, #9 and so on. Lift the Sequence runs in entirely, practice 'em and have a pallette ready to inject at any time during a solo, instead playing the 8ths with Swing feel, of course.
Vince Guaraldi's famous, "Linus and Lucy" piano piece comes to mind. I realized the first day I tried to transcribe that stuff that it had its roots in Handel's Messiah, there's a lick in there that the violins play in orchestral presentation that was a necessary to have in the organ transcription -- and involves the use of 1-3, 2-4 and 3-5 fingering of the RH that is virtually identical to Vince's "signature" line in the Melody of that piece, just a different keysig (Handel did it in D, Vince used Ab, actually an easier device for the pianist, as well as placing it in one of the "jazz horn keys"). Mr. Guaraldi certainly knew where to go to say, "Merry Christmas" indeed.
"Comfort Ye"
Okay, I'll stop now.
--Mac
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I was in the Pontiac Silverdome, probably 10-12 years ago (- this is the dome where the Detroit Lions used to play - seats 80,000 or so)
and it was probably 2/3 full. I think there were 50,000 men there. Men only - men's Christian conference going on.
Holy, Holy, Holy sung in acapella by 50,000 men. Now, that was an experience full of emotion, soul searching, feeling small, feeling grand, etc. I'm tearing up right now thinking about it. Heaven's gonna sound like that - pretty sure.
-Scott
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Quote:
Lee Ann Womack's I HOPE YOU DANCE works for me
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RV-Z1YwaOiw&ob=av2e
as one of this world's many quiet people who have a hard time making a firm decision to wholeheartedly embrace the simple joys of life, this song gives me the permission I never asked for. I think an awful lot of people identify with the message in this song. And commercially speaking, strong emotional identification is the home run that most song writers never manage to hit.
1st of all I also love this song. It was played at a younger cousin's funeral a few years ago as it was her favorite song, well since then I can never get through it on a performance. In fact I just gave up even trying to perform this song again, now I just listen.
Also while they are many that get me emotionaly like Lee Greenwood's God Bless The USA, Wind Beneath My Wings, Trace Atkins' You Gonna Miss This and his latest, She Thinks We're Just Fishing to name a few but this is my favorite by Ray Charles America The Beautiful.
I am sure many more will come to mind as, well because music just does that doesn's it.
Later,
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Ya got good taste, Danny C.
BTW -- the Hammnd organ part on the original classic recording of Ray's America was played by none other than the late great, "fifth Beatle" -- Billy Preston -- when he was still yet a kid, no less. Somewhere around the age of 12 or so, and playin' a recording date with Ray Charles...
--Mac
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Chiseled in Stone by Vern Gosdin.
It's in my show but haven't dared to do it since my wife passed.
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While driving today the song THE LIVING YEARS by Mike and the Mechanics played on the radio. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uGDA0Hecw1kThat's another one that works for me. It speaks of the generational roadblocks to communication, a topic almost everybody can identify with on some level.
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