Thing of beauty, music of yearning: music from the Pas de Duex section of Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker Suite.
And for emotionally compelling, Wagner’s “Liebstod” from Tristan and Isolda is not bad…
I’m going to nominate Stan Roger’s (see picture at right) Lies, love that song. Reminds me of my grandmother.
I’ll also throw in Venice is SInking by Spirit of the West. The song just plain makes me smile.
Sorry Tower. We don’t get reruns of the Banana Splits in the U.S. I have to rely on childhood memories there.
I’d have to say “Three Little Fishies.” The Kay Kyser rendition, with Ishkabibble.
Down in the meadow ina itty bitty poo’
Fwam fwee wittle fiddies and a momma fiddie too.
“Fwim,” said da momma fiddie, “fwim if you can.”
and dey fwan and dey fwam wight over the dam.
<All together, now, everyone>
Ooop bop diddem daddem waddem choo.
Ooop bop diddem daddem waddem choo.
Ooop bop diddem daddem waddem choo.
And dey fwan and dey fwam wight over the dam.
The sheer power of emotion in that song just overwhelms me. I think it touches on the humanity of all of us. Every time I hear it, I just want to pound on the table and cry like a baby.
Gee, where do you start on this one.
Diamanda Galas, Meditation and Prayer just keeps going in and out of focus in the most extraordinary way.
Archie Shepp, Fire Music really angry music that somehow manages to be beautiful at the same time.
Captain Beefheart Lick My Decals Off and Trout Mask Replica Howling Wolf meets free form rock and roll.
Sham 69 That’s Life a punk opera, I kid you not.
The Village Fugs: any early album before they learnt to play their instruments and started hiring people who already did.
The Soweto String Quartet Zebra Crossing A string quartet playing township music. It works.
Last week,I was listening to ‘The Bonzo dog doo-dah band’ performing a track called ‘The Bigshot’ (Viv. Stanshall doing a ‘film noir private dick’ type pastiche monologue-extremely funny).It struck me that the honking saxes and the ‘drumkit falling down a staircase’ backing music was VERY much like Archie Shepp,circa 1967/8!
Have the Bonzo’s records been reissued on CD? They are definitely right up there with the weirdest. What was it now? A Doughnut in Granny’s Greenhouse?
For weirdness the Temperence Seven were quite good in their more limited way.
Those who like My Bloody Valentine and the Lost In Translation soundtrack might also want to try The Pastels’ “Illuminati” (a remix version of The Pastels’ earlier album “Illumination”). Contains some lovely and weird sweeping soundscapes crafted by MBV, Stereolab, Cornelius, Jim O’Rourke and quite a few others. The Pastels are quite possibly the most profoundly influential part-time band you’ve never heard of. They’ve been around nearly 20 years now and lead singer Stephen Pastel has never sought to give the band a high profile and still apparently works in a quiet bookstore on Byres Road in Glasgow.
Hmm…inexplicably beautiful. Yeah, I’d also have to go for Tom Waits there. Gleefully awaiting the short vignette involving him and Iggy Pop in Jim Jarmusch’s new film “Coffee and Cigarettes”… Then there’s Apocalyptica, the cello players that do exclusively Metallica covers…much better than the band itself.
Umm…what else?
Keith Jarrett…
Joy Division…Around the time the film “24 Hour Party People” was coming out, I went out and got some JD stuff to see what all the fuss was about. I’d always liked New Order and admired the way they gave preppy 80s teens and yuppified cokeheads a common point of reference…But that VOICE. Talk about “transmission”…Ian Curtis’ songs transmitted such eloquent, pained emotion, yet with such relentless drive and energy…No wonder he hung himself at 23. Normal people do not sing like that…In another life, he’d have probably made a hell of a sean-nos singer. And those high-fret bass hooks really stick with you, too.
While on the whole Manchester thing, Vini Reily (aka The Durutti Column…one of the greatest names for a rock band ever…) has done some good stuff too. Dodgy vocals but utterly goregeous guitar work…
Neko Case’s “Blacklisted” ought to put the Nashville country music establishment to shame…
Nick Lowe’s “Dig My Mood” and “The Convincer.” Who’d have thought that a guy who started out getting out of a record deal by singing songs in praise of the Bay City Rollers and later produced Elvis Costello in his early pissed-off- at everybody-years would wind up becoming one of the great crooners of our time. It’s like Johnny Cash (his ex-father in law) and Marvin Gaye are fighting for control of his brain. Too good for words…
And lastly, if you don’t yet have a copy of Caoimhin O Raghallaigh and Mick O’Brien’s “Kitty Lie Over,” then shame on you.
