Friday open thread: favourite and/or inspiring songs

[dolorosa_12]

Welcome back to another one of my crowd-sourced Friday open threads. This one is a prompt from dhampyresa, and is close to my music-loving heart.

The prompt is: what's your favourite song and/or the one that most speaks to or inspires you?



My favourite song is, and has been for more than fifteen years, 'Mezzanine' by Massive Attack. I love it for so, so, so many reasons, chief among them being the interplay of really, really clever lyrics (and for a band whose signature is basically 'clever lyrics', this song takes that to a whole other level), and the sound, which slips easily between ethereal and menacing, between sinewy physicality and floaty, unearthly inhumanity. It just hits me in the blood and bones.

A song which has always spoken deeply to me (to the point that if I'm in the wrong mood, it reduces me to a sobbing mess) is Paul Kelly's 'Deeper Water'. This is what I wrote about it in a previous post (which also has bonus commentary on 'Mezzanine'):

This is a deceptively simple song about the passage of time, using the motif of a person going from childhood, to adolescence, to mature adulthood, and to parenthood, swimming in the Australian ocean, being helped out beyond the breakers, and helping his own child in turn. I identify with this imagery so much, because it was my own experience: I first swam in Sydney's beaches as a one-year-old child, held by my mother at the shore, and as I got older, she (and sometimes my father) took me, and later my sister, out beyond the breaking waves to the deeper water, where we could not stand up, but where the waves were rolling and gentle, and those same beaches and waves have carried and held me throughout adolescence and adulthood, and one day I will carry my own children into them, and so on and so on, until the seas boil dry.


I'm looking forward to hearing some excellent music as a result of everyone's replies here!

Comments

[ermingarden]

Ooh, I'll have to give those a listen!

One of my favorites, because of how strongly it speaks to me, is "One" by Sleeping at Last. When I first heard it, I was shaken - the song is an eerily perfect reflection of my own inner life. It's very strange to have the sense of being somehow known on a profound level by someone you've never met.

[likeadeuce]

Oh this is so beautiful! thank you for sharing it.

[dolorosa_12]

Oh wow, what an inspiring and uplifting song! I can see why it speaks to you.

[trepkos]

This is too difficult! I love so many songs ... different ones for different moods. "Summer Breeze" by the Isley Brothers is especially redolent of the summer I did my O-levels - 1976 was REALLY hot; I got hay fever for the first time. I revised listening to their LP, 3 + 3.
This seems an inadequate answer.

[dolorosa_12]

This is such a lovely and summery song, so evocative of a season and mood.

To be fair, I have a lot of ready answers to this question because people always ask me about music, so I've had years of practice writing about my favourite/most meaningful songs.

[skygiants]

Oh, boy. Picking a favorite-favorite is really rough! They hit different feelings needs! But Vienna Teng's Level Up and Daniel Kahn's cover of March of the Jobless Corps are both songs/videos that I can sort of watch/listen to on repeat endlessly ...

... but the thing that honestly most consistently brings a smile to my face is the soundtrack to Ernest Shackleton Loves Me, a musical about a time-travel romance between Ernest Shackleton and a single mom video game designer as they navigate North Pole adventures!

[likeadeuce]

oh dang, these are all fantastic. I know Vienna Teng but hadn't encountered Kahn and I am going to go further down that rabbit hole. (Is he like klesmer Billy Bragg??)

And that Shackleton soundtrack is wild!

[skygiants]

He is kind of like klezmer Billy Bragg! I really dig his brand of socialist Yiddish punk -- I first discovered him through my beginner Yiddish class and it was one of my favorite things to happen in that course.

[aimedatthestars]

yessss another Vienna Teng fan. I'm hoping she still does a livestream concert around Christmas/New Year's.

[skygiants]

Oh me very much too!

[dolorosa_12]

I love that both of the first two songs you picked make me want to arm myself for battle and head to the barricades — they're so different in tone and genre, but they're calling to that same emotion! (Weirdly, also, I think that's the first time I've ever actually seen the video clip for 'Level Up': I've seen it used in so many fanvids, but never with the original video.)

a musical about a time-travel romance between Ernest Shackleton and a single mom video game designer as they navigate North Pole adventures!

That sounds incredible!

[skygiants]

I saw the musical a few years ago in Boston and was like "WELL THAT WAS SURE A RIDE," but I hadn't reckoned with how much sheer delight I would feel every time Ernest Shackleton unexpectedly announced "it may seem unusual, getting a call from a dead explorer, but please, my love, believe in me! For I, ERNEST SHACKLETON, believe in you!" on my music shuffle.

[likeadeuce]

Oh, I loved listening to these, thank you! I already liked Massive Attack but Paul Kelly is new to me and I am suitably intrigued.

And this question is just mindblowingly hard for me to answer because I love so many songs for so many occasions and also if you're going to make me pick a *favorite* song it's not going to be a deep deep but Springsteen's Badlands or Paul Simon's "Graceland," which is too famous to need sharing so that I am sharing a lovely cover version by Justin Townes Earle, who passed away earlier this year -- too talented and too troubled for this world.

And since Carrie Brownstein is literally sitting here as my icon to represent music, I have to shout out Sleater-Kinney's Modern Girl (S-K was also the last truly spectacular live show I went to before lockdown, and so many of my feelings about music are tied in to live performance.)

And then as far as something that inspires and speaks to me at this particular moment -- a song about going out there and going for it when everything is crashing and burning around you, Drive-By Truckers Shut Up and Get on the Plane.

[dolorosa_12]

Paul Kelly is basically the closest thing Australia has to a poet laureate. He is just incredible, and his Christmas song, 'How to Make Gravy,' is so beloved that it has a Twitter account devoted to it, and playing the song on 21st December (the day the events of the song take place) has become something of a national tradition. He did a fantastic TED talk about the song several years ago.

That's a gorgeous cover of 'Graceland' — thank you for sharing it. Paul Simon's original is also one of my favourite songs, although I think on that album 'You Can Call Me Al' speaks to me more.

Sleater-Kinney was completely new music to me, so thanks for sharing! I have more complicated feelings about live music — generally I don't enjoy being out among crowds (and this was the case pre-COVID pandemic as well), so although I'll go to live performances, they have to be truly spectacular for me to find them a magical, awe-inspiring, and soul-enriching experience. (It has happened, but not at every concert.)

a song about going out there and going for it when everything is crashing and burning around you

I'm so glad that you're able to draw strength from this kind of thing. Music is so great for that!

[aimedatthestars]

Tank and the Bangas' Rollercoasters (NPR Tiny Desk). I love this particular arrangement of it, the sense of wonder, and its reminder love often requires bravery. It's also the most listened to song according to iTunes!

[dolorosa_12]

Oh, that is just beautiful, and you're right that this particular arrangement is gorgeous! Also, her voice is just incredible.