A Song That Moved You?

Subject: RE: A Song That Moved You?
From: Pete M
Date: 16 Mar 98 - 07:22 PM

"joy of living" definitely comes top of my list. Another not so far mentioned is "The Ladies go dancing at Easter" I havent heard it recently, perhaps you need to know someone of that age (born around 1900 -1920) to really appreciate it.

Just a small point Dick, when you have a spare moment, would you update the first verse of "Joy of living" as follows (changes enclosed in asterisks):

Farewell you northern hills, you mountains all goodbye Moorland and stony ridges, **crags** and peaks goodbye **Glyder Fach** farewell, **Cul Beag, Scafell**, cloud bearing **Suilven** Sun warmed rock and the cold **of Bleaklow's frozen sea** The snow and the wind and the rain of hills and mountains Days in the sun and the tempered winds and the air like **wine** And you drink and you drink till you're drunk On the joy of living

sorry to be pedantic, but these names on their own have much thesame effect on me as the song! One of the problems of capturing lyrics phonetically! Incidentally if you have access to a copy of "The Classic walks" ed Ken Wilson and Richard Griffiths, the picture on page 173 shows Bleaklow as Ewan was describing it here.

Subject: RE: A Song That Moved You?
From: Charlie Baum
Date: 16 Mar 98 - 11:31 PM

"I'll Love You Forever" by Al Powers, sung by Priscilla Herdman.

It's hard to listen to without a tear in my eye. One of these years I may even get to the point of trying to be able to sing it myself.

-Charlie Baum

Subject: RE: A Song That Moved You?
From: Joe Offer
Date: 17 Mar 98 - 01:54 AM

I really like Where've You Been, as recorded by Kathy Mattea; and Love at the Five and Dime, by Nanci Griffith.
-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: A Song That Moved You?
From: Slant
Date: 17 Mar 98 - 10:17 AM

Riding home late one night (or very early in the a.m. I should say) I caught Lotte Lenya on the radio singing 'Mack the Knife' in German, the language of its author. This was not the Bobby Darin glitzy, jazzy version but was done at a much slower tempo. The combination of the tempo and glutteral German lent an air of quiet but immediate impending danger and threat to the tune while actually raised the hair on my arms and neck...

Subject: RE: A Song That Moved You?
From: Richard
Date: 17 Mar 98 - 05:04 PM

Peter T.

Go Out and Plough is on Fred J. Eaglesmith and the Flying Squirrels, There Ain't No Easy Road, Sweetwater Records General Delivery Alberton, Ontario, Canada. I don't know who is distributing while Fred is on the road. Festival Records have some of his later recordings: email [e-mail] Toll free 1-800-633-8282 Web: http://www.festival.bc.ca

If that fails let me know at: [e-mail]

It's great stuff.

Richard

Subject: RE: A Song That Moved You?
From: Grubby
Date: 18 Mar 98 - 01:17 AM

Have a listen to There Were Roses wrtitten by Tommy Sands & sung by Kathy Matea.

There is a lovely song written by Brian Bedford called Wings & performed by Vin Garbutt

I'm sure these songs will have a lasting effect on you emotions

regards

Subject: RE: A Song That Moved You?
From: Eric
Date: 18 Mar 98 - 03:12 AM

Two that still get to me are "Home From The Forest" by Gordon Lightfoot and "Bobbie Jean & Billie Lee" by Seals & Crofts. The first I relate to my father and the second is just a beautiful song they wrote to their wives. When I first heard these songs years ago, I was a long haired heavy rocker. Funny how they stuck.

I appreciate the Eric Bogle tunes too. I perform them in the pubs occasionally and people get pretty choked up.

This (site) is a very nice exchange of meaningful thoughts. How refreshing! Take care, all.

Subject: RE: A Song That Moved You?
From: steve t
Date: 18 Mar 98 - 04:00 AM

Gosh...songs that moved me. I guess that means they put me in a mood, but not necessarily a teary-eyed mood.

