Music that touches your soul

That's easy, Van Morrison "Poetic Champions Compose" and "Avalon Sunsets". His music always moves me.

Interesting picks for "Music that touches the Soul".

While I grew up in the 60's and 70 with great rock and roll bands who played their music very well, I don't think I would call it music that touches my soul.
I guess it depends on what the definition of "your soul" is. I like rock and have a decent collection and do enjoy it very much, even though the subject matter is not always something I can agree with, it's not what I would call "soul stirring".

To me, the soul is something much deeper. Artist who touch my soul, sing songs about real things and believe what their songs mean, this gives them much better performances than most bands who "just entertain". George Harrison would be a good example, even though you might not be a Krisna, he used music as a tool and wrote about his life and said things that were real to him. A lot of his music touches my soul even though I'm not a Hare Kirshna. Music that makes you think about yourself and the world is more "soul stirring" to me than songs from musician's that write purely for entertainment. Entertainment music has it's place and is what most people listen to but it's not I would personally call music that touches your soul.

A lot of the music that touches my soul will never be played on commerical rock and roll stations because they are biased against Christians. They don't like the subject matter. It does not mix with sex, drugs and rock and roll.
It relates to good things and not the subject matter of most rock and roll songs.

Religious music is played all the time on rock and roll stations, just not "Christian Music". Examples of this would be Harrison's "My Sweet Lord", and a whole lot more to include music by Rob Zombie, Marilyn Manson, Metallica, Ozzy etc, etc.

This bias is a very bad thing is tolerated by the masses. I believe this would not be tolerated if the same bias was applied to the above mentioned artist.
Why is this?

You can judge the state of your soul by what you feed your soul. This is you.

If, I'm listening to music that really touches my soul, I'm listening to;

Bryan Duncan

Carman

Dallas Holm

Leon Patillo

Annie Herring

Glad

Don Franciso

George Harrison



Most you have never heard of, but are just as fine as musicians as the best of any secular music and give superior performances.
To me, they play, music that touches my soul.

You're right, I should have included instrumentals in there, I really like them too. No disagreement with your POV. Instrumentals have messages too but we all have to really listen to understand, thats why the composer wrote them.

Allman Brothers,, "Live at the Filmore"--"You don't love me no more",,the guitar piece is so sweet and genuine with feeling that it brings tears to my eyes,,,if I could only go back

Nice selection of music guys! Like Drummingman, I grew up in the '60's and 70's. I'm still trying to grow up but we'll save that for another time.

I have a lot of music that spurs deep emothion feelings in me. Whether is be heartache of a long gone romance, inspirational music (That Old Rugged Cross), some smooth jazz, classical, opera or whatever. That is the great part of music it can touch you in so many ways. Different ways, different music for different people. It's a universal language. Enjoy the listening!

george daniel wrote:

Allman Brothers,, "Live at the Filmore"--"You don't love me no more",,the guitar piece is so sweet and genuine with feeling that it brings tears to my eyes,,,if I could only go back

Same album but "In Memory of Elizabeth Reed". Always has, always will....

Songs that I find very "emotional" for wahtever reason :

Johnny Cash's cover of "Hurt".

Blind Melon - "Soul One"

Joe Brown closing the Concert for George with "I'll See You in My Dreams"

Here is some more that come to mind...

Ennio Morricone- "The Mission" the whole cd is a powerful instrumental and has a spiritual tone to it... very moving.
Sarah Machlaclan- "Angel"
Alanis Morissette- "Thank you", "Everything" and "Mercy" (all on The Collection cd)
Dead Can Dance "Rakim" on Toward the Within cd

dylan wrote:

You know those songs that immediately snap your thoughts to an earlier time?

Yes, I do. Those are the most powerful songs, in my opinion. That's one of the reason's Jewel's Foolish Games is to moving to me. Besides having the whole sounds that generally gets to me, my best friend who has now moved away sent it to me.

I, too, grew up in the 60's/70's and found that the songs of singer/songwriters is what reaches and moves me. Did then, still does today. Lots of stuff by Jackson Browne, James Taylor, Dan Fogelberg, Joni Mitchell etc. These folks, and others like them, always seemed to have something to say in their music; something that came from their heart and so often grabbed mine. I've often found them expressing something that I've felt too.

