What is the most beautiful song ever?

all sublime those...

But then I saw "Belfast"...

Now there is conflict.

-- The Good Dr. Bill (fadeout9...), February 12th, 2004.

this was going to be my response. 'don't talk' would be a suitable alternative too.

OTM. Profoundly beautiful, in a very exciting way

Was music more beautiful in the '60s?

e and affection

thanks, browser

The Nelson song?

Kate Bush has been mentioned a few times - All the Love would be my pick

And Gabor Szabo's sublime version of Donovan's Ferris Wheel

Yo La Tengo’s “Blue Arrow” is the first thing that came to mind.

Rainbow Connection

Sometimes I think it's Nic Jones's arrangement of "The Indian Lass" which seems to have vanished from streaming media ffs

here comes the rain again

― difficult listening hour, Monday, June 11, 2018 3:37 AM (seven years ago) bookmarkflaglink

this is a good answer. annie lennox had some up there definitely.

A Heart Needs a Home by Richard and Linda Thompson

Yusef Lateef - “Theme From Sparticus”

Oooooh. Yes, that Richard & Linda tune is a serious contender.

Others: peak gospel era poignant Dylan would be my own, so Pressing On or Covenant Woman or I Believe in You. Also instantly think of The Librarian by David Sylvian's Nine Horses and Big Blood's song Serpent Skies. If we're talking just music, then it's hands down Sakamoto's Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence.

an Ella Fitzgerald recording of Summertime (just about any of them tbf)

Oh yeah, Hosono's Normandia and 3-4 songs off the Nokto soundtrack... Takahashi's Sayonara, also up there... but no, no, I can't get started on YMO-orbit stuff. There is no end

Eno, "By This River"
― Jeremy (Jeremy), Thursday, February 12, 2004 6:20 PM (twenty-one years ago) bookmarkflaglink

Another contender! I may need to live in this thread for a month.

I mentioned in another thread recently but "He" by Moby Grape is gorgeous.

an Ella Fitzgerald recording of Summertime (just about any of them tbf)

For sure. This George Shearing version is a big favorite of mine

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mSnsSDoQWlI

Most beautiful outro of all time: Warren Zevon's Desperados under the Eaves. Saddest air conditioner of all time.

Sorry, this thread really hit a switch in me. Just scrolling through and seeing so many awesome choices (Stella Blue, fuck yes -- I'll add Terrapin Station and Days Between and Jack o' Roses, the Garcia/Hunter tune that's only ever surfaced on a Robert Hunter solo album) that I really want to hear everything on here that isn't familiar...

I hate you, YT link rot.

This would be my go to Sakamoto melody, so unbearably nostalgic sounding it crushes me to atoms

This selection from MaresNest must be Mr Lawrence.

Then frogbs answered:

while we're on that path, this track by Hosono fits that same description to me, it's overwhelmingly lonely

and, earlier:

this one gives me chills every time, I've actually had to shut it off mid-song...his music is usually pretty but this is just eerie

frogbs, what were these? One must have been La Travida Malĝojo de Giovanni.

Three Dog Night - Easy To Be Hard is what has been in my mind in this category lately

Another that's wayyyy up there. Sometimes I cry all the way through this, especially if I'm coming to it after listening through the whole double album. Morio Agata's Saikō ∞ Mugen / 彩光∞無限

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ORWPlLl4igA

And while I'm on Agata, I must also mention Itoshi no Dairoku Wakusei / いとしの第六惑星

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=APYNTe5HklE

Going with Keith Jarrett's Landscape for Future Earth, probably what I posted in 2011 but the link is gone. It's got enough of the Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood end-credits warmth to avoid being esoteric, but without compromising Jarrett's complexities.

Mojave 3 - Sarah
Pram - Sea Jungle

Too lazy to see if I already posted this by Your Sweet Live by Lee Hazlewood.

