A recent instance of the recurring Reddit thread, “What is the most beautiful song you’ve ever heard?” is full of so many beautiful songs, you could get lost in it for hours.
When you hear something special in a piece of music, you want to others to hear it and to know that you shared that experience (“Hey, you’re alive? Me too!”). I once heard Sarah McLachlan refer to this shared experience as ‘resonating souls’. It sounds cheesy, but it’s the best way I’ve heard it put into words.
Two songs that came to mind for me were:
“True Love Waits” by Radiohead - This live recording of the first live performance ever is particularly good. There are higher fidelity recordings, but this one is the most powerful I’ve found. Wait for the keyboard counter-melody to appear just after the 2-minute mark.
“Lament for the Death of his Second Wife” by Niel Gow - This is a terrible quality clip I recorded from Tim Chaisson’s performance at Zap Your Pram in 2008. There is no “original” recording of this piece, as Gow died decades before audio recording even existed, but YouTube is full of hundreds of renditions.
Warning to those who watched the show Six Feet Under: you may end up hearing that song from the finale and having flashbacks. I even heard echoes of it (or rather, what it echoes from) in Philip Glass’ metamorphosis 2.
Comments
Paul - February 4, 2013 8:17 AM
Wow, never heard this song of Radiohead before but really enjoy listening to it now. And that keyboard counter-melody is catchy!