A perfect song? What are your choices?
Can there be such a thing as a perfect song? I have a suggestion, what are yours? Here is a thought...
Showing 28 responses by cd318
A perfect song would be akin to pure musical pleasure. You’d never get tired of it, and it would never fail to resonate with you. I agree with what @kb54 said earlier. For me also the theme of young love/ lust / yearning never loses its charm and never gets old. It’s the stuff of life itself.
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Once again, thanks for posting. I particularly found 'Kalinka' the most moving. We are all just children deep down and we all need love to survive.
As for whether humanity is 'flying into the abyss' or whether we're simply going to become surplus to requirements in the coming age of AI, I don't know. Nevertheless, let's not despair too much. Most people, I find, are just trying to keep their heads above water whilst they chase the next dollar, pound, rouble etc. This includes artists too. It's those few that are pulling the strings who should be worried as more and more people begin to wake up. |
Sad Lisa was my favourite Cat Stevens song for a long time. Around 1990 I discovered his '60s output (beyond 'I love My Dog' and 'I'm Gonna Get Me a Gun') and I soon fell in love his Mike Hurst produced work.
... Unfortunately, this process is largely manageable - the owners of big money are interested in making the broad masses stupid - they are easier to manage. (but they themselves listen to classical music and opera - masterpieces of the past and present).
The music industry is a business, let's not forget, and that any art it happens to churn out is often merely co-incidental. Having said that, it's noticeable that in this age of information the consumer has unsurpassed access to knowledge online. If some people want to limit themselves mainly to the incessant chatter on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Tik Tok etc there's not a lot anyone can do. Unfortunately there's still far too many people like my dad who don't have easy access to the internet, and many others like my mother can only use it in a limited way via their phones. Even worse, far too many people seem unaware of just how pernicious companies like Google are when it comes to issues such as data theft and online tracking. Worse still some of them like Google are actively seeking to influence consumer behaviour. Or 'dumbing down' and shaping political opinion as it's now known as. In Europe they brought in the GDPR act in 2019 to safeguard privacy but all it really managed to do was to make life harder for working people to access information on matters such as health etc. The big money tech giants themselves carried on regardless.
Anyway, there's still treasure to be found for those who look. Here's my favourite version of 'America' from West Side Story.
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I enjoy thread drift as much as the next guy or gal, but this thread has gone off the rails to the point where it’s now no more than a grab bag of miscellaneous vids. Either that or the universe is indeed awash with perfect songs.
Well, I don’t think there is anything such as a truly perfect song, only those that are more suitable than others for certain moods or subject matter. Case in point is the often complex father and son relationship which hasn’t been tackled too often as far as I know. For example, John Lennon (and Paul McCartney) often wrote songs about his mother, but his father hardly ever got a look in.
@flasd has already mentioned Cat Stevens’ Father and Son off his Tea for the Tillerman album, but what about this one for mixed feelings?
Martin Simpson - Never Any Good. |
Waterloo Sunset has little to do with the battle of Waterloo, what some have called the most important few hours of the 19th century. It's more to do with life in the district of Waterloo, not far from Charing Cross and Waterloo Station. As much as I like the original, I have come to prefer the rendition at the closing ceremony of the 2012 London Olympics.
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For another "perfect song" I would nominate November Spawned a Monster by Morrissey.
It's quite amazing just how many great songs Morrissey has recorded in his post Smiths career. For me, he's up there alone with Dylan when it comes to the sheer number of great songs recorded over all the decades and their unique point of view. Here's just 2 that immediately come to mind.
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I’m not at all surprised. He’d seen it all in the 60s, rubbing shoulders with the likes of Baez and Dylan, the Beatles and the Beach Boys etc. It’s true his career nosedived somewhat in the 70s once his association with Mickie Most came to an end. His unwillingness to jump on the coming glam bandwagon alongside the likes of Bowie and Bolan don’t help his career either, but he never stopped making good music. In a way he remained true to himself. He wasn’t playing at being Donovan, he was Donovan.
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Don’t let the human condition get you down too much. Most of them having been fighting and killing for resources for hundreds of centuries. There’s nothing any different now, except they’re better at hiding their real intentions if you’re prone to believing the electronic and print media. Anyway, life today remains as valuable and precious as it ever did. Perhaps even moreso if you’re wiring is good. These are the days of miracles and wonder, aren’t they? Yes, we know life is a losing game, but nothing should stop up from losing it beautifully, should it? |
You don’t understand - now the sixth scientific revolution is underway ... the fate of mankind directly depends on whose hands the technologies will be - IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO ALLOW the oligarchs ... otherwise ordinary people will end - they simply do not need the owners of huge money and will be destroyed (some covid or war) ... The only way for the broad masses of people to survive is to unite - only then they are strong. (the oligarchs will do their best to interfere with this - fascism, nationalism, inciting religious conflicts) ... the more fools, the easier it is for the oligarchs to gain the upper hand. Capitalism is synonymous with selfishness - loneliness - this system is completely inappropriate!
Serjio I hope I can understand your concerns that the human race is in great danger. These are my concerns too. Just as soon as the mass of humanity is no longer required to keep a small elite of globalist (bankers) in the lifestyle they are are accustomed to, that same mass of humanity will indeed become surplus to requirements. You could even argue that we peasants have only ever been tolerated as long as we served a useful function. However, in the meantime we can all try to put real information out there so that more people can use it to decide for themselves. You might well also be right in that the situation is becoming increasingly grave. You only have to look at the escalation of the Ukraine situation to see that, but it's also pointless in getting ourselves overly distressed by events we cannot control. In the meantime life goes on in its wonderful way.
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@cd318 Yeah, I got to agree that Alfie is a strong contender for Best Song Ever Written.
On top of everything else those must be Hal David's best lyrics. ----- As sure as I believe there's a heaven above, Alfie Without true love we just exist, Alfie |