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Moved to Tears While Singing?


Potts

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It's only happened two or three times for me but it happened last night. I was on...I felt great and my voice was strong. 

The backstory: My 24 neice just lost her baby's daddy in a TRAGIC TRAGIC accident. Obviously everyone in the family is hurt and she's going through a lot trying to grasp the fact that her daughter will never see her father again. She's not overly educated, she has a dead end job, and she's been through a tough few years with some issues, but to her credit, she's going back to school, she's trying to figure out how to be a single mom and she's working on bettering their lives. It's pretty insirational to see a young person deal with something like this.

So I'm goofing around and playing some tunes and decided to drop her name in this song by Great Big Sea not realizing the lyrics that followed.

 

[*&^%] sings on the corner, what keeps her from dying?

Let them say what they want, she won't stop trying

She might stumble, if they push her 'round

She might fall, but she'll never lie down

 

In this beautiful life, but there's always some sorrow

It's a double-edged knife, but there's always tomorrow

It's up to you now if you sink or swim,

Keep the faith and your ship will come in.

It's not so bad

 

It hit me hard and it happened quickly. All of of sudden all of the lines to this song matched what she was going through and it became immediatly difficult to get through the song. Of course I did, and nobody could see the emotion I was feeling (I'm surpriised to be honest). I finished the song and actually told the audience that that was it...that was about as much as I could get performance wise out of any song that they'll ever hear me play. It was pretty cool though. There aren't many times when a song or a performance will move me that much.

 

 

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It's never happened to me when i'm playing for people, but i know what you mean. Sometimes you bring out the meaning of a song, and how it applies to your life, more clearly that you from just listening to it.

There's a song that reminds me of my best friend, and our relationship, and all the stuff she/we went through recently. I noticed how strangely accurate it was about us. The chorus from the song is so similar to talks we've had. I loved the song instantly, but the fist time i played it it really hit me and i almost lost it. 

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Funny though, I used to know the boys from Great Big Sea, not very well of course, but we were a part of the same music scene. I was just playing the more alternative venues at the time, and music wasn't my primary career at the time (I was a working writer).

 

It's hard when a song takes us somewhere unexpected. I used to feel a connection to David Grey's "please forgive me" but the song changes. For a while it was Regina Spector's "summer in the city". It just means a moment we can relate with to carry us away.

 

There's a mediocre song I finished the night a friend passed away. I don't play it much, and damned after almost 20 years, I barely remember it. But at the time.... It was important. Not saying it means less after all these years, but I have other focuses, including my own kids.

 

Though this exact moment is why I love music. The fact that it bring us so much in the moment, and help take us beyond. I listen less, play more but still feel the same.

 

 

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We lost my father in law last fall to cancer. While he and I weren't particularly close, he was a good man. I often thought of him when I heard Alan Jackson's song Small Town Southern Man. By listening to the song, you'd swear it was written about him. After he passed, I thought it would be a nice tribute to him to add it to my setlist and talk briefly to the audience about him each time I played it.

 

It has been six months, and I still can't even sing it at home without tearing up.

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Way back when I was going through my divorce, I was singing 'Memphis'...and it all came rushing back to me as I went through the lyrics about how much I missed my daughters, and it all washed through when I got to the 'Marie is only six years old' line...that song has remained a very special one to me ever since.

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Happens to me too. Sometimes, you just connect so profoundly to the lyrics or melody, that ir touches your very soul. For some reason, that happens whenever I sing Springsteens' version of "Jersey Girl".(written by Tom Waits)

 

 

Sometimes, it's just the sheer beauty of the song; this song is from an album called "Cantate Domino", which is acknowledged as being one of the finest recordings ever made (label; Proprius,,Sweeden) Crank it up.

 

 

Here's another one; this is an incredible performance by a young Brazilian vocalist named Carmen Menarcha, and accompanied by Andre Rieu's orchestra, and performed "live" in Cortona Italy.. This song is from the opera Gianni Sichi, by Puccini. In this song, she pleads with her father (who has chosen a wealthy husband for her), to allow her to marry the man she truly loves. Believe me, you won't need to know Italian,,,,,,

 

Go "big screen" and crank it up

 

 

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Happens to me, too, with certain songs.  With some songs I have to fight my way through my own emotions just to get enough control to perform them without choking up to the point I can't sing.  Happens to me reading certain poems aloud when I'm teaching them, too.

Louis

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