songs whose vocals have a weirdly profound effect on you

Input Tune of the Fatman
23

Pretty much everything in this song, vox included, fulfills the premise of this thread for me

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25

the live version townes does of loretta on the acoustic blue album definitely fits this criteria for me, much heavier/slower/slurred than anything else i’ve heard from him but in a way i could listen to forever.

what else
first 30sec of wuthering heights
cam’ron’s verses in bout it bout it where it sounds a little like he’s haltingly reciting words from a dream
left banke’s pretty ballerina
i feel like this about a bunch of DDR songs specifically the ones with really highpitched processed vocals, like the singers are trying to escape themselves from any connection to what they’re singing about and break off into orbit
almost any jay reatard song but especially you fucked up my dreams
the o-no/o-no/o-no-no-no-no-no break in the shangri-la’s walking in the sand
libby holman’s cover of the house of the rising sun
lou reed’s slurred mirrorrrrr on pale blue eyes

in general i think songs where the vocals don’t quite disintegrate into sound, where there’s still some sense of holding to the parameters of everyday speech but with an excess of implication that threatens to break free of it, and where the singer seems to regard the prospect of that break with a mixture of longing and dread.

2 Likes
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the entire three stacks verse on frank ocean’s solo (reprise)

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If Townes does it on Live & Obscure then it’s my Preferred Version–I got that one as a gift when I was a teenager and for years it was my only–but that version of Pancho and Lefty is not handy on yourtub

28

I’m obsessed with this song and the vocals make me want to be a robot

2 Likes
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Nellie McKay’s “Mrs Brown you’ve got a lovely daughter” Sorry, it’s not on Youtube. It’s a 2015 cover of those super cheesy 60s brit pop love songs. Nellie McKay sings from the perspective of a “bloke” in a silky smooth, child-like voice that fills a somewhat jokey song with a very tactile sense of vulnerability, innocence and longing. It is the softest pillow.

Addendum; these make up the comfiest couch in my mind palace: