Need something to pull at the heartstrings

Miguel_Sanchez

Need a piece of music/song that can be used for a short section of a program I'm cutting. Needs to pull at the old heartstrings a bit. It's a sequence with kids in a shanty town in Africa.

Any suggestions?

Oink

Edit:

Try:
-Nick Drake's string intro to 'Way to Blue'.
-'Ase's Death', from Grieg's Peer Gynt

Not sure how original it would be for a commercial though. They're not exactly obscure.

stipey

Know Your Love by The Walls

or your could always try some thing a bit more classical.... like Adagio for Strings

cornbb

Hmm, interesting thread. You don't wanna be making it obvious that you're playing a tearjerker though. Something classical would be nice alright, Air on a G String by Bach maybe? Or Moonlight Sonata?

Sinfonia

Some African American Spiritual Music (a subject I'm studying in college at the moment) or a cappella blues might be fitting, something well known might be 'Troubled So Hard' as it was once sampled by Moby for 'Natural Blues'.

Or 'Been in the Storm So Long', or summat like that.

I suppose it's a bit American but it's still of black origin, anyways just a suggestion

Dark Artist

The saddest song I know is 'Hello' by Evanescence. Very dark and upsetting piano ballad. It might be a little bit too sad for your project but you could give it a try. Here's a clip of it on Youtube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MzXKDZzbTcQ

Kevster

I hate to be so obvious but:

Eric Clapton's Tears In Heaven.

Rigsby

Miles Davis' "Flamenco Sketches" from "Kind of Blue" would be a good choice IMO. It has a haunting melancholy sound throughout.

lordgoat

Dark Artist wrote:

The saddest song I know is 'Hello' by Evanescence. Very dark and upsetting piano ballad. It might be a little bit too sad for your project but you could give it a try. Here's a clip of it on Youtube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MzXKDZzbTcQ

Why is this funny?


Bonnie Prince Billy - A Minor Place

and my lovely friend suggests

The Shins - New Slang

icklekinkykat

do you want it intense or sad

Dark Artist

lordgoat wrote:

Why is this funny?

Sorry I don't get you.

lordgoat

If that is actually the saddest song you have heard, it's hilarious.

Wertz

I don't know the length of the piece you need but I'm going to go ahead and suggest the song Get Cape, Wear Cape, Fly by the artist of the same name....the intro is very melodic, lots of strings, downtempo acoustic quitar, piano....last about 40-50 seconds...but if it needs to be longer then the actual lyrics are about what your subject matter relates to, so it's apt on a few levels.

Only other thing that springs to mind is Stars All Seem To Weep by Beth Orton...cracking tune into the bargain.

Dark Artist

lordgoat wrote:

If that is actually the saddest song you have heard, it's hilarious.

Oh. Well, good for you!

BaZmO*

Just had a quick look on my itunes collection and the first one that came to mind was Sing by Blur. The opening gets me all the time and the lyrics, strangley enough, are quite apt.

"Sing"

I can't feel cos I'm numb
I can't feel cos I'm numb
What's the worth in all of this?
Sing to me
So what's the worth in all of this
If the child in your head
If the child is dead
Sing to me

arbeitsscheuer

Smashing Pumpkins - Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness
Billy Bragg - Everywhere
Radiohead - Fake Plastic Trees

But my pick would be
Stars - Celebration Guns

"Are the beating drums
Celebration guns?
The thunder and the laughter,
The last thing they remember?"

BaZmO*

Ride On by Christy Moore is also pretty sad but lyrics would probably be too distracting from the video, so maybe an instrumental?

I'll probably be slated for this but Time After Time by Eva Cassidy would definitely pull at the heartstrings ala The Cars on Live Aid.

Into My Arms by Nick Cave. Again, dunno whether the lyrics would work. Depends on the ad that you're using it for.

Oh and Running to a Standstill by U2 could work quite well lyrics and music wise. (the actual real meaning of the lyrics have a totally different meaning to the visuals you'd be using but they'd still fit)

Fast Car by Tracy Chapman

Right, that's me done. I'm off for a cry....

Gaspode

How about flowers are red by Harry Chapin? Or 'cats in the cradle' another good one of his, and both are related to children and growing up.

rcaz

Flower's Grave or Tom Traubert's Blues by Tom Waits? First two that came to mind.

But I might give it to Sometimes it Snows in April by Prince... Don't know why, one of those songs.

Or you could go full-blown cliche with Everybody Hurts... But don't...

grumpytrousers

Cliché alert'n'all, but 'Homeless' by Paul Simon from the Graceland Album might be what you need..

Oink

So Dude, is there anything in there that you could, like, I don't know, use ?

Kernel

Eric Idle - Always Look on the Bright Side of Life.

Neurojazz

If the ad is real short (as i guess it is) then you want something like the chord changes from shindlers list, it just leaves such and impression and i've never heard anything as emotionally powerful... theres also the change in 'a beautiful mind' - that is not as sad, but is an absolutely riviting chord change.... you could then just find the chords and bang them out on a keyboard and save some starving kids without paying royalties

Kintarō Hattori

Nick Cave - People Just Ain't No Good.
Beck - Everybody's Gotta Learn Sometime.

Charcoal

Intro from Snow Patrol's Run. It was on maybe for Live Aid or something like that for a similar clip and it was really effective.

Heisenberg.

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