What is the one song that changed your life?

...and maybe made you want to write songs?

For me it was 'The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll' by Bob Dylan. My dad has a pretty cool collection of folk on vinyl, including a fairly complete selection of Dylan, along with Planxty, The Fureys, Tommy Makem and the Clancys etc. etc., and as a child I often found myself spinning his records when left to my own devices. When I was younger it was just a case of enjoying the jingly jangly melodies or the catchphrases of hooks and refrains. (Jokerman dance to the nightingale tune!)

Then one day around 1988 or so, when I was about 12 or 13, I pulled out a Bob Dylan record that had never really interested me before. The sleeve had a simple photo of Dylan on a white background with his name and the track listing. A bit boring looking for a kid! So I stuck it on, and about halfway thru the 2nd verse of 'Lonesome Death...' I realised 'hang on, this is a true story. This actually happened. Not so long ago either, by the sound of it.'

This was no made-up tale about a soldier or some loser crying about a girl that didn't like him. This was the real deal, a true story. And you could hear Dylan railing against societal and racial inequality in the melody, in every syllable. And the return to each refrain as the story progressed telling us so poetically that he hadn't even told us the worst of it yet - 'you who philosophise disgrace, and criticise all fear, take the rag away from your face, now ain't the time for your tears!'

Goosebumps - the hairs are standing on the back of my neck even as I think about that moment.

And finally concluding with the shameful fact that this murderer, by virtue of his birthline, was still allowed to walk the streets. A free man.

'Bury the rag deep in your face, now is the time for your tears!'

Well, my head just about exploded. Music is this big. Songs can be that powerful. And that was the moment that I knew I wanted to at least try and write songs, not even for a living - just to say something.

Sometimes we get a little caught up in the cold mechanics of songwriting - in rhyme, meter, form, chord progressions etc., (well, I do anyway!) and maybe lose sight a little of the profound emotion that comes to us thru the ether when we first start diddling around with a new melody, feeling, catchphrase or whatever.

You can hear in that song that Dylan didn't spend a whole heap of time agonising over this rhyme or that meter, and the verses don't even follow a set pattern - they play out over 2 chords while he puts every bit of that original anger into describing the injustice that had been done to Hattie Carroll.

So, cool story bro, right!

Well, I'd love to hear if there is a song, or album that changed your life and maybe inspired you to write songs of your own.

I don't know what sort of songs you write, Gubu -- but writing ABOUT an influential song doesn't get much better than this. I was hooked at your words,

This was no made-up tale about a soldier or some loser crying about a girl that didn't like him. This was the real deal, a true story. And you could hear Dylan railing against societal and racial inequality in the melody, in every syllable. And the return to each refrain as the story progressed telling us so poetically that he hadn't even told us the worst of it yet - 'you who philosophise disgrace, and criticise all fear, take the rag away from your face, now ain't the time for your tears!'

Goosebumps - the hairs are standing on the back of my neck even as I think about that moment.

To answer your question: Dylan's own hero, Hank Williams' late in life 'gospel' song HOUSE OF GOLD -- one of the last he wrote before his death from alcohol poisoning, age 29 on New Year's day 1953. He only performed it on radio as "Luke the Drifter" on Gospel radio shows; he didn't want the 'religious' tone (dear to his own tortured heart, but the bane of popular recordings) to hurt the sales of his 'secular' hits.

The version that introduced me to this one in 1981 (I've only heard it since on Willie Nelson's recent country album) was from the black vinyl LP "Kenny Rankin." Last time I looked it wasn't at YouTube. But the words were so memorable, it made me want to write something this good. Shortly before he died, age 50 I played Kenny's version for my late brother-in-law "Mitch" -- and recited it in a graveside eulogy at his funeral saying, "Mitch loved this."

People steal . . . they cheat and lie

for wealth and what it can buy

Don't they know, on Judgement Day

Gold and silver gonna melt away?

I'd rather be . . . in a deep, dark grave

and know that my poor soul was saved

than live in this world -- in a house of gold

deny my God -- and doom my soul.

What good is gold -- and silver too

if your heart's not pure and true?

Sinner! hear me when I say,

Get down on your knees and pray!

-- Hank Williams (w&m) circa 1952

Postscript: When I wasn't looking some kindred spirit has uploaded it to YouTube. That's Kenny Rankin accompaying himself on guitar (it made me a better guitarist too!) to an arrangement by one of Sinatra's favorites, Don Costa -- the only great arranger who worked out all his orchestrations on guitar!

