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dolorosa_12) wrote2020-10-02 02:38 pm
dolorosa_12) wrote2020-10-02 02:38 pm
Friday open thread: favourite and/or inspiring songs
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!
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!
no subject
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.
no subject
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!