Saturday, May 18, 2019

Is there a song that draws up the emotion in you?

What's the most emotional song you know? What song comes on and no matter where you are or what you are doing you pause if only for a moment to listen and feel the song and the emotion it raises, perhaps a recollection of a memory, or one that marked a specific moment in your life or one that has no personal relevance to you at all, but brings that warm feeling to your body, maybe some moisture to your eyes and you savor that emotion, again, if only for a moment? I'm not talking about a song that simply brings up a fond memory. I am talking about one that hits you in the gut and sends a shiver through you, a song where the writer and the performer touched you in a way you cannot ignore and it draws up long forgotten emotions that live more than you expected.
What brought this on? I have to start by admitting that for all these years I have been a closet fan of "Grey's Anatomy," a show that admitting, again, often raises some emotion in me. For the past two years an associated show titled "Station 19" has been added to the schedule and appears right after Grey's. It's set in a Seattle fire house and there sometimes are overlapping plot lines. Station 19 comes up to the quality of Grey's, perhaps because Shondra Rhimes is the guiding light behind both. The show tonight was one of the best written of any I have ever seen on television, at least in the regular drama network genre. A wonderfully intricate plot dealt with members of the station experiencing the death of the chief of the entire department and ended first at the funeral, then in a bar at a wake. It raised those emotions. Sitting in silence after it ended thinking about what I had seen, that's when the question about the most emotional music came up. 
So at this moment I am starting a search. I poured a glass of single malt scotch, started this document and at this moment going to YouTube to see what I can find.
I will journal the progress if it works.
10:21 pm: Turning to YouTube.  OMG thought of the first one before I even turned it on. "Hey Jude," The Beatles. Why the emotion?. Going through a divorce. My 10 year old son discovering the blues. I told him you have play each note from deep inside you. He asked what that meant. So I used this song, explaining to him that Paul McCartney had written it with John Lennon's son Julian in mind as the boy went through his parents' divorce. "Take a sad song and make it better …" 
10:34 pm: While the Beatles are here, another one: "Back in the USSR." Explanation as quickly as possible. During Glasnost early 90s a group of Russian musicians joined a group of American musicians on a stage in Anchorage, Alaska. The Soviet rock group Stas Namen which had traveled with the program, was not on the bill, but there was a setup for a rock band on the stage in the background. During the concert a young ( I am talking early high school young) Native boy from the Bethel area performed with a traditional Yu'pik group of singers and dancers and obviously stood out. Later, at the end of the performances in the program, the announcer surprised the audience, announcing Stas Namen. (They had been left off the bill to prevent the audicence from being overwhelmed with a bunch of rock-crazy kids.) They picked up their instruments and started playing. Then abruptly they stopped, someone shouted, and that Native kid came out on stage. Right behind him came the very familiar notes of the song. We all stood, I recall holding hands with people on both sides of me, neither one of whom I knew and tears welling down my cheeks while a rock band from the depths of the Soviet Union rocked out while a Native kid from Bethel, Alaska shouted out the lead vocal. That was emotional.
This video has Paul performing the song in Red Square some time later. 
10:47 pm: You could not have lived through the uproar of the 60s without hearing this song and for me at least it still carries weight."We Shall Overcome." I heard Pete Seeger sing this in Anchorage at UAA.
10:54 pm: Lightening up a bit. This song may sound frivolous to some perhaps but I have never run into a thinking boat person who didn't react to it. The emotion? You probably had to be there. One night in our favorite harbor tavern, late after several jars had hit the bar this song came on the juke box. All of a sudden everyone stopped talking and we started singing along. Commercial fishermen, weekend sailors, professionals of one sort or another, but all with a feeling for the big ocean. "A Pirate looks at 40." When the song ended and the singing stopped, that place fell into contemplative silence and a lot of knowing glances were passed through the brotherhood. "The occupational hazard be, my occupation's just not around."
11:02 pm: While we're on the ocean, there's this one. I can't count how many times I have sung along out loud while driving on dry land. Still looking for that Southern Girl. "Southern Cross," Crosby, Stills and Nash. 
11:07 pm : There are so many performances of this song, but has there ever been a more emotional performance than President Obama singing "Amazing grace" at the funeral of a murdered minister. 
11:13 pm: While we are in this mood, anybody who knows me knows I love traditional Christmas music. I could make a whole list of emotional carols. So, picking just one. Do you think it might be because I had a crush of the girl who sang it at our church Christmas pageants every year when I was kid? "Oh, holy night," by, who else, the Mormons. 
11:21 p.m.: All right, You might have caught a hint about where I am going now from the last one, but if not I will be patently obvious. You'd think anybody recollecting emotional music would go to old loves first. I did, but honestly at first at least I couldn't think of one. I guess that says something about me. I have fallen in and out of love and lost more times than I care to count. Yet right off the top of my head I couldn't think of a love song that drew any emotion out of me at all. Maybe that says something about all those lost loves. As Jimmy Buffett sang in the last chorus of "Margaretville," It's my own damn fault." Anyway as time has gone on two come to mind, and honestly both do draw some emotion from me.
11:29 pm: First, this one though it came along later than the other one. The other one is perhaps a better song to end this on. Here you go: Dan Hill: "Sometimes when we touch." "I'm just another writer still trapped within my truth."
11:33 pm: OK last one (maybe) There is this one. And, yes, it relates to s a single person, there was a Sweet Judy Blue Eyes in my life and I can feel Steven Stills pain over Judy Collins even though it is personal to me as well. Of course, Crosby, Stills and Nash again, "Suite Jude Blue Eyes." 
Well, that's it. Even if I am the only one, that's enough emotion for one night (maybe, I still have half of my second single-malt to go). I guess my best hope for this is somebody enjoyed it and somebody perhaps went off into thoughts about songs that touched them somehow.
11:39 pm: I love you, Chris, wherever you are.
And may "Station 19" be renewed for another season.
(Do you understand the song at the top, now?)

COMMENT FROM A FRIEND ON FACEBOOK: 
  • Carrie Ann Nash
    There are many songs, whole soundtracks I would not know but for crewing on the boat with you. Many of those artists and songs are part of my own soundtrack now. For emotion nothing is more powerful for me than “How Could Anyone?” by Libby Roderick. … 
    See More
    How could anyone ever tell you Libby Roderick
    YOUTUBE.COM
    How could anyone ever tell you Libby Roderick
    How could anyone ever tell you Libby Roderick
    1
    • Love
    • Reply
    • 27m


And another: Karen Lachance
And, ditto for what you say about songs heard while crewing with Tim.  
Tim Jones
 you forever influenced my musical tastes. So many songs take me back to Valdez, the Vince Peede and you.

 and one more: 

Cheryl Fair
I consistently love your taste in music (it matches mine in many ways.) I've always found the CSNY Deja Vu album evocative. I loved it and would listen to it repeatedly, while looking at the album art, long before I became a photographer. Years later when I was early in my photography career, I met 
Henry Diltz
 (one of the photographers who worked with CSNY and has work on that album cover) who looked at my beginner's portfolio and was very encouraging. So the album means a lot to me for several reasons.

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Memorable quotations

The best way to know you are having an adventure is when you wish you were home talking about it." — a mechanic on the Alaska State Ferry System. Or as in my own case planning how I will be writing it on this blog.

"You can't promote principled anti-corruption without pissing off corrupt people." — George Kent

"If only the British had held on to the airports, the whole thing might have gone differently for us." — Mick Jagger

"You can do anything as long as you don't scare the horses." — a mother's favorite saying recalled by a friend

A poem is an egg with a horse inside” — anonymous fourth grader

“My children will likely turn my picture to the wall but what the hell, you only get old once." — Joe May

“Always do sober what you said you'd do drunk. That will teach you to keep your mouth shut.” — Ernest Hemingway

When I write, I feel like an armless, legless man with a crayon in his mouth.― Kurt Vonnegut

“If you wrote something for which someone sent you a cheque, if you cashed the cheque and it didn't bounce, and if you then paid the light bill with the money, I consider you talented.”―Stephen King

The thing about ignorance is, you don't have to remain ignorant. — me again"

"It was like the aftermath of an orgasm with the wrong partner." – David Lagercrants “The Girl in the Spider’s Web.”

Why worry about dying, you aren't going to live to regret it.

Never debate with someone who gets ink by the barrel" — George Hayes, former Alaska Attorney General who died recently

My dear Mr. Frost: two roads never diverge in a yellow wood. Three roads meet there. — @Shakespeare on Twitter

Normal is how somebody else thinks you should act.

"The mark of a great shiphandler is never getting into situations that require great shiphandling," Adm. Ernest King, USN

Me: Does the restaurant have cute waitresses?

My friend Gail: All waitresses are cute when you're hungry.

I'm not a writer, but sometimes I push around words to see what happens. – Scott Berry

I realized today how many of my stories start out "years ago." What's next? Once upon a time?"

“The rivers of Alaska are strewn with the bones of men who made but one mistake” - Fred McGarry, a Nushagak Trapper

Many people hear voices when no one is there. Some of them are called mad and are shut up in rooms where they stared at walls all day. Others are called writers and they do pretty much the same thing. – Meg Chittenden

A non-writing writer is a monster courting insanity. – Franz Kafka

We are all immortal until the one day we are not. – me again

If the muse is late, start without her – Peter S. Beagle

Substitute ‘damn’ every time you’re inclined to write ‘very;’ your editor will delete it and the writing will be just as it should be. ~Mark Twain Actually you could do the same thing with the word "really" as in "really cold."