Patty Larkin "Me and that Train", "I Told Him That My Dog Wouldn't Run"

Me and That Train
by Patty Larkin

It was Me And That Train
One night in Colorado
Driving out of Denver
I was following a shadow

Staring down the mountain
With my mouth wide open
Wondering why
I thought about the ocean

Up along the pass
The snow was blowing
On Me And That Train

It was Me And That Train
Like the first time that I met you
You were holding up the sky
Leaning on your leather

And I saw her with you
And I thought you were together
Like that moment in question
Took a ten second answer

You were out the door
You were headed for me
Like Me And That Train

And the trucks were sliding sideways
Like sons of ****
They were putting on their tire chains
Rolling into ditches
And I crawled on by
Like God was throwing the switches
For Me And That Train

It was Me And That Train
Like the night before Christmas
I was working downtown
A shopkeeper mistress

And a guy in a ski mask
Had a gun in his pocket
And he pointed to the safe
And he told me to unlock it

I put my jands in the air
And I laughed because I couldn't stop it
Just like Me And That Train

And the trucks were sliding sideways
Like sons of ****
They were putting on their tire chains
Rolling into ditches
And I crawled on by
Like God was throwing the switches
For Me And That Train

It was Me And That Train
When I drove into the canyon
It was coming up the river
Like a long lost companion

And the walls went to heaven
Into endless darkness
But the train lit up the sandstone
Like a thousand pardons

Just then underneath me
And my beating heart was
Me And That Train

And the trucks were sliding sideways
Like sons of ****
They were putting on their tire chains
Rolling into ditches
And I crawled on by
Like God was throwing the switches
For Me And That Train

And the trucks were sliding sideways
Like sons of ****
They were putting on their tire chains
Rolling into ditches
And I crawled on by
Like God was throwing the switches
For Me And That Train


I Told Him That My Dog Wouldn't Run
by Patty Larkin

I Told Him That My Dog Wouldn't Run
I told him that I loved someone
Yeah, that's my old car out in the parking lot
I saw him when he first walked in
I thought it was a vision of him
He was lookiing like where he had been
Looking kind of fragile

He said
I read the Bible everyday
Trying to keep the demons at bay
Thank God when the sun goes down
I don't blow away

My friend said, was he always like that
I said yeah, but he was never this bad
I remember us playing for nickels and dimes
Out on the corner
I asked him to marry me once
He told me he couldn't because
This would be all that there was

He said
I read the Bible very day
Trying to keep the demons at bay
Thank God when the sun goes down
I don't blow away

He was laughing but I didn't get the joke
He was dying to light up a smoke
And I wanted to cry
In the florescent light of the restaurant
I smiled and I got up to go
I was hoping for a goodbye to hold
But it was kinda like touching a ghost
So I ran when I walked out

He said
I read the Bible every day
Trying to keep the demons at bay
Thank God when the sun goes down
I don't blow away

I got in my car and I drove
Over the bridge to the coast
Wondering where does old love go


Also the hymns "Crown Him with Many Crowns" and "For All the Saints". Those are on the set list for my funeral :-)

Hello,
Great thread! I always get a very emotional feeling when I listen to Olivier Messiaen's "Quartet for the End of Time". He wrote this piece of music when he was in a German prison camp. He and other musicians performed it in November 1941 in front of 5,000 fellow prisoners. I can easily imagine the complete scene, the cold dead of Winter, everything about the inhumanity he experienced. How amazing a little bit of music must have sounded to them.
Also, Billie Holiday's "Strange Fruit" dealing with lynching.
Regards, Ken

Great thread topic! I'll add some of mine (not in any specific order!):

Johnny Cash - Hurt
Grateful Dead - Box of Rain
Blues Traveller - The Mountains Win Again
Joan Baez - Diamonds and Rust
Journey - Of a Lifetime
George Strait - Amarillo by Morning
John Denver - Country Roads and Rocky Mountain High
John Anderson - Seminole Wind
Celtic Women/Cloe - Floating in the Air

That's all I can extract from the aging memory cells at the moment

As good as any topic for my 100th, I guess.

"I Believe In You And Me" - The Four Tops

Moved me so much, the wife and I danced to it as our "first song" in 1994.

Most Journey usually brings a smile to my face as well. Class of '81.