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If we're talking classical music to set the mood you can't beat Wagner's "Isolde's Liebestod" - just breathtakingly orgasmic... and another would be the love duet from Saint-Saens' SAMSON AND DELILAH - "Mon cœur s'ouvre à ta voix " ("Sotly awakes my heart"), the way the voices combine and the rise and fall of the music is just exquisite.

A few more that came to me while I tried to fall asleep last night.

Sam Cooke - "A Change Is Gonna Come" - that is one beautiful song and displayed the vocal powers and charms of one the truly great singers at the very peak of his abilities. The way Spike Lee used it in MALCOLM X put a lump in my throat.

Gene Pitney - "I'm Gonna Be Strong" - this was back in the day when singers had to have a serious vocal range to have a long career. This is a great song and describes how many people think they can be when the end comes but rarely measure up. I heard an interview with Pitney about two years before he died and he said he spent five months each year on the road doing rock revival festivals. He said he would continue to do it until he could no longer carry the end of this song. He died before he quit.

Harry Chapin - "A Better Place To Be" - Chapin might be the most underrated singer songwriter of the last forty years. His body of work is second to none. This is my favorite song of his. It is a story song - like all of Chapin's best stuff - about two lonely people and how they manage to be a little less lonely. The end of this long song verse still brings tears to my eyes.

You know The waitress she took her bar rag, and she wiped it across her eyes.
And as she spoke her voice came out as something like a sigh.
She said "I wish that I was beautiful, or that you were halfway blind.
And I wish I weren't so goddamn fat, I wish that you were mine.
And I wish that you'd come with me, when I leave for home.
For we both know all about emptiness, and livin' all alone."

And the little man, Looked at the empty glass in his hand.
And he smiled a crooked grin, He said, "I, I guess I'm out of gin.
And I know we both have been, so lonely. And if you want me to come with you, then that's all right with me.
'Cause I know I'm goin' nowhere and anywhere's a better place to be."

I used to sing this to my two kids to put them to sleep. I carried on the tradition with my grandson who used to hear it so much he could sing most of it with me when he was only three. Just the other day I sang it to my new infant grandson and it worked like a charm.

Chad & Jeremy - "Summer Song" - just a light and warm song about a time of the year that has a special glow to it and finding love in it.

Ray Charles - "America" - songs about country are suppose to be patriotic but this one is sung like a true love song with so much feeling that it is obvious America is something really special to Charles.

Frank Sinatra - "Cycles" - the only Sinatra record I ever bought. A truly melancholy song that I only play in the Autumn when the leaves are starting to fall and cherish the experience.

Elvis Presley - " Can't Help Falling In Love " - a great song with one of the best opening lines ever penned ..... "wise men say only fools rush in" ...... on NPR once, Liane Hansen played a version sung in Latin by some monks - I was out on my Sunday morning ten mile run and it brought me to tears.

The Who - "Real Good Looking Boy" - It uses the Presley song and weaves it throughout this song about somebody who grew up in a disfunctional home and bears the scars until healed by the power of love. It makes you want to believe .. even if you have no right to believe anymore.

Nora Jones - "Come Away With Me" - I love to watch her play the piano while she sings this. She has these amazingly light fingers that caress the keys in the most gentle way. I wonder how many men would have gone anywhere for that touch?

Elton John - "Candles In The Wind" - a tribute to Marilyn Monroe - nuff said.

Big & Rich - "Holy Water" - this has an opening verse that is as great as the previously mentioned Harry Chapin last verse of "Better Place to Be".......
Somewhere there's a stolen halo
I use to watch her wear it well
Everything would shine wherever she would go
But looking at her now you'd never tell
Truly one of the two things to come out of the country genre in a long long time.

Martina McBride - "Gods Will" - McBride is the other best thing to emerge from country. I love sad songs about kids and this is one of the saddest. Too often the video of a song just spoils it but you should see this one as it is a perfect compliment to the beauty of this Halloween tune.