When I sing 'em: Mr. Tanner. Singing just made him whole. So great. Planxty's Musgrave. Runs the gammut of emotions. Mary Ellen Carter. Didn't grow on me till repeat 200. Shenandoah. I'm bound to leave you... Deep Blue Sea. Can't explain this one. It just works. Fair Flower of Northumberland. Incredible ending. Jenny Bryce and Kilkelly. Both so tough to sing. Night Rider's Lament. And They've never seen the Northern Lights.

When others have sang 'em: Ferron's Testimony sung by four women once. Incredible. Bogle's Leaving Nancy. About leaving his mom at the train station when he heads off for Austrailia. Please post the lyrics someone. White Sport's Coat. I'm always idiotically happy after hearing this one sung by a few friends who ham it up.

When heard on recordings: The Furey's Night Ferry. Heard 1st while away from home. Lover's Lullaby by Janis Ian = automatic night mood Three Babies by Sinead O'Connor. No real idea what it's about but it still pulls me into its mood every time.

Subject: RE: A Song That Moved You?
From: Jaxon
Date: 18 Mar 98 - 08:59 AM

Four Green Fields by Tommy Makem is another that gets to me every time I sing it. It was the first song I played for my mother, when I learned to play guitar, and she had tears in her eyes. It was the first time she cried over what I was singing and not because I was singing.

Jack Murray

Subject: RE: A Song That Moved You?
From: Bill D
Date: 18 Mar 98 - 10:20 AM

Jean Redpath got "Sheath and Knife" from Helen Schneyer, and Jean says it took her a long time to find an approach to the song after hearing Helen sing it....having heard Helen sing it a number of times, I understand why. Jean's version is great, but Helen simply transports me....

just reading the verses is 'heavy' enough, hearing them sung well is special...

Subject: RE: A Song That Moved You?
From: Peter T.
Date: 18 Mar 98 - 10:34 AM

Dear Richard, Many thanks. I will "Go Out & Buy". Yours, Peter

Subject: RE: A Song That Moved You?
From: Barbara Shaw
Date: 18 Mar 98 - 01:51 PM

Have you ever heard the Dry Branch Fire Squad recording (Suzanne Thomas singing lead) of "Long Journey" about someone saying goodbye to their loved one at a funeral? Incredibly moving.

"Auction at the Home Place" is a very moving story about a family losing their life's possessions.

Recently heard Bryan Bowers performing his new song "Friends for Life" (coming out soon on a new recording, apparently) which left a huge impression of the power of music.

Subject: RE: A Song That Moved You?
From: Bill (Scotland)
Date: 18 Mar 98 - 01:51 PM

One of my favourite songs has to be the "Norlan Win" also sometimes known as "I Sa' the Wild Geese Flee". It is a song in Scots attributed to Jim Reid (ex Foundry Bar Bandmember). Jim put the tune to the beautiful poem by Flora Garry. If you heard it you'll know what I mean. Some great songs mentioned in this thread.

Bill Buchan

Subject: RE: A Song That Moved You?
From: Pete M
Date: 18 Mar 98 - 04:24 PM

Changing the emotions around a bit, but all with the same effect, I still can't listen to McColl's "Moving on song" without alternating frustration, anger and despair. The whole Travelling People radio ballad, is incredible, I never thought I would hear "the final solution" openly advocated on a public media so soon after the war. (I was young and naive of course) Makes you wonder how the human race has managed to survive.

"Joe Hill" by Paul Robeson, and "Dirty blackleg miner" give me new strength to battle "the system" in this wonderful free market led country (New Zealand)

A song I heard only once many years ago "Rohallion" I think, I've never seen it written down, for nostalgia and missing home.

More MacColl numbers "Freeborn man", "Manchester Rambler" and Patey's "Bound for the Mountains and the Sea" for memories of days and weeks in the mountains climbing and singing with good friends.

