Unsingable songs - What music breaks you into little pieces?

[VIVIIXI]

There are some songs that absolutely shatter people. Whether it's a well placed lyric or a chord that strikes something deep enough inside that even an aethiest finds themselves wondering if there is something akin to a soul.

Do you have one of those songs?

For me it's Counting Crows - Round Here.

I have good relative pitch. I've been in several musical programs.

I can not sing this song.

Every time I reach the lines "and in-between the moon and you, the angels get a better view of the crumbling difference between wrong and right" I choke up. I can't sing it because the imagery shatters me and I can't hold a note worth shit.

Do you have one of these?

"Round here we talk just like lions, but we sacrifice like lambs."

 

[From The Uncanny Valley]

I can't sing Tubular Bells. Anybody else?

 

[Agent Abe Caprine]

Even the guy who did the vocals for this song can't sing it anymore. His eagle impression permanently damaged his vocal cords.

 

[VIVIIXI]

I can't sing Tubular Bells. Anybody else?

Have you tried doing an acapella harmonization?

Seriously though, the Exorcist theme done as an accapella rendition would be pretty cool, methinks.

 

[Michael Jacks0n]

Here's Roger Taylor's isolated vocal track from the operatic section of Bohemian Rhapsody. The motherfucker sounds like a castrato:

 

[Jason Wynn]

I can't really sing REM's The Sidewinder Sleeps Tonite very well. Stipe's weird mumbling vocals combined with his rapid fire chorus trips me up, hard to get the pitch down right. I actually like the song and have wanted to use it for karaoke night, but so far its a no-go.

 

[The Last Stand]

Any Eminem song. He rhymes too fast.

 

[Kari Kamiya]

Screaming vocals are a no-go for me, I just can't seem to do it. Rapid fire lyrics for sure are another tricky one, but now try it in another language. This is a good song, but no way in hell am I ever going to get this fast one down.

EDIT: I was thinking of this song specifically for my example, actually, but eh.

 

[Stoneheart]

Retarded dutch is just the worst but their heart is in the right place....

 

[Duncan Hills Coffee]

I wish my voice could go as high as Rob Halford.
I wish I could scream as powerfully without blowing out my voice as Rob Halford.
I wish I could hold a single note for a solid 20 seconds like Rob Halford.

I wish I could sing like Rob Halford.

 

[Scarlett Johansson]

Wuthering Heights by Kate Bush

 

[Absolutego]

I really like Vanity Fair by Mr. Bungle but, alas, I am no Mike Patton.

 

[Lemmingwise]

This is one of the songs that just levels me.

Even better in Hungarian, but I can't understand that:

Neither is dubbed by someone else as the actress is both fluent in German and Hungarian.

The song is the infamous gloomy sunday. Before there was planking, there was killing yourself while playing gloomy sunday. It's why the song was forbidden from radio airplay in numerous countries.

The song is about a heartbroken man asking his dead lover to attend his funeral.

The first american translation is very poetic, but changes two things. First it makes the refference to suicide directly "would you be angry if I thought if joining you?" / "my heart and I have decided to end it all".

And they created a happy ending by adding another section in which he was only dreaming and his lover is still alive next to him.

Translation of original lyrics:



Gloomy Sunday with a hundred white flowers
I was waiting for you my dearest with a prayer
A Sunday morning, chasing after my dreams
The carriage of my sorrow returned to me without you
It is since then that my Sundays have been forever sad
Tears my only drink, the sorrow my bread...
Gloomy Sunday

This last Sunday, my darling please come to me
There'll be a priest, a coffin, a catafalque and a winding-sheet
There'll be flowers for you, flowers and a coffin
Under the blossoming trees it will be my last journey
My eyes will be open, so that I could see you for a last time
Don't be afraid of my eyes, I'm blessing you even in my death...
The last Sunday

 

[JustFuckinaDude]

“The Freshmen” (Jay Brennan) has a line that always gets me because it hits so close to home.