If you lie down with me - lana del rey

Don’t worry baby - the beach boys

Elegy to the void - beach house

Voila - francoise hardy

TS: Yo La Tengo's "I Heard You Looking" vs Yo La Tengo's "Blue Line Swinger"

I heard you looking

"Kingsize" by the Boo Radleys is my most beautiful song. Sice's best vocal performed:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iSXvIrwTGoo

Going with Keith Jarrett's Landscape for Future Earth, probably what I posted in 2011 but the link is gone. It's got enough of the Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood end-credits warmth to avoid being esoteric, but without compromising Jarrett's complexities.

― the way out of (Eazy), Saturday, October 18, 2025 5:09 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

i've been on a jarrett kick lately, this is beautiful, think i need that first studio album.

Or:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xpL_TF_GPng

XP to TheNuNuNu

Hey, I think that would have been the theme from Shining Boy and Little Randy, particularly the version on his /05 Piano record.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QeMPb0iXyJA

Judee Sill - The Kiss

Three Dog Night - Easy To Be Hard is what has been in my mind in this category lately

The version by Cheryl Barnes on the Hair movie soundtrack is a heartbreaker.

Next time I’m sick in bed I’m gonna collate all these noms and reach some conclusions about what typically constitutes a song being described as “beautiful”

There are too many moments in Baroque music to list one as “most beautiful” but with a gun to my head it’s the second movement of the Bach Double Violin Concerto.

d’angelo - “send it on”

Darkness has reached it’s end - Virginia Astley is up there for me

gotta throw a nom to this all-time banger that we can thank the late, great JD Twitch for discovering and sharing with the internet:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iRgLhEGEetc
Mariah - 心臓の扉 (Shinzo No Tobira)

That’s the song that somehow foretold the XX

frogbs, what were these? One must have been La Travida Malĝojo de Giovanni.

― TheNuNuNu, Saturday, October 18, 2025 10:46 AM (three days ago) bookmarkflaglink

knowing me, yes probably

I'm guessing "Trembling #1" might've been another. played loud enough that track hits some nerve center in my brain

Three that come to mind, in the same vein as several mentioned above -

Mojave 3: In love with a view
Son Volt: Left a Slide
Bedhead: Powder

this has been scientifically proven to be This Mortal Coil's "Another Day", lock thread

My recent answer to this is 'The Age of Miracles' by The Clientele. It is an autumn thing, but also god, the strings, the lyrics, the way it feels like someone wrote a song just for me.

I'd take 'Meniscus' by This Mortal Coil.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TVBswE1ulJk

Best finds from reading this thread:
Pharoah Sanders - Greeting to Saud (Brother McCoy Tyner)
Jaga Jazzist - Toccata

Agree with “New Grass” and My Bloody Valentine's “Soon" (among other picks), but out of songs not yet mentioned:
Round Five - Na Fe Throw It (Feat. Tikiman)
Bruce Springsteen - Tunnel of Love
Arne Weinberg - Isis
Cyndi Lauper - Time After Time

"Kingsize" by the Boo Radleys is my most beautiful song. Sice's best vocal performed:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iSXvIrwTGoo

Oh this is killer.

Thanks Mare, gonna play that recording 10 times a day for a week, I think...

And frogbs, hell yes! I've been on a huge Endless Talking kick this month. Ever since I found out last spring that the opener is simply a Nokto song that didn't make it onto the soundtrack (it's in the film -- the same exact recording), the album has come to feel even *more* like a warped mirror-image of Nokto... it's so cool too, because Nokto is surely one of the warmest and most emotional things Hosono has done, while The Endless Talking is the most alien!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-dhFO3lLzBU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kWsXMLnsfE4

Sometimes it’s Nico’s cover of “These Days”

Just reading Eminent Hipsters by Donald Fagen. He concludes his piece on Ray Charles with

"For me, and a generation of suburban boomers, Ray was the Professor of Desire, and 'Georgia on my Mind' – square-ass back-up singers and all – just may have been the most beautiful three minutes and thirty-nine seconds in all of twentieth-century music."

Choosing between about a half-dozen songs by The innocence Mission and going with Brotherhood of Man.

At this second, “Viel zu früh und immer weider; Liebeslieder” by Blumfeld

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rYWKqePjvBY