Subject: RE: A Song That Moved You?
From: Richard
Date: 18 Mar 98 - 04:33 PM

The mention of Bryan Bowers reminded me of his "Prison (or Prisoners) Song". A great 6 min song that even Bowers finds hard to sing. It is a song that needs to be sung, often.

Richard

Subject: RE: A Song That Moved You?
From:
Date: 19 Mar 98 - 05:04 PM

Three songs immediately come to mine (although I could think of many more).

"Culloden's Harvest" - as performed by Deanta

"The Jeannie C." - by the late great Stan Rogers

"Frankie and Johnnie" - by Garnet Rogers (one of the greatest song writers performing today)

Thanks, Andrew

Subject: RE: A Song That Moved You?
From:
Date: 19 Mar 98 - 05:12 PM

Subject: RE: A Song That Moved You?
From: wolf
Date: 19 Mar 98 - 06:20 PM

long black veil house of the rising sun by bob dylan-these words he sings were originally written in 1858-if any would like i can give a copy of the words

Subject: RE: A Song That Moved You?
From: Charlie Baum
Date: 20 Mar 98 - 02:58 AM

I remember when Stan Rogers died, and they played some of his songs as a tribute, and I heard him sing, "I just want to see your smiling face 45 years from now." And I realized he wouldn't be around in 45 years, or even tomorrow.

And Bill D reminds me of Helen Schneyer--almost anything she sings other than her "hideobilia" moves me greatly, but I was most taken by her version of "There Is Fountain Filled With Blood," which Joan Boyd adapted from the old hymn tune and turned into a miner's protest song!

--Charlie Baum

Subject: RE: A Song That Moved You?
From: Claire K.
Date: 20 Mar 98 - 04:28 AM

Another song comes to mind. David Massengill's Rider on an Orphan Train is similar in theme to Kilkelly, in that families are torn apart by circumstance and time. I prefer his simpler arrangement of vocal and minimal dulcimer accompaniment. This can be found on Treestar Revue.

Subject: RE: A Song That Moved You?
From: Barbara Shaw
Date: 20 Mar 98 - 08:52 AM

"Louise" by Paul Siebel.

Subject: RE: A Song That Moved You?
From: Sheye
Date: 20 Mar 98 - 05:57 PM

I knew a man, Bojangles, and, he'd dance for you....

Subject: RE: A Song That Moved You?
From: RonU
Date: 21 Mar 98 - 01:07 AM

Almost every version of Jon O' Dreams I have heard has moved me.

Subject: RE: A Song That Moved You?
From:
Date: 21 Mar 98 - 07:24 AM

Sometime back I heard on Irish radio "Green Fields of France" and was saddened by the words and music. Recently Phil Coulter recorded it and the melody still haunted and touched me. Thanks to your database I now have the correct title "No Man's Land", and the words to this haunting melody of the oft futility of war and young lives wasted on foreign soil.

Subject: RE: A Song That Moved You?
From: KickyC
Date: 21 Mar 98 - 09:24 AM

I have worked with, and still do, many wonderful children of migrant farm laborers, and Woody Guthrie's "Deportees" says it all. It's in the database.

Subject: RE: A Song That Moved You?
From: leprechaun
Date: 21 Mar 98 - 02:42 PM

My brother and I were discussing this thread on St. Patrick's Day. He noted that songs can move us for different and personal reasons. We often listen to Bing Crosby singing "The Same Old Shillelagh," a whimsical song which was never intended to be lacrimose. But that song moves us because my father did bring a shillelagh from Ireland, and as fine a war club you never saw. He did carry it on St. Patrick's Day and twirl it 'round his mitt. And divil a man was prouder than he as he walked with it in his hand. There are several other lines in that song that apply to my dad, my brother and me, though my dad never used the shillelagh on us to make us understand. He was nearly seventy when he realized his lifelong dream of going to Ireland, a journey he completed to honor his own father. And now that he's gone, his shillelagh is a family heirloom.

