Thursday, December 06, 2007

Moving Music (Redux)

At a not too distant dinner party with John and his wife and Jefe, we got in a debate similar to the discussion of my last post. Jefe and I, being completely captivated by the power of both music AND it's reproduction, called out John's wife on whether she had actually ever been moved...I mean MOVED...by a piece of music. She apparently found it hilarious that I could be moved to tears by a song, or a combination of composition and playback. I in turn found it quite odd that someone had never been so affected, and set upon my wine-drunken way to produce a mixtape of those songs I could think of off the top of my head, as soon as they left for the night.

The ostensible purpose, I guess, was to see if when presented with the CD, she could at least comprehend that given the right set of memories, circumstances, place in life or environment, with the right composition...tears could flow.

I'll never know the results because it's never come up again, and I am now too embarrassed to ask. She probably ripped it to her Ipod anyway-effectively killing those tracks whose music itself, and not lyrics, were the source of emotion. Nevertheless, I thought I would share it with the world.

All of these rock/pop songs have at one time or another, and for reasons so diverse as intensely personal memories to brilliant compositional skill, reduced me to tears.

"Play crack the Sky" by Brand New
"Fake Plastic Trees" by Radiohead
"Anniversary of an Uninteresting Event" by Deftones
"Oh My" by Big Wreck
"Then she did" by Janes Addiction
"Dreams of Reason" by The Tea Party
"In this time" by The Tea Party
"Songs of Farewell and Departure" by Hum
"Roman Catholic Haircut" by Tripmaster Monkey
"Ten Years Gone" by Led Zeppelin
The entire Final Cut album by Pink Floyd.
"Call it Sleep" by Steve Vai

The Classics and blues have their own lists.

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