If you are looking for an experience that will temper your vanity, this is it. There's no one to impress when you're alone on the trap line. – Michael Carey quoting his father's journal

Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing. – Benjamin Franklin

It’s nervous work. The state you need to write in is the state that others are paying large sums of money to get rid of. – Shirley Hazzard

So far as I can remember, there is not one word in the Gospels in praise of intelligence -- Bertrand Russell

You know that I always just wanted to have a small ship to take stuff from a place that had a lot of that stuff to a place that did not have a lot of that stuff and so prosper.—Jackie Faber, “The Wake of the Lorelei Lee”

If you attack the arguer instead of the argument, you lose both

If an insurance company won’t pay for damages caused by an “act of God,” shouldn’t it then have to prove the existence of God? – I said that

I used to think getting old was about vanity—but actually it’s about losing people you love. Getting wrinkles is trivial. – Eugene O’Neill

German General to Swiss General: “You have only 500,000 men in your army; what would you do if I invaded with 1 million men?”

Swiss General: “Well, I suppose every one of my soldiers would need to fire twice.”

Writing is the only thing that when I do it, I don’t feel I should be doing something else.—Gloria Steinem

Exceed your bandwidth—sign on the wall of the maintenance shop at the West Coast/Alaska Tsunami Warning Center

One thing I do know, if you keep at it, you usually wind up getting something done.—Patricia Monaghan

Do you want to know what kind of person makes the best reporter? I’ll tell you. A borderline sociopath. Someone smart, inquisitive, stubborn, disorganized, chaotic, and in a perpetual state of simmering rage at the failings of the world.—Brett Arends

It is a very simple mind that only knows how to spell a word one way.—Andrew Jackson

3:30 is too late or too early to do anything—Rene Descartes

Everything is okay when it’s 50-below as long as everything is okay. – an Alaskan in Tom Walker’s “The Seventymile Kid”

You can have your own opinion but you can’t have your own science.—commenter arguing on a story about polar bears and global warming

He looks at three ex wives as a good start—TV police drama

Talkeetna: A friendly little drinking town with a climbing problem.—a handmade bumper sticker

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Makeup is not for the faint of heart—the makeup guerrilla

“I’m going to relax in a very adult manner.”—Danica Patrick after sweating it out and qualifying half an hour before Andretti

“Asking Congress to come back is like asking a mugger to come back because he forgot your wallet.”—a roundtable participant on Fox of all places

As Republicans go further back in the conception process to define when life actually begins, I am beginning to think the eventual definition will be life begins in the beer I was drinking when I met her.—me again

Hunting is a “critical element for the long-term conservation of wood bison.”—a state department of Fish and Game official explaining why the state would not go along with a federal plan to reintroduce wood bison in Alaska because the agreement did not specifically allow hunting

Each day do something that won’t compute – anon

I can’t belive I still have to protest this shit – a sign carriend by an elderly woman at an Occupy demonstration

Life should be a little nuts or else it’s just a bunch of Thursdays strung together—Kevin Costner as Beau Burroughs in “Rumor has it”

You’re just a wanker whipping up fear —Irish President Michael D. Higgins to a tea party radio announcer

Being president doesn’t change who you are; it reveals who you are—Michelle Obama

Sports malaprops

Commenting on an athlete with hearing impairment he said the player didn’t show any “uncomfortability.” “He's not doing things he can't do."

"… there's a fearlessment about him …"

"He's got to have the lead if he's going to win this race." "

"Kansas has always had the ability to score with the basketball."

"NFL to put computer chips in balls." Oh, that's gotta hurt.

"Now that you're in the finals you have to run the race that's going to get you on the podium."

"It's very important for both sides that they stay on their feet."

This is why you get to hate sportscasters. Kansas beats Texas for the first time since 1938. So the pundits open their segment with the question "let's talk about what went wrong." Wrong? Kansas WON a football game! That's what went RIGHT!

"I brought out the thermostat to show you how cold it is here." Points to a thermometer reading zero in Minneapolis.

"It's tough to win on the road when you turn the ball over." Oh, really? Like you can do all right if you turn the ball over playing at home?

Cliches so embedded in sportscasters' minds they can't help themselves: "Minnesota fell from the ranks of the undefeated today." What ranks? They were the only undefeated team left.

A good one: A 5'10" player went up and caught a pass off a defensive back over six feet tall. The quote? "He's got some hops."

Best homonym of the day so far: "It's all tied. Alabama 34, Kentucky 3." Oh, Tide.

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How is a team down by one touchdown before the half "totally demoralized?"

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"That was a playmaker making a play.”