Subject: RE: A Song That Moved You?
From: Dan Keding
Date: 22 Mar 98 - 01:02 PM

Several songs come to mind that have moved me.In live performance I remember two incidents the best. Both happened about twenty years ago, both happened in Madison, WI. The first was at a small coffeehouse where the great ballad singer Louis Killen was performing. He sang a long ballad called "The Flying Cloud". It was brilliant. The other was at a folk bar concert with Eric Bogle where he sang "Scraps of Paper". Both performances were stunning. A good story does it for me every time.

Subject: RE: A Song That Moved You?
From: Helen
Date: 22 Mar 98 - 04:48 PM

Another singer/songwriter worth checking out is an Australian Aboriginal called Archie Roach. His song called "They Took the Children Away" is very topical at the moment here in Australia because the forcible removal fo Aboriginal children from their families "for their own good" was happening here until only a few decades ago. There is a big debate going on about whether the Australian government should make a formal apology to the Aboriginal people, but being politicians, they are afraidnthat saying sorry means that they will get lots of law suits and it will mean paying out a huge compensation bill. So "sorry" is the hardest word for the government to say.

I found this at the All Music Guide site http://205.186.189.2/cg/amg.exe

Archie Roach

More than anything else, the music of Archie Roach is that of a man who refuses to be a victim. An Australian aborigine, Roach was forcibly adopted at the age of three and lodged with a White family as part of an assimilation project. Told that his parents had perished in a fire, Roach only discovered as a teenager that his parents had not died at that time, but had until very recently been alive. Crushed by the news, Roach descended into alcoholism and spent most of the next ten years living as a vagrant. Playing the guitar was at first simply a way for Roach to earn money for alcohol, but as time went on, he began to play for pleasure, and then as a way of staying off alcohol. Roach's music, like that of fellow adoptee Kev Carmody, is an angry exploration of what it means to be a dispossessed minority in Australia. Roach's message is not wholly negative, however; he has spent much time writing songs to alert aborigines to the dangers of alcohol and sexually transmitted diseases. His first two albums are Charcoal Lane and Jamu Dreaming. -- Leon Jackson 1992 Charcoal Lane Hightone 1993 Jamu Dreaming Hightone 1997 Looking for Butter Boy Hightone

Subject: RE: A Song That Moved You?
From: Frank in the swamps
Date: 23 Mar 98 - 06:25 AM

Helen, I heard a review of Archie Roach on public radio here in the States one time, they played an exerpt from a song about being a street wino. I kept a lookout for a recording, but eventually it slipped from my ever slipping memory. Thanks for the reminder. We had an incident here in Florida a few years ago. One of the children raised by a couple of "loving, white, christian missionaries" ended up raping & strangling a young woman here. His natural mother managed to scrape up the funds to appear at his trial and appeal for mercy, his adoptive parents apparently couldn't be bothered. I believe he got the chair (it's a death penalty state, as I type this we are one hour away from another execution). At the time I was hopping mad, I wanted to send him back to Australia with an M-16. Sort of a "You made him, you deal with him" response.

Anyway, this all brought me around to an Australian convict song I heard way back, and don't remember very well. I think it was called "Moreton bay". It was a song that made me sad & angry at brute government policies.

Frank I.T.S.

P.S. I'm glad we didn't send the killer back, sometimes I just lose my temper.

Subject: RE: A Song That Moved You?
From: Helen
Date: 23 Mar 98 - 07:35 AM

Frank,

I wished that they had sent him back here to give him a second chance at life, or even to give him a chance to tell his story to the government.

The Moreton Bay song is in the DT database. It's sung to the tune of Boulavogue, an old Irish tune. It was written by a convict called Frank McNamara, aka "Frank the Poet". He spent some time here in the penal settlement that was in Newcastle, New South Wales, where I live. Some of the convicts had to carry the coal from the coal mines out through the surf to the ships, and if they were sick or dying they just got carried off by the waves. It was less than 200 years ago, just recent history really.

