[Jim Moonan]

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This thread is an excuse to share a song and lyric that I feel compelled to share. Even given the fact that a part of me knows I’m asking for people to share something intensely personal. I’ve been in a struggle with my psyche lately, and I'm perhaps even more vulnerable than I usually am.

This is an old song (30+ years), but new to me. I’ve come late to the music and words of Nick Cave (despite him being recommended to me many times). I am too quick to keep my window shut and it stops the flow of things that my spirit craves. But this morning my window was open and this came through: https://youtu.be/DpVr9ei7R6k?si=XDR3fcHOBtaqiuY7

Note to self: keep your window open more often : )

I would like to hear from others what songs/lyrics have been able to tap that place deep inside each of us and enlighten it.


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[Joe Crocker]

Nick Cave is probably best known these days for the Peaky Blinders theme music (Red Right Hand) which is grim and doomy and brilliant. He has been around a long time. A post punk gothic sound that is always recognizable and menacing. But he has written plenty of heartful love songs as you have found in your link. My sister walked up the aisle to The Ship Song. One of his songs (People Ain't No Good) even appeared on Shrek.

A strong character who has been through a lot , including the death of two of his sons, which he has worked hard to come to to terms with and with the meaning of life and the place of any God in it. He has a recent book about his struggle Faith Hope and Carnage.

[Roger Slater]

"Me and Bobby McGee" was well known to me from Janis Joplin's exposive version, but it was just the other day when I listened to Kris Kristofferson sing it (he wrote it), and only then did I realize how moving it is as the quiet country-western song it was written to be. Here it is.

And I don't know if this is the kind of thing you're looking for, but as long as we're posting YouTube songs, here's one of a very, very young Emmylou Harris doing "I'll Be Your Baby Tonight," which to my surprise is a Dylan tune. She sings better and looks better doing it than just about anyone around today (I'm looking at you, Taylor Swift). Here it is.

[Chelsea McClellan]

This songwriter, Mark Beasley, and these two songs. I wish he were still sharing music. It seems a shame. I pop in on his sites every once in a while in case he might again one day.

Lullaby, which is a love song, but which I sing with my son in mind. "Well, I guess I'm not sleeping tonight." (at risk of TMI: I sang this song on repeat while giving birth to him.)

"I wish I could write you a poem that would capture it, so lucid and passionate, you'd see into the depths of my soul. There's something inside of your heart I've been trying to spark but I still never know how I can fit into words how I feel and be sure that it shows."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=14u33NVEyi8


The Only One Who Knows Me,

"I've always assumed it was under control, but now the spin of the Earth has been taking its toll on me, so nauseous and dizzy, I send up a prayer: You're the only one who knows me, but I'm not sure you're even really there. Could you show yourself?"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kj6tmGnQBjI

[James Brancheau]

Never mind.

[David Callin]

Originally Posted by James Brancheau

Hey Jim—Hope you’re doing at least somewhat better these days.

Amen to that. Like James, I don't know much of Nick Cave, but I like the song you posted. I can see how it might help.

Very cool song for your sister's wedding, Joe!

All the best, Jim.

David

[Jim Moonan]

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I should be more careful in expressing the state of my psyche It may be bruised but it always gets back up. Thanks for the support, poets.

I'm looking for songs with lyrics that are entwined in such a way as to make the two one. Imo, it's a rarity. But I know, too, that each of us has different catalysts that connect us to "that which shall remain unnamed". So there's that to contend with...

What I'm looking for are that handful of songs/lyrics that represent perfection; the "Shakespeares" of songs; songs that clear the impossibly high bar of being indisputably pure expression of "that which will remain unnamed". Something along those lines : ) The Nick Cave song/lyric I posted speaks to it, imo

This one does, too: https://youtu.be/8pKUwTooZ3o?si=CxmEP0QZMOBES6JI

I'm not, of course, expecting that we all agree. I'm just looking for what you personally consider songs/lyrics that connect you to "that which shall remain unnamed".

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[Roger Slater]

"I'm looking for songs with lyrics that are entwined in such a way as to make the two one."

I can't think of a more perfect song than Stardust.

But all great songs, and even merely good songs, make the music and the lyrics seem inseparable.

[Ned Balbo]

Great discussion thread. I love Nick Cave, Joni Mitchell, & Hoagy Carmichael's "Stardust" (the latter was my dad's favorite song, which he played on diatonic accordion).

Here are some songs I find moving or comforting in different ways.

Tracy Chapman: "3000 Miles": is she thinking about her own past from 3000 miles (& many years) away? Or still back in Cleveland imagining herself 3000 miles away in order to survive everything around her?
https://youtu.be/-8h-h7dULhs?si=9mFKlqYlEsd4DhVw

Elliott Smith: "L.A.": I imagine elation in sunny L.A. after terrible despair; a kind of awed shock that he came so close to "throwing it all away" but didn't.
https://youtu.be/TLlu9XjJg3s?si=WZVkHjGr9MgoyYzf

Robyn Hitchcock: "Raymond and the Wires": the son remembers his late father (U.K. writer/painter Raymond Hitchcock) in all his vulnerability. Placing the trolley bus at center adds such touching counterpoint to the elegy.
https://youtu.be/VBaPy02P-hE?si=o3Jzlh4wv2gtZnYc

[John Riley]

This Must Be The Place--Talking Heads

It's almost too obvious to post this here, but it needs to be done. I initially thought this was a love song. Now I hear it as a lost song looking for a home. The song is lost, and the singer is following. It's a startling effect and further evidence of their genius.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nP8JhOSps_0