I dont have one....at least, IM not really aware how a song could change your life....... if YOU had this special situation, or better said, had a song that changed your life then I would like to know how/why..... (no prob if you dont want to get too personal/private......)
Minor Threat - In My Eyes. Me, a high school nerd amongst a gaggle of 80's feathered hair and general mall culture. That song gave me strength to make it through all the high school nonsense which seemed so important at the time. Actually all the early Dischord stuff had the same effect. To this day I can still relate to those lyrics, songs like "Outside Looking In" by Artificial Peace. My second choice would be Butcher Baby by the Plasmatics.
Radiohead - Let Down I was into much harder music... industrial stuff, hardcore, etc. I owned 25 Nine Inch Nails CDs. I wore spiked cuffs and big pants. Then 1997 rolls around. I've changed schools and I'm going to graduate soon and Radiohead's OK Computer finds its way into my hands. This song in particular spoke to me like my music had not before. And it still does. The whole album does. My music tastes rather quickly shifted. My lifestyle even shifted after that. As I started working after school and felt more detached and rutted than ever, the song (and album) spoke to me more. I don't own any NIN CDs anymore. But I just got teared up listening to this song again http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RW6WqgvYHgc
This is may sound a bit nuts, but I reckon Fight for your Life by the Beastie Boys is probably THE song that changed the my relationship with music. I still have the original cassette I bought in '86. Beyond that I, like many others on here, will wax poetic about the 3 chord wonders of punk and hardcore - It still makes my stomach tighten when I hear a good tune. That insane excitement that overcomes you and you NEED to share this little bit of aural magic with someone immediately before you are lost in some sonic tsunami. God I love music.
As lame as it sounds it was "Smells like Teen Spirit" for me I went from listening to lame top 40 to discovering a whole new world of music including an amazing local scene of hardcore/punk. BTW Endpoint reunion show tonight! http://www.courier-journal.com/arti...NE/Legendary+Endpoint+reunited+to+lend+a+hand It's hardcore Saturday here in Louisville!
Hey Cowboy - Lee Hazelwood Don't know why, but I had to listen to this song 3 times a day for about 4 months. It was always in my head and made me reconsider a lot of stuff I had passed up before. I don't have any meaningful story to go with that, but it was the first thing that jumped to mind. I guess to elaborate a bit, at the time I wasn't probably listening to anything more tuneful than Arab on Radar, so it slowed me down a bit and allowed me to listen to what are now some of my absolutely favorite albums.
Same. I still love nirvana's music. I just hope to never hear another folk singer/song writer in my life!
Enjoy the endpoint show. I know a few people who will be there! For me, since Jeff said Minor threat, I'll pick something else I'll say these 2 song destroyed my life. For better or for worse, they drove me down a different path. One where it made sure I would not have friends in my high school. They made sure I would start traveling to the city on the weekends and hang out with "weirdos". The hairs on my neck still perk up a little bit every time I hear them and I kind of want to throw a chair as well. I still remember the exact place and moment I was when I heard them for the first time. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QmqXEYWSoac http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=41D7-RxVqGM
Yes! Two great choices I was joking about the Plasmatics. My second choice would be the State Of Alert seven inch. Then the Faith/Void split...
Recently Young Forever by Jay-Z - No joke. Last week I went down to the Florida keys. I remember driving across the key bridges and this song came on and the mood and setting made me completely reevaluate what I want my life to be. Maybe it wasn't just the song. Maybe it just played at the right time. but now we plan on leaving NYC in a year for someplace well... more beautiful, where life is a little more laid back.
Devo - Satisfaction when I was a little kid, I saw a clip of them playing it on SNL and remember how it blew my mind. I never looked back, and from then on could always tell the difference between good and bad music the moment I heard it. an effing cover changed my life!
Pretty much any song by Minor Threat.They taught me you really can make a difference in the world.Ive spent the last 15 years working for homeless charities as a direct result of being inspired by their lyrics.
Pay to Cum melted my brain when I first heard it, pure screamer. This was my theme song for several years: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=liE88h5HsWg As was Noise Boys by Toxic Reasons.