There are also a lot of tunnels under the older part of the city, which was built on a hill. The tunnels were originally the coal mines, but they were later used in WWII by the soldiers, so we are walking around above our history without thinking about it most of the time.

Helen

Subject: RE: A Song That Moved You?
From: Gregory K. from a distance
Date: 23 Mar 98 - 11:04 AM

Hi Buck, Are you sure? I saw it in a tune-book and it was called "Green fields of France", really... ;-) By the way, the begining goes this way:

Well, how do you do young Willie McBride, Do you mind if I sit here down by your graveside And rest for a while 'neath warm Summer Sun I've been working all day and I'm nearly down... (I see by your gravestone you were only 16 when you joined the great fallen in 1916...)

Are we talking about the same song?

Sincerelly: Greg

Subject: RE: A Song That Moved You?
From: Gregory K. from a distance
Date: 23 Mar 98 - 11:05 AM

Hi Buck, Are you sure? I saw it in a tune-book and it was called "Green fields of France", really... ;-) By the way, the begining goes this way:

Well, how do you do young Willie McBride, Do you mind if I sit here down by your graveside And rest for a while 'neath the warm Summer Sun I've been working all day and I'm nearly down... (I see by your gravestone you were only 16 when you joined the great fallen in 1916...)

Are we talking about the same song?

Sincerelly: Greg (BTW.: I like this song.)

Subject: RE: A Song That Moved You?
From: matt
Date: 09 Mar 99 - 10:20 AM

I took my dad to see Bob Dylan. An old hippie, he was a pretty happy puppy. We had front row seats, and during the "watchtower" I looked back to find him sitting in his seat, with his eyes closed, as he had done for much of the concert. When I asked him why his eyes were closed, he said that to see Dylan again was something that he had never thought we would do -- and that he was savouring the moment. Whenever I hear the "watchtower" I can still see my dad -- sitting their with his eyes closed, in the best seat in the house, seeing more than anyone could ever know.

Subject: RE: A Song That Moved You?
From: BeesWing
Date: 09 Mar 99 - 10:41 AM

Kiri's Piano by James Keelaghan It's a song about the unjust interment of Canadian citizens of Japanese origin. (Pearl Harbour fallout). This song is found on James' MY SKIES album.

Subject: RE: A Song That Moved You?
From: Rick Fielding
Date: 09 Mar 99 - 11:55 AM

Wow, just reading this thread reminds me why I let folk music (and it's people) take over my life so many years ago. Many of the songs mentioned meant SO much much to me at various times in my life. I'm struck by just how spot-on Ewan MacColl was in his songwriting..and Eric Bogle...what a legacy these and others leave us. I've been trying to think of the ONE song I could add to the list and it's absolutely impossible! Two moments (in a lifetime of special moments) come to mind though. At a mariposa Festival in 1967 at about 11pm, under the stars near Orillia Ontario, the Rev. Gary Davis sang "Death Don't Have No Mercy",.....and I have no words to describe it. A few years later at Massey Hall Cat Stevens (an astonishly original artist) sang "King of Trees", and once again I knew why I had chosen the path I did.

Subject: RE: A Song That Moved You?
From: jets
Date: 09 Mar 99 - 04:21 PM

when a boy I learned La Paloma on the accordion.I never knew the lyrics for 40 yrs but just the melody pulled me Mother said that she always knew when I was about to look for a ship and go off to sea again.You always went up stairs and would play La Paloma over and over and then you woud be gone ,off to sea again.I only knew the song as The sailors song.After finding the words I understood why but the music alone conveyed the sentiment of the song. On a more recent note Eric Bogl's Now I am resting Easy and especialy that line about having his aons buried on the Burma Railway realy get me.

