I started asking questions, recently, about ways of knowing that do not relate to objective evidence. How can you tell a person by their smell? What music arrests movement because it defies reality, cutting into something inside of you that cannot be reached with language? Could we use a piece of music to create a sense of a person that could never be achieved with words?
I am currently writing a play about my grandmother. It is a verbatim theatre piece except that I never met her and I have no record of anything that she said.
I need, then, to work out how to make a person come alive that circumvents traditional ways of knowing and I think music might be a good place to start.
Below is the ongoing list of suggestions of music that cuts into the body, reaching something that is otherwise impregnable. Any more suggestions are deeply welcome.
(I made a judicious decision to leave out Miley Cyrus’s ‘Party in The USA.’)
- George Gershwin – Rhapsody in Blue
- Nine Simone – Feeling Good
- Edward Elgar – Cello Concerto in E Minor
- G.F. Handel – Largo (from Xerxes)
- Arvo Part – Cantus in Memory of Benjamin Britten
- Leonard Cohen – The Traitor
- Nick Cave – The Ship Song
- Nick Cave – Into My Arms
- Regina Spektor – Samson
- Albinoni – Adagio in G Minor
- Rufus Wainwright – Cigarettes and Chocolate Milk
- Wagner – Liebestod from Tristan and Isolde
- Samuel Barber – Adagio for Strings
- Barry White – Love’s Theme
- Yndi Halda – We Flood Empty Lakes
- The Beatles – Tomorrow Never Knows
- Tchaikovsky – Manfred Symphony
- John Adams – The Dharma at Big Sur
- John Coltrane – A Love Supreme
- Elgar – Nimrod (Enigma Variations)
- Ani DiFranco – You Had Time
- Purcell – When I Am Laid In Earth (Dido and Aeneas)
- The Beatles – Blackbird
- David Bowie – Quicksand
- Sibelius – Symphony No.5 in E Flat Major
- The Shins – New Slang
- Linda Perry and Grace Slick – Knock Me Out
- Loudon Wainwright III – Carrickfergus
- Radiohead – No Surprises
- Lana Del Rey – Radio
- Beethoven – Symphony No. 7
- Camera – Break/Hands
- The Decemberists – January Hymn
- The Unthanks – Farewell Regality + Here’s The Tender Coming
- Schubert – The Shepherd on the Rock
- Vaughan Williams – The Lark Ascending
- The Pixies – Where Is My Mind?
- Joanna Newson – Jackrabbits
- Jarvis Cocker – Running the World
- Erik Satie – Gymnopedie No. 1
- Wang Fan – Give My Body To
vimh 