You've never had music change your life? You might be listening to the wrong music then. I remember years ago, my older brother telling me "If the music you're listening to doesn't give you the chills when you hear it, you're listening to the wrong stuff." Some life changing songs for me: Speaking as a child of the nineties, for me it was "Porch" from Pearl Jam. Back in '91. Up until that point I didn't know what I liked, you know? Whatever was on was good I guess. But it wasn't until I started listening to Pearl Jam that I seriously started appreciating music. And through listening to them I really learned a lot about music, I'd read an interview with the band and they'd mention The Who, or I'd hear an unknown song on a bootleg and find out it was a Dead Boys song... They introduced me to more music then any radio station has ever done. I was full-on alterative rock and classic rock when I moved to a new town at the end of 10th grade in 1995? I ended up hanging out with a bunch of guys who were really into heavy metal, and it wasn't until then that I really got into metallica and "Escape" from Ride the Lightning was like instantly my favorite. That was a fucking good song. Then there is Black Sabbath- I knew a couple songs from the radio (everyone knows War Pigs and Paranoid), but I was working at a Wawa, so I was about 16 and there was this middle aged woman named Marilyn who worked there, and her husband was an old biker dude named Eddie. She would tell me stories about the two of them in the 70's, I only met him once or twic because got sick, I forget how, but he was soon bedridden. We had talked about Heavy Metal so I made him a mixed tape of Metallica and he made me a mix tape of all Black Sabbath- Old Black Sabbath. Nothing past Sabbath Bloody Sabbath. I wore that tape out! Spiral Architect, Supernaut, Changes, SBS, The Wizard, every song was better then the last. I could go on for hours on all the different songs that have affected me. Thats the greatest thing about music. And it's always changing. Nowadays I find myself listening to more Belle and Sebastian then Black Sabbath (thanks to my GF), and Neko Case makes me not hate Country Music! But put an old Stevie Wonder REcord on and its just as amazing today as it was when it was written. phil
i was in 7th grade, not really into music at the time. my friend lends me a recorded vhs with the cartoon the maxx from mtv on it. i'm sitting there watching this cartoon, then the first break comes up.... it's this song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WM8bTdBs-cw i went out and bought my first cds.
I can't say that any one song changed my life, but when I was four my parents gave me a portable record player and two albums. One was a record of classic Disney movie songs and another was a classical disc with Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue" on one side and Tchaikovsky's "1812 Overture" on the other. Pretty good introduction to western music for a four year old. I played those records into the ground. They launched a lifelong obsession with all of the world's musics. So I guess I owe people like Louis Armstrong and Dean Martin for singing those corny old Disney songs. How this leads to punk rock and J.S. Bach is another story which I won't bore you with.
This video blew my mind the first time I saw it. I saw it a friends house when he had a sleepover. His name was John East and I clearly remember sitting on his floor and thinking it was the eeriest/greatest thing I had ever seen. I was lucky enough to see them on the And Justice for All tour.
Not really a song, but Joe Hisaishi's One Summer Day. It is an instrumental piece from the Spirited Away soundtrack. I never knew a musical piece from a movie could be just as moving as vocal songs until I heard this. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d1ni1sVCgEk Also give his "Summer" piece a listen http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CjXvptz3 ... re=related Beautiful stuff. Those two songs have actually made me look back on life more than ever. The soothing sounds space me out and I just appreciate life how it is, which I never did beforehand.
Here's a few of mine... maybe not all life-changers, but damn close: Portishead - Strangers (don't ask) Led Zeppelin - Rain Song (see above) Beastie Boys - Paul's Boutique album Beatles - What's the New Mary Jane (anthology version) Rabbit in the Moon - Floori D.A. Lunasol's Sub Aqua part 2 (my mom played piano a lot when I was growing up, so this became an immediate favorite) Chemical Brothers - One Too Many Mornings (first electronica to break through my grunge/metal armor) Pink Floyd - Shine On (rest in peace, Shawn ) Deep Purple's "Smoke on the Water" started playing as the police cruiser I was ahem, "traveling" in pulled up to the gates of central booking, circa 1996.
Saying one song changed your life is a bit hard to pin down. I do have one key song that still echos as the moment I realized there was more to music than just “classic rock.” First, had to be Sparks’ "This Town Ain't Big Enough For Both Of Us" which was on the very first mix tape I ever got from anyone. This guy David in Junior High in the 1980s put it together after he got a tad upset at the fact a friend of ours was a tad too "poppy"; so here came the mix tape with Devo, Sparks, The Waitresses, OMD and others. Lost the tape a while ago, but it did introduce me to a lot of bands I never heard of. The negative? This was the very first time I dealt with someone getting all snotty and elitist about music. Past that, Joan Jett & the Blackhearts “I Love Rock and Roll.” I think it was one of the first videos I ever saw, but my JHS math teacher—who was also our homeroom teacher—gave out 45s as a reward for doing good in class. And I remember him walking to the back closet, unlocking it and revealing that week’s prize: THAT EXACT SINGLE! I didn’t do good, so I didn’t get it, but heck. Whatever. Tangental memory. Still this single blew my mind because it rocked so hard and it was from a girl! Which back in the 1980s was really not that common.
Casey Jones - Nothing To Lose "no front, no fakes no fucking mistakes i'm never fading away still believe in these words today my life my rules nothing to lose"
1992 Stetreolab- Super Falling Star Mostly the album "Peng!" The strange setting of our story Re-presented: nothing but a super falling star The landscape was no mystery The idea of a mind so vain, at the point of infinity Seen and i've heard it (the creation) Seen and i've heard it (the creation) ... Whatever enters the eye we'll see Let their hand go for it, grasp it It is stranger than the setting of it It will leave them with a pounding dream Seen and i've heard (the creation) ... The creation is in my eyes The creation, the lies My brain chemistry was forever altered, the Music was getting good again, then grunge drowned it all out.