Subject: RE: A Song That Moved You?
From: Liam's Brother
Date: 09 Mar 99 - 04:46 PM

There are some great songs mentioned above and I'd have to cast a vote for a few of them. I first heard "The Flying Cloud" sung by Ewan MacColl about 1962. I learned it the same day. It is, in my estimation one of the very finest of all broadside ballads. Lou Killen's version comes from Ewan, by the way. Many other of Ewan's composed songs such as "The Shoals of Herring," "Dirty Old Town," "My Old Man" and "Sweet Thames Flow Softly."

Speaking of Lou, his rendition of "When Fortune Turns The Wheel" is simply sublime. He is a great singer held almost universally in the highest regard.

I always loved The Battlefields rendition of "It Was All For Our Rightful King" on their first, splendid self-titled Topic LP.

There is a great tenor by the name of Joe "Banjo" Burke. Banjo is "World Famous in the Pubs of New York" and the finest "unknown" singer I've ever heard. His version of the ballad of "Bagnall Harvey," the Protestant landowner who risked and gave up everything in the 1798 Rebellion is incredibly moving. I've been listening to him sing it for 25 years.

Frank Harte recorded "Bagnall Harvey" last year on his 1798 CD and did a very nice job. There is another remarkable, moving song on that recording, "Bodenstown Churchyard," written about Wolfe Tone. Arguably Frank's best performance ever.

"Edward Connors" the emigration song on "Farewell to Eirinn" by Keane & Faulkner is astounding.

I can't spell the Gaelic title but I can say it... the translation is "The Old Brown Cow"... On the first first Moloney, O'Connell & Keane recording, it is one of the most touching. Out of poverty, the farmer has to sell his faithful old brown cow... what is the future for either of them after that? Break my bloody heart!

Of songs I sing myself, I would single out "Pat Maguire" which always raises bumps on my back, "The Leaving of Liverpool" collected by our friend Bill Doerflinger and "The Shady Woods of Trugh."

All the best,
Dan

Subject: RE: A Song That Moved You?
From: Liam's Brother
Date: 09 Mar 99 - 04:58 PM

Lest I be seen as entirely ethnocentric, I should add that I heard Robert Pete Williams sing "Levee Camp Blues" at the Berkley Folk Festival in 1966 and it continues to electrify me. I should add too just about anything by Robert Johnson and Johnny Shines.

Subject: RE: A Song That Moved You?
From: Terry
Date: 09 Mar 99 - 08:08 PM

"The Year of the Drum" is a very moving song about the losses an Australian family and town suffered in the 1914-1918 War. I heard that during both World Wars, this one small town lost more men (percentage-wise) than any other area in the world! No matter how many times I hear it, I'm sobbing by the fourth verse in which the soldier leaving to fight in WWII says good-bye to his wife, who lost both of her parents in the previous war. I forget who wrote the song but Martin Wyndham-Reed recorded it.

Martin also sings another moving song called "Past Caring" about a farm family's hardships. Every verse ends with the singer's strident assertion that he is past caring -- except for the last, when he prays that he will someday become past caring. That last verse always does me in. Again, I don't know who wrote it or if Martin recorded it. If anyone does know of a recording, I'd appreciate you pointing me in its direction.

Thanks, Terry

Subject: RE: A Song That Moved You?
From: Ronn
Date: 09 Mar 99 - 09:01 PM

"Tomorrow Lies In The Cradle" by Fred Hellerman. The film "Wasnt That A Time" was shown as a public TV fundraiser the night after my son was born, and I was stunned.

"Witness To Joy" by Vance Gilbert (a duet sung with Patti of Tuck and...), although the words didnt strike me until about the third listening because their singing was so amazing.

"Teenie Weenie Meanie" by Reverend Billy C Wirtz. I never actually fell down laughing until I heard this the first time. (Nothing was said about IN WHAT WAY we were moved.)

Subject: RE: A Song That Moved You?
From: Barbara Shaw
Date: 09 Mar 99 - 10:07 PM

Last summer at a festival in Vermont, we had just finished a jam at our campsite and decided to take one last walk around to see what else was going on. A few aisles away, there was a lone guy with a guitar and a pretty good crowd of young people milling about quietly.

