Song(s) That Changed Everything

[Mr. Paul]

When I think of songs I heard for the first time that changed my musical orientation, these come to mind. My taste in music was different after listening to these.

My roomate worked in a record store and once in a while he'd bring home a record and say "You've GOT to listen to this." The first two arose from these listening sessions.

"Lively Up Yourself" by Bob Marley and the Wailers. Cut 1, Side 1 on Natty Dread. I'd never heard anything like it and I've loved Bob Marley every since that day 50 (!) years ago.

"Steam Powered Aero-Plain" by John Hartford. He brought this LP home along with Bromberg's "Midnght on the Water." I had never heard anything from this realm of music and when Hartford's title tune came on I was hooked, still am.

I'd seen the Grateful Dead in 1973, it was "ok." But when a friend took me to a Jerry Garcia Band show in 79-80 and they ripped "Tangled Up in Blue" wide open, I was hooked big time. I'd always had friends that were Deaheads and I was finally on board.

Paul Simon had been in a bit of a quiet period when he performed "Diamonds on the Soles of Her Shoes" on Saturday Night Live. "OH MY WHAT WAS THAT??" ... Totally new, totally awesome. It seemed to open a window a whole new world of music. I've not been able to find this online anywhere.


Would love to hear about songs that changed your taste in music!

[SCVJ]

This is a really good list. I remember feeling that way about Reggae when I got the "Harder They Come" soundtrack.

The first CS&N Album in the summer of 1969 was a big one for me. I immediately couldn't wait for the 2nd album, which took almost a year to come out.

"The Telluride Sessions" by Strength in Numbers (Sam Bush, Bela Fleck, Mark O'Connor, Jerry Douglas, Edgar Meyer) was a stunner, as was "Will the Circle Be Unbroken" in '70 or '71.

I have lots of favorite songs and albums, but I think these did have a sea-change affect for me.

[KenL]

I would have to think about that for a while, but one song comes immediately to mind.

Must have been early 1979, maybe? I had just turned on to Metcalf in Kansas City when this Strat starts up on the radio. After a few bars I was stunned and pulled over to listen.

The song was "Sultans of Swing," and the Strat was being played by Mark Knopfler, of course. I was mostly an acoustic guy, but that song caused me to pay attention to how an electric guitar could be played.

I still can't help but stop and listen when that song comes on, 44 years later.

[buddyhu]

Let’s see….

Gotta go with albums rather than songs.

Leo Kottke’s “Six and Twelve String Guitar”.

Grateful Dead’s “Europe ‘72”.

The first Dire Straits album.

Here’s a single song: Bob Marley’s “No Woman No Cry”.

[fitness1]

At a very early age, and pretty simultaneously I started listening to VERY diverse music and enjoying it....about 6 years old I was dropping the needle on Beatles, Monkees, Ventures, Nat King Cole, Kenny Roberts (not Rogers) Johnny Cash, 1910 Fruitgum Company, Perry Como, Cowsills - you get the idea. My brother was almost 8 years older, and my parents had records, so it was quite a mix and I liked all of it.

When I started buying my own music at about 10, this was what caught my ear:

Neil Diamond - Shilo
Carpenter's - We've Only Just Begun
Michael Parks - Long Lonesome Highway

Then I heard Jim Croce on the radio and everything changed.

In regard to songs that changed my taste in music...and sometimes it was about content, and sometimes recording quality (had a very discerning ear early on)

During my rock phase - before I started working at the record store in '79....

I remember dropping the needle on Rush All The World's a Stage - Bastille Day and having to pick my jaw up off the floor.

I was at a guys house a short time later and heard Money by Pink Floyd, and Zappa's The Torture Never Stops...both stopped me in my tracks.

Kansas' - Carry On My Wayward Son had an effect, as did hearing Boston - More Than A Feeling.
I saw Harry Chapin in the fall of '78 and the entire concert was incredible, but hearing him play A Better Place To Be made me realize what a great story song was.

Then when the record store days started, well, it was sensory overload. I was basically able to open and listen to whatever I chose as long as I didn't go crazy!

Here are some tunes that have changed things for me since:

Pat Metheny Group - The Epic
Al Dimeola and Paco Delucia - Mediterranean Sundance
Al Jarreau - So Long Girl (and the whole Look To The Rainbow album)
Michael Hedges - Layover (and almost everything on his first 4-5 recordings)
Nanci Griffith - Marilyn Monroe/Neon Waltzes (and the whole Poet in my Window recording)
Grover Washington's Mister Magic from the Live at the Bijou recording
Doc and Merle - Mississippi Heavy Water Blues was the first I heard, but LOVED everything he ever did.
Stephane Grappelli - Nuages from the Live at Carnegie Hall recording
Jimmy Buffett - Son of a Son...opened me up to fun acoustic music and kick started my performing (and played Margaritaville almost never!)
Loudon Wainwright - One Man Guy (similar to above)
New Grass Revival - Ain't That Peculiar
Steel Pulse - True Democracy
John Holt - Further You Look
Jean Luc Ponty - Egocentric Molecules
Vivaldi - La Primavera
David Grisman Quintet - E.M.D.