MariaHobbit wrote:

The look in his eyes when he said that is worth a jillion gifts.

Just needed to this.

The Chapin song makes me cry too...most of us who are no oil paintings find it easy to identify with that waitress...and you can know all about emptiness even when you're not livin' all alone...

Other favourites of mine would be Lisa Stansfield "In all the right places", and Gladys Knight's "The Best Thing (that ever happened to me)...oh, and Kenny Rogers "Lady" just makes me melt!

yovargas wrote:

MariaHobbit wrote:

The look in his eyes when he said that is worth a jillion gifts.

Just needed to this.

I agree.


Anyway more songs...

Andrea Bochelli/Sarah Brightman (not Celines) - Time to Say Goodbye (there's a whole slew of songs there, and I am sure he could sing the mustard is leaking all over the eggs and it'd be dead sexy)

Scarborough Fair
Whiter Shade of Pale - Sarah Brightman's version
Visons of Johanna - Dylan
The Cowboy in Me - Tim McGraw
Like We Never Loved Before - Tim and Faith
Your Song -Elton John
Tiny Dancer - Elton John
Play Me - Neil Diamond (yes Neil Diamond)
Song for Mia - Lizz Wright
Strange - Lizz Wright
Come Monday - Jimmy Buffet
Seven Spanish Angels - Willie and Ray
Crazy - Patsy
Georgia on my Mind
Smokey Moutain Rain
Always on your side - Sheryl Crow
Picture - Crow/Rock
Couldn't have said it better - Meatloaf
Did I say that - Meatloaf
The Prayer - Josh/Charolette
Vincent - Josh
The Blowers Daughter - Damian Rice
Hero - Enrique Iglesias

And this song in this movie...





and this song, which if you don't speak Spanish you'll have to get the translation, but I don't think it's really needed. This one of the very few songs that really really gets to me, beyond tears and chills.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pRrjt4htXlE

Just back from my son's concert...

So many beautiful pieces of music, but if I had to tell you about two of them, the first would be a great favourite of mine, Vaughan Williams' "SILENT NOON" which was sung by the Head Chorister, and was lovely, but my heart is given to Ian Bostridge in this version:


Silent Noon

Your hands lie open in the long fresh grass, --
The finger-points look through like rosy blooms:
Your eyes smile peace. The pasture gleams and glooms
'Neath billowing skies that scatter and amass.
All round our nest, far as the eye can pass,
Are golden kingcup-fields with silver edge
Where the cow-parsley skirts the hawthorn-hedge.
'Tis visible silence, still as the hour-glass.

Deep in the sun-searched growths the dragon-fly
Hangs like a blue thread loosened from the sky: --
So this wing'd hour is dropt to us from above.
Oh! clasp we to our hearts, for deathless dower,
This close-companioned inarticulate hour
When twofold silence was the song of love.

Dante Gabriel Rossetti


The second was an arrangement of Billy Joel's AND SO IT GOES, sung a cappella by the 6 Lay Vicars (2 counter tenors, two tenors, two basses)... just so emotional...


In every heart there is a room
A sanctuary safe and strong
To heal the wounds from lovers past
Until a new one comes along

I spoke to you in cautious tones
You answered me with no pretense
And still I feel I said too much
My silence is my self defense

And every time I've held a rose
It seems I only felt the thorns
And so it goes, and so it goes
And so will you soon I suppose

But if my silence made you leave
Then that would be my worst mistake
So I will share this room with you
And you can have this heart to break

And this is why my eyes are closed
It's just as well for all I've seen
And so it goes, and so it goes
And you're the only one who knows

So I would choose to be with you
That's if the choice were mine to make
But you can make decisions too
And you can have this heart to break

And so it goes, and so it goes
And you're the only one who knows.

Oh, I'll have to listen to some of these soon!

I forgot about Billy Joel's And So It Goes. That's a great one! And I can play it on the piano.