Hmm…
For a track which elicited the most surprising response from me… I can’t remember the name or the track number but it’s on Te Vaka (the first album by the Polynesian band of the same name) and it’s about a weird witchy type woman predicting what white settlers would do and includes a piece which sounds very much like someone running from slavers. For me, having only recently returned from Palestine when I bought the album, it was both very beautiful and terrifying at the same time.
TTFN.
At the risk of exposing my cultured? 
:roll: side, my all-time favorite is a chorus aria from Giuseppi Verdi’s opera Nabucco. The name of the piece is “Va, pensiero”. It gives me goose bumps every time I hear it.
Mike
Thanks for the The Pastels tip. I’ll definitely get it.
I have a nearly 30 year history of listening to Keith Jarrett. The encore of the Koln Concert recording is one of the most amazing things I’ve ever heard.
Scarlett Johanson (sp?) is chiefly what grabbed me
about LIT. Maybe we can have a picture of her on
the site? The Department of the Explicably Beautiful.
if emmlines childhood memories can drag up the theme song to the banana splits,then it might be interesting to compare it to the chorus of marleys “buffalo soldiers”.in my excuse for a mind i can just see little baby bob sitting there at his tv and singing along to the oy.oy.oy’s. maybe in trenchtown they called it the banana spliffs. i better stop now because i can feel some horrible puns coming on.
I have a nearly 30 year history of listening to Keith Jarrett. The encore of the Koln Concert recording is one of the most amazing things I’ve ever heard.
I’m a big fan of the Keith Jarrett trio, not specially of his solo albums, but Paris Concert really impressed me, check the first part of October 17, 1988 and that version of The Wind, that no words can describe. He was in a state of grace that day.
I must acknowledge that I never listened to the Koln Concert, shame on me 
One of those records you never buy because is always there
Thank you for the information & suggestions, Chas, I think I will try Blue Valentine
Don’t know the Buffalo Soldiers song.
Banana Splits: (cue actors in stupid animal costumes)
1 banana, 2 banana, 3 banana, 4…4 bananas make a lot of sodas, maybe more.
Over [field?] and highway the banana buggies go,
Coming [here?] bring you the banana splits show,
Na na na na na na na na na
Na na na na na na na na na
Na na na na na na na na na
Da da da, da di da da
Da da da, da di da da…
that was profound.
“Baby Mine” - Alison Krauss
from The Best of Country Sing The Best of Disney <-no commission link to Amazon.com
I didn’t care for this song in “Dumbo”, but this version gets me misty every time…
funny how emmline can remember the lyrics to an old tv theme song but has no knowledge of much loved and very famous bob marley song.that in itself must count as an example of inexplicable beauty.then again,what do i know when my greatest wish is for tom waits to cover “no woman,no cry” with emmy lou harris, mary black and dolores keane on backing vocals.
“The Voice” - Eimear Quinn
“Distant Vision” - Kansas
“Inside My Heart” - Iona
(OK, so I’m fond of prog-rock with Celtic leanings.)
Hey Mike, I think you and I are missing something here. This thread doesn’t really seem to be about beautiful music or just any beautiful music. When I see the words “prog rock” go flying by and spend the rest of the day singing the Banana Splits song (thanks for getting that stuck in my head, emmline ), I think we are exposing our ignorance by bringing up classical music…
I was re-listening to ‘The Bonzo’s’ as I was reading ‘Ginger Geezer’ by Lucian Randall and Chris Welch,a book that recounts the zany,but tragic life of the great mr. Vivian Stanshall.
Vivian was the singer,trumpet,tuba,Uke,Rcrd*r,etc player with the band.Non-fans might have heard his extraordinary ‘plummy’ voice on Mike Oldfield’s ‘Tubular Bells’ album,where he acts as M.C.,introducing the various instruments.
I have a 2cd re-issue of ‘The history of the Bonzo’s’-which actually features some of Viv’s post Bonzos’ stuff.
I did see a three C.D. boxed set ‘Anthology’ which seems to include all,or most of their albums.
‘Tadpoles’ was another strangely titled album of theirs’.
Vivian Stanshall was always a great hero of mine-up there with Spike Milligan and Ivor Cutler,(I can remember the band being resident on a kid’s T.V. programme of the late sixties,called ‘Do not adjust your set’ which also featured future members of ‘Monty Python’ and also a young David Jason.