ordinary pop songs and why they're great.

Thursday, July 01, 2010

 
Now this is an odd theme but I've had the first of these songs on my mind for ages and just downloaded it. Dagnammit and wouldncha know it, it made me cry!! Like real unstoppable tears and totally unbidden - there it is, what music can do. So... for posterity, the songs that never fail to tip me into the saline abyss:-

My Heart Belongs To Me by Barbra Streisand. Lyrically surely a close relation of "It's Too Late" by Carol King, but the latter doesn't get you "right there" in the same way.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4VxyTQnDfDk

Castles In The Air by Don McLean. Not even a memorable song but I can vouch for its existence on 7 inches of vinyl as I bought it. Only then did I realise it made me really sad.

Live to Tell by Madonna. Ah the middle section - the lyrics, "If I ran away, I'd never have the strength to go very far..." etc.

Being Boring by Pet Shop Boys. This is the biggie, the one that speaks to the inner dread, it's like the soundtrack to a picture that always kind of scared me of an old lady in, funnily enough, an old Ladybird book. Some place of total loneliness that I knew in my heart when I was really rather too young for such angst. Really truly the saddest lyric tucked inside a pop song.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rMJijbj_zMY

Labels: sad