The guy started singing "Let Me Walk Lord By Your Side" (a Carter Stanley song) into the still night silence (about 3:00 am). Gradually voices joined him in harmony, softly, and then with more and more passion and volume. By the end of the song, the field was ringing with what seemed like 1000 voices and 1000 different harmonies. A truly moving, epiphanal experience.

Subject: RE: A Song That Moved You?
From: Sandy Paton
Date: 09 Mar 99 - 10:38 PM

Ewan MacColl's "Springhill Mine Disaster" (We'll live on songs and hope instead!). Bob Coltman's "Weaver's Reverie." Gordon Bok's "Mrs. MacDonald's Lament" (still, to my mind, one of his best songs) and "Turning Toward the Morning." If "Peter Kagan and the Wind" can be considered a song, throw that one in, too. I can still get choked up when "Down through the smoking seas she comes, over the side of the boat she comes, laughing, to his arms."

And so many more! I have to agree with Rick Fielding's observation above. You're right, Rick. We made a good choice!

Subject: RE: A Song That Moved You?
From: DonMeixner
Date: 09 Mar 99 - 11:56 PM

I am often moved by songs.

Reedy River and Do You Think That I Do Not Know by Henry Lawson, Outward Bound and About the Children by Tom Paxton, When I'm Gone by Phil Ochs, Lies, William of Orange, and Last Watch on the Midlands by Stan Rogers and a million more... I'll be Seeing You, Hard Times, My Old Man, Childs song, all these move me to tears.

But I gotta say, Butterfly Kisses moves me to the bathroom, that song would bolt a buzzard off a gut wagon. (About as strong an opinion as I'm likely to express)

Don

Subject: RE: A Song That Moved You?
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 10 Mar 99 - 01:23 AM

Great thread. I find all of the best music moving, but some of my favorites(and an eclectic batch it is)The Fireside Largo from Vivaldi's The Four Seasons. It is a Thanksgiving tradition in my family to play the Four Seasons as we relax after dinner.I don't know if it's the memories of all the other Thanksgivings that flood back, or the exquisite note of beauty and longing in this piece, but I get tears in my eyes every time I hear it."The Healing has Begun" by Van Morrison.I feel healed listening to it."Sleepless Nights" by the Louvin Brothers. My favorite version is by Gram Parsons and Emmy Lou. I am also quite partial to Dusty Springfield singing "The Look of Love." And old Hank Williams singing "I'm so Lonesome I could Cry."

Subject: RE: A Song That Moved You?
From: ddw in windsor
Date: 10 Mar 99 - 01:24 AM

the list could go on all night, but Phil Ochs's Crucifixion, Ralph McTell's Streets of London, and of Eric Bogle's WWI tunes or Billy Bragg's Picadilly Rambler are sure bets to set me off. Followed closely, of course, by civil war tunes like All Quiet Along The Potomac Tonight or Two Brothers or The First Battalion. All of which take weeks of practise before I can sing them in public without choking up.

Just as an aside, am I wandering into the twilight zone here, or is there something weird about the dates on this thread. Most of the postings are dated from March 198. Say what?!

Nice thread... some good tho'ts ...

ddw

Subject: RE: A Song That Moved You?
From: j0_77
Date: 10 Mar 99 - 01:55 AM

Uncle Dave - any song welll nearly - I fell over the first time I heard him singing about a guy who got a job holding a cow for a butcher. I laughed all that week every time I imagined what the song described.

Subject: RE: A Song That Moved You?
From: catspaw49
Date: 10 Mar 99 - 02:01 AM

What a thread. But isn't that what the music is about to begin with? I've read this thing three times and am amazed at the quantity and quality. Songs move us in every emotional way; joy, sadness, new love, old love, lost love, hope and hopelessness.......and on and on. I've seen songs about emmigration here covering both the loss and mourning for the old and the thrill of the new. Traditional ballads with the never changing sentiments, as alive today as ever. When you begin to see them all together like this...just amazing.