I could probably add 100 more, but for starters this is pretty good.

[fitness1]

Originally Posted by buddyhu

Let’s see….

Gotta go with albums rather than songs.

.

I should have gone that route too...

[ewalling]

At 13 years old, I heard Emerson, Lake and Palmer's "Hoedown" from the Trilogy album on the radio. Until this point, I had listened mainly to classical music, although I did quite enjoy hearing my brother's Sabbath, Floyd, Purple, Who, etc, through the wall between our bedrooms. But hearing 'Hoedown' turned things upside down. I thought it was amazing - modern music that had some of the complexity of classical stuff. Very soon afterwards I went out and bought the Tarkus album, and from that point on, it was prog rock in the front seat and classical in the back.

At around 29 years old, I heard a recording of the pop song 'Glory of Love' played by Big Bill Broonzy. I had played a kind of fingerstyle on an acoustic guitar for three or four years by this point, but this rendition completely changed how I played. It was like a light turned on: "This is what I want to do on a guitar!" I then worked at learning ragtime and similar-type material sometimes by ear and sometimes from tablature. I felt I really became a student of the guitar at this point.

[srick]

Hot Tuna’s “Burgers” album. Little did I know that Jorma and Jack were providing an introduction to music by Reverend Gary Davis (and others of the genre) and an urge to play that music on guitar some 35 or 40 years later. As a sidenote, I didn’t pick up a guitar for real until 2007, but the music stuck with me.

And perhaps the other tune that spurred me on in 2007 was Guy Van Duser’s rendition of “Stars and Stripes Forever” in 1976 at Club Passim. In fact that whole night’s music of Guy and Billy really stuck with me from then on.

I’m sure I could add a little more about so many other artists: Asleep at the Wheel, Leo Kottke, the Dead, the Allman Brothers, Little Feat, Joni Mitchell, Emmy Lou Harris, and more. I was heavily involved in our college radio station and had access to hundreds of amazing records during the era from 1971-1975. But it is so interesting to see the direction that my ‘adult’ mind finally went and remembering the seminal pieces of music that made it so.

This is a great question to reflect upon and I find it incredible that I can trace it back to its source.

[Joe Beamish]

Album: Another Side of Bob Dylan. This was new territory. And still one of my favorite records. It wasn’t folk, or blues, or rock, or pop. It was some kind of beautiful, literate amalgam. My relationship with this album is the LP, with those great liner notes of his.

Song: “Payday”, by Mississippi John Hurt. I still remember where and when I heard it. It came on the radio near the bottom of the dial. I had to wait awhile to find out who it was. Long before the internet. It would be the CD format that would be my introduction to the rest of his music.

Artist: Bert Jansch, whose music I didn’t encounter until just after he died. I don’t recall which song of his that I heard first, I guess because by this point I was already using streaming services, and I probably jumped right in and skipped around.

[catdaddy]

The Ventures- Pipeline
The Beatles- I Want To Hold Your Hand
The Byrds- Mr Tambourine Man
The Stones- The Last Time
The Flying Burrito Brothers- Christine's Tune
The Wailers- Get Up, Stand Up

[gerhardp]

After listening to pompous 70s stuff too long, Sex Pistols' Anarchy for the UK was an eyeopener to me.

Some years later, getting to know Billie Holiday gave me another U-turn.

[Daniel Grenier]

More of an entire album as opposed to a single song. The most jaw-dropping for me - ever - was Led Zeppelin 1 in 1969. I was 17 and had never heard of Zeppelin till my good friend (and drummer in our band) bought the album and played it for me. The stereotypical "hit by a Mack truck", or "struck by lightning" sure applied to me when the needle hit "Your time is gonna come" (not to mention all the others). Bought the album right after and I still have it. Game changer!

[rmp]

These stick out as some of the ones that definitely changed my world

Hiway Star
Days and Confused
Brighton Rock
Day Of The Eagle

[Mr. Jelly]

In order
John Mayall Beano album and specifically "All Your Love". The guitar solo slays me.
Bob Dylan "Blowin' in the Wind" and his early albums.
C,S, & N needs a mention along with Jimi Hendrix.
Norman Blake's early albums. I've been stunted ever since the experience.

All positive waves, man!
I've been getting into the oddball character in the 70s Kelly's Heros movie.

[J Patrick]

There are many songs that have expanded my musical horizons ….probably the first song that represented a quantum shift for my musical interests was Like a Rolling Stone….it brought together my early fascination with both folk and rock music and incorporated personal, emotional, and complex controversial subject matter….truly boundary busting…