[video=youtube;DF_nEbQELEw]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DF_nEbQELEw

p.p.s. What did we do before YouTube? Someone who plays guitar better than I do (but not a better singer!) uploaded a video demonstrating all those wonderful Kenny Rankin chords! It turned 11,000 "views" this day.

[video=youtube;IM7-WrFZJhw]

Nice Mr. Gubu.

I was 10 in 1970. By now I was certainly aware of the Beatles singing infectious harmony. I was digging the more "edgy" Shocking Blue doing Venus. Oooh, almost scandalous the way she spit it out. But...

...I was driving with mom and the AM was on.

Simon & Garfunkel's Bridge Over Troubled Water Came On.

That piano. I remember it sounded like white people's church music in one respect, but there was something... an informed attitude and harmony in that piano. Then though, to my young ears, it was "just" a sound. I was hearing tinges of Gospel music but didn't know it. Barely there. But there. I was hooked before the vocal came in. Then the vocal came in.

When you're weary, feeling small

When tears are in your eyes... I will dry them all

Can't say I'd ever felt weary as a 10 year old, but I'd felt small. I had tears in my eyes before with no one to comfort me at times and... these angel voices were saying they will be there. Wow. They sounded older than teenagers. Less scary. The empathy of the adult world, that side, there it was. Growing up might not be so bad.

I remember that feeling. I remember the road we were driving and where we were going.

Then my perception opened a bit and I imagined these voices singing to someone else. A pretty lady maybe. And she was sad and these guys, they weren't rocking and partying. They were noticing her and acknowledged her pain and tears.

People don't always do that.

Sail on Silver Girl,

Sail on by

Your time has come to shine

All your dreams are on their way

Really? It sounded real to me. This sad lady didn't yet know how high she'd fly. How cool. The joy these guys were singing about was exhilarating. And the music built up, then receded then rose again and rose again I WILL EASE YOUR MIND building... then... that piano. Taking things down a few notches but the intensity remained. This was no lie. This was truth. And it ends.

It's like there was an echo letting the song reverberate long after the ending. I rember looking at my mom and sharing a "wow" look. Wow.

I still feel all that when I listen to that song.

The one song?

That would have to be...

[video=youtube;j9PoUsRibtE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j9PoUsRibtE

I was ten and feeling at loose ends, culturally. I felt the need for a new sense of identity and personal style...

But then, runner up...

[video=youtube;dtUH2YSFlVU]

Rock and Roll in the first half of the Seventies largely left me cold. It seemed to have lost its vigor and I was looking for a new home. 'Outlaw' Country seemed promising for a while.

Then along came Patti Smith. This was the song that really sucked me in -- Horses.

[video=youtube;c3coSfks4rQ]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c3coSfks4rQ

So rock can be poetic. So rock can delve into 'weighty' subjects. So maybe I can write something poetic and weighty too! (fat chance, I'm too inclined toward wit over weight) So maybe I should learn guitar! (which I did, sort of)

This was the side of Punk that appealed the most to me, the more artsy stuff. Not that I didn't become a fan of the Pistols or the Clash, because I did. And maybe I wouldn't have if Patti hadn't come along first.

She loves you(yeah yeah). Beatles, I was very young but had the opportunity to be apart of "Beatlemania", hair shoes and all. My first Phonograph came on X-mas and with a Beatle Album. Before them as a child I sang to Elvis's songs, but like I was 7 or 8 when I first heard the Beatles. Fortunately I have managed to appreciate the decades to follow, but right now Pop music sucks.

Not one song in particular, but one album: Cross by Justice. I was bored, my sister installed the FL Studio trial on my computer to keep me busy, and I was hooked. I love that album because it's catchy as can be, but it's anything but generic. Years after, I still don't understand how some of the melodies or chord progressions work--they shouldn't, but they do. I made electronic music for a while, then I started listening to prog rock and went on that road.

Probably I am the Walrus. I think it sounds goofy as hell today - that song has not aged well. But that joker blew my top when I was 14, 15. I couldn't believe someone would make something like that up. I memorized all the words - and not just the lyrics: All the background shout-outs and fragments of voices and all that "In the Service of a Villain"... "Ah Untimely Death..."

And my favorite - I swear to god they say this: "You and I Paul I think we should go through with it."

But that song more than anything Bob Dylan opened up to me the idea that you can get away with any goofy oddball idea in song as long as it sounds cool - as long as it's catchy.

If I may be permitted an additional "song that changed my life" and elevated my song writing aims -- one from my late 20s rather than my teens. This thread's auspicious title would seem to preclude afterthoughts ("Come to think of it there was this OTHER song from the 70s . . . ") So, indulge me please in a "just one more."

----

Google

Ditto for

"Eruption"

[video=youtube;sI7XiJgt0vY]

Although it probably doesn't fly very well in this forum but it impacted me and thousands of guitar players.

It changed everything.....not sure if you could actually call it a song though (even though it has structure and a title) lol.

The Don Henleys, Bob Dylans, Patti Smiths, Carole Kings, Lou Reeds, Merle Haggards of the world never "changed my life". They might have shown me how to write something other than "Love Gun 2" but "Eruption" changed my life.

The next one.

It was one of those 'something new' pieces that did take many in a different direction. We've all heard hundreds, thousands even, of songs that have influenced us in some manner but those would all have been incremental changes rather than the sort of epiphany a song like Eruption can give some listeners. That's a rare occurrence.

Similar to my own experience. I cut off my hair (it had been about 4 inches above my waist at its longest) in 1973 when I went to see Traffic, one of my favorite bands of the era, and at least half the other long hairs waiting to get in were brain dead morons. (And that was a Traffic concert -- not Grand Funk Railroad!) 5 years or so earlier when I started growing my hair, it wasn't like that. Long hairs in those days weren't always nice folks, some were pretty out there, some were hardcore nihilists -- but at least they were interesting in the 60s. These dunces were dolts.

So, for two years I kept my cultural antenna up and my hair short, just so no one would mistake me for one of the loaded out, pill-popping losers then representing for long hair.

When I heard "Horses" on the radio, it was like lightening striking out of a blue sky. I'd read a review -- and figured that the song on the radio in my car was from this poet-turned rocker -- but as I listened to the electrifying victim-stream-of-consciousness telling of a school stabbing, I was completely transfixed. I sat there for a couple minutes in my car waiting to hear the end and confirm that it was Smith. I bought the album almost immediately.

I definitely leaned more toward the arty side of punk... Television, Magazine, the Screamers, later X, but, for a few years, I sucked up virtually all the punk I could -- except for a few bands who I couldn't really see as punk but who somehow got included in the scene (and continue to be beloved by many other OG punks).

"Nutshell" by Alice in Chains.

Stabbing? I've always understood it to be and heard it as boy-on-boy rape, followed by Johnny's suicide. Powerful stuff, anyway.

I had to think about this one for a while. I turned 15 in 1980, not a great time for music really. I loved the hair bands, but even at that age I knew they weren't hitting on much lyrically.

If I had to pick one song that really got me thinking about lyrics, it was Peter Gabriel's Sledgehammer. It was catchy enough, but I didn't pay much attention to it at first. Not too long after it came out some DJ said that Gabriel wrote it because he wanted to write a song that wasn't about anything. I was about 20 at the time, and thought that that was the stupidest thing i'd ever heard in my entire life. Your a rock star, the world is your stage, people hang on your every utterance, and you don't have anything to say? Nothing?

It wasn't long after that I started playing guitar just so I could start writing songs. Granted the first of those didn't come for a couple more years.

Sledgehammer of course went on to be the most played video in the history of MTV, and it probably always will be as they don't show videos anymore. Shows you what I know.

Thanks for the reminder about Peter Gabriel's SLEDGEHAMMER, Dramey. While you were turning 15 in 1980, I was turning 32. To me the best song of that entire lost decade was the title track of an album by Steve Winwood, BACK IN THE HIGH LIFE.

Nice to see it has its own Wiki entry (not every 'important' song does) noting the familiar voice of James Taylor -- enlisted for his superlative harmonizing on that terrific song, co-written by Mr. Winwood and 2-time Oscar-winning lyricist, Will Jennings. A concise and evocative 'story song' -- it deserves a better video than the one upload to YouTube of its best-ever 'live' concert performance with J.T. and Steve performing side-by-side. Poor audio/video but thanks to the kindred spirit who finally put it up there when I wasn't looking (with the comment)

Two of? the greatest musical artists of all time on the stage together. God, what I would pay to have been there.

