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?
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.
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?)
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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:
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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