“My best friend took a week’s vacation to forget her,
His girl took a week’s worth of Valium and slept
And now he’s guilt stricken, sobbing with his head on the floor.
Thinks about her now and how he never really wept”

It gets me choked up because I lived this line. After the end of a long relationship, I took a week and fucked off for a road trip with no particular destination, just wanted to clear my head. I come back to news that she had OD’d and died.

Also strange: I never really cried over it, even all these years later. I wish I understood why.

 

[WhimsicalTrolli]

Screaming vocals are a no-go for me, I just can't seem to do it. Rapid fire lyrics for sure are another tricky one, but now try it in another language. This is a good song, but no way in hell am I ever going to get this fast one down.

EDIT: I was thinking of this song specifically for my example, actually, but eh.

Asterisk is a good song. What do you think of my pace?

 

[Kari Kamiya]

Asterisk is a good song. What do you think of my pace?

I skipped the ending songs when I watched Bleach, but it's pretty good. "ALONES" was more my jam of the OPs tbh.
(Also unintentional way of saying to learn fast-paced songs at your own pace, eh? )

Songs like "One Week" and "It's the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine)" are the best examples of the kinds of songs with lyrics and speed that is difficult to memorize and sing to. Like damn they're catchy as hell, but there's no way to sing along with it without the lyrics right in front of your face, maybe. And Weird Al is great, but I won't lie that he's got songs that are hard to sing along to, y'know? You just go "fuck it" and let it wash over you and pretend you understand them.

 

[Hongourable Madisha]

I'm a pretty deep alto so most songs for women tbh, unless I sing them in a much lower key though that ruins the song a lot, I stick to tenor songs usually. Was useful when I was a kid though because the boys' voices hadn't broken yet so I got all the tenor or baritone parts in plays at school. I can do some mezzo-soprano range in my head voice but it's not easy, and my middle range is weak as hell.
The most difficult songs for me are ones that switch between head and chest voice very quickly. It's fun to duet with myself in head voice and chest voice ("Phantom of the Opera" is good because the verses are separate so I have a breath before I change voice, "Sonne" by Rammstein is a fun one too if I change the key a bit, Till's a bit low for me, but I have to record each part separately and mix them) but I can't move between them. The bit in "Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger" where it goes into the higher range for "more than ever hour after" and lower again for "our work is never over" is impossible at the speed the song goes. I guess that's why it's done with effects and when a capella groups do it they have several different people singing each range.

 

[DJ Grelle]

Every song tbh
I cannot sing at all

 

[VIVIIXI]

The song is the infamous gloomy sunday. Before there was planking, there was killing yourself while playing gloomy sunday. It's why the song was forbidden from radio airplay in numerous countries.

The song is about a heartbroken man asking his dead lover to attend his funeral.

The first american translation is very poetic, but changes two things. First it makes the refference to suicide directly "would you be angry if I thought if joining you?" / "my heart and I have decided to end it all".

And they created a happy ending by adding another section in which he was only dreaming and his lover is still alive next to him.

Translation of original lyrics:



Gloomy Sunday with a hundred white flowers
I was waiting for you my dearest with a prayer
A Sunday morning, chasing after my dreams
The carriage of my sorrow returned to me without you
It is since then that my Sundays have been forever sad
Tears my only drink, the sorrow my bread...
Gloomy Sunday

This last Sunday, my darling please come to me
There'll be a priest, a coffin, a catafalque and a winding-sheet
There'll be flowers for you, flowers and a coffin
Under the blossoming trees it will be my last journey
My eyes will be open, so that I could see you for a last time
Don't be afraid of my eyes, I'm blessing you even in my death...
The last Sunday

I love learning stuff like this. Thank you! :3

 

[EmpireOfTheClouds]

I really wish I could death grunt.

Problem is, I have smaller vocal cords than most males, which makes it impossible for my voice to reach those depths. I can scream pretty decently and sing pretty high with lots of power in my chest and head, but when it comes to grunting, it's so stupidly difficult.

So to be able to sing along to The Grand Conjugation by Opeth would be fucking awesome.