3point14rat 2 years ago

[video=youtube;308ypoKd4Dg]

[according to Wiki]

Back in the High Life is the fourth solo album by English rock musician Steve Winwood. It was a top ten hit on the album charts in the United States, hitting #3, and has sold over five million copies. The single "Higher Love" topped the singles chart and won the Grammy Award for "Record of the Year"; "Back in the High Life Again" (US #13), "The Finer Things" (US #8, the second biggest hit from the album), and "Freedom Overspill" (US #20) were also big hits. This was Winwood's last studio album with Island Records after twenty years with the label. The album also features collaborations in backing vocals, featuring Chaka Khan in "Higher Love", and James Taylor in "Back in the High Life Again".

[Will Jennings (who also co-wrote the album's

No song made me want to become a songwriter. I decided a few years ago to take my knowledge from playing covers for years and put it into songwriting. I also got the home recording bug and the two sort of went hand in hand from there. It keeps me in practice too as I'm not gigging due to work responsibilities.

As to what songs influence me? Too many to count...

This one by Peter Gabriel (thx for reminder dramey) showed my how a singer/writer's pov could be anything. To take any persona didn't mean that you as a person shared that outlook, but was a means rather, of making a "statement". Statement is too heady of a word... but a technique rather to shade a lyric. As far as I know, Peter Gabriel doesn't break into women's rooms and go through their belongings.

That was a breakthrough concept to me back in 1980.

[video=youtube;vAzUh_H7yV0]

I know something about opening windows and doors

I know how to move quietly to creep across creaky wooden floors

I know where to find precious things in all your cupboards and drawers

Slipping the clippers

Slipping the clippers through the telephone wires

The sense of isolation inspires

Inspires me

I like to feel the suspense when I'm certain you know I am there

I like you lying awake, your bated breath charging the air

I like the touch and the smell of all the pretty dresses you wear

Intruders happy in the dark

Intruder come

Intruder come and leave his mark, leave his mark

It could have been any one song on the top 100 Billboard list from 1988. That was the year I think I decided I hated music and stopped listening to the radio for a few years. Really inspired me to write a lot of my own songs and listen to local bands more.

Could well be; I'll have to go take a second look at the lyrics.*

To be frank, I'm not someone who tends to read much about my favorite artists or even what they say about their songs, I find it's easier to appreciate music for its own merits when you don't have to confront the human failings of its creators. (And definitely not picking on Ms Smith there. I know precious little about her other than the musical moments we spent together in the 70s. (OK, I did see a poetry reading by her but it was more in-store than anything, and it was a total zoo.)

I've had more than a few songs I really liked ruined by finding out that what I though were cool, esoteric lyrics were really banal and trite when confronting a lyric sheet or the artist's own comments on the song.

*Yeah, I think you're right. I think, having heard it all those times but never read it, that I conflated the later scenes of violence with the (presumed) rape. (Still, I'm not sure it's not absolutely clear what he's sticking in -- but the images of blood don't start until later. I had thought that the attacker stabbed him and then slit his throat. But I suspect you're right. Particularly if it's something Smith herself said. )

Anyhow, powerful stuff, no question.

Could well be; I'll have to go take a second look at the lyrics.* To be frank, I'm not someone who tends to read much about my favorite artists or even what they say about their songs, I find it's easier to appreciate music for its own merits when you don't have to confront the human failings of its creators. (And definitely not picking on Ms Smith there. I know precious little about her other than the musical moments we spent together in the 70s. (OK, I did see a poetry reading by her but it was more in-store than anything, and it was a total zoo.) I've had more than a few songs I really liked ruined by finding out that what I though were cool, esoteric lyrics were really banal and trite when confronting a lyric sheet or the artist's own comments on the song. *Yeah, I think you're right. I think, having heard it all those times but never read it, that I conflated the later scenes of violence with the (presumed) rape. (Still, I'm not sure it's not absolutely clear what he's sticking in -- but the images of blood don't start until later. I had thought that the attacker stabbed him and then slit his throat. But I suspect you're right. Particularly if it's something Smith herself said. ) Anyhow, powerful stuff, no question.

Yeah, once a song is 'out there' it means whatever its listeners take from it. It doesn't matter what the writer had in mind (unless you're an English Lit major in search of a thesis).