But sometimes we're moved by the combination of artist and song. It may be hackneyed and worn, but the last time I heard Peter Yarrow explain that "Puff" was about the loss of innocense and then sing it...sorry folks, it gets me. I was one of many on a weekend program at the Hindman Settlement School, but Jean Ritchie was the main feature. I've always loved her songs and that natural mountain voice that the whole family seems to share. As night fell and I listened to "Dear Companion" for the umpteen hundredth time in my life, it sounded new and beautiful and fresh as only Jean could make it.

Sometimes it's also about who we're with and where. In another thread, I told of being young and sitting up on Clingman's Dome with five good friends, listening to the snowmelt, picking and singing a bit of everything as the night passed. And the mountain songs brought me to one of those not to be forgotten moments. Now the lyrics to "Bob Dylan's Dream" are too much for me to get through.

What of the newer and composed pieces...sometimes we hear a song for years and one day it just hits us. During the past several years, "Lay Down Your Weary Tune" has become a certain favorite. Also "Prayer in Open D" is one of the few songs recently written which speaks well to taking responsibility for our actions...an all too rare commodity in this age. Tom Paxton has given us so many, but I've always enjoyed his humorous side too... Like the same guy wrote "Last Thing on My Mind" and "I Thought You Were an Arab." One makes me pensive, the other just cracks me up...and they're both favorites.

Plus so much of Woody's stuff that speaks as well today as ever, such as "I Ain't Got No Home" or to a lesser degree, "Plane Wreck at Los Gatos." And going back a few more years, Foster's "Hard Times" seems to have been rediscovered as well it should.

I gotta' stop...this could go on all night and tomorrow too. It's the music, that's the thing though. Let me end (I can hear the cheers) with something from a well known 'Catter that really struck me. The thread was on fifty songs everyone should know, remember? Frank McGrath said it would be great if everyone just new at least fifty songs, didn't matter what. Great thought!!!

catspaw

Subject: RE: A Song That Moved You?
From: --seed
Date: 10 Mar 99 - 02:31 AM

I'm glad someone revived this thread. Most of it was before I found the 'cat. Sheye, I agree about the early Kristofferson stuff: I love "Jodie and the Kid" and "When I Loved Her," plus the Bobby Bare song he does on that album, "It's Hard to Be a Christian Soldier." Reba McEntire has moved me with several of her songs, notably "Whoever's in New England" and "Somebody Should Leave." Kenny Rogers came out with his odious "The Unknown Love" at the same time as Reba's "Whoever's in New England" was on the country playlists...what a range of expression there is in country music. A couple of weeks ago I heard Bob Bossin, from Vancouver Island, B.C., sing his song to an unplanned child--"Lily"--written before Bob and his wife learned the child was going to be a boy. Anyway, an incredible song, not yet released (he was live on KPFA). And just to show the range of what moves me: "Puttin' on the Ritz" as sung by Dr. Frankenstein and the monster in Young Frankenstein. --seed

Subject: RE: A Song That Moved You?
From: Neil Lowe (inactive)
Date: 10 Mar 99 - 10:44 AM

"Steals Of The White Man" and a song I've only heard a few times and don't know the name of, a real country twanger sung by (I think) Linda Rondstat, the refrain being "...and I'm all strung out on heroin on the south side of town."

Subject: RE: A Song That Moved You?
From: Ferrara
Date: 10 Mar 99 - 11:03 AM

An awful lot of my choices have been mentioned here so I'm not going to list any songs, I'll just say that music keeps us from being the (adding) machines that our current culture encourages us to be.

I've heard Helen Schneyer sing "There is a Fountain Filled with Blood," and it was moving, and it was wonderful because Helen is a truly great singer. But it was still more moving, and somehow stronger and more militant at the same time, when Charlie Baum sang it late one night at the FSGW Getaway.