your favourite Judee Sill song

the kiss, but there's a good dozen that are just sublime

A5 The Vigilante 3:48

Lopin' Along Thru the Cosmos is one of the saddest, most beautiful songs ever.
i dont understand why it is kinda underrated.

Abracadabra bringing the goose bumps.

First exposure to "Jesus was a Crossmaker" was one of the three or four times I've pulled the car over to the side of the road, saying "What is THIS!?".

voted the donor, but jesus was a xmaker, the archetypal man, thats the spirit, and im over were all super close.

yes but i mean also theyre all so so fucking good

no! we shouldn't do this poll. i can't pick one. why? because they're all so fucking good.

the donor is so much better than everything else

i am a huge stan for the cheezball "soldier of the heart"
the donor is kind of an epic tho.
and loping is so good.
and so is "that's the spirit"
and crossmaker.

love me some "lamb ran away with the crown"

voting "Jesus" but "Doner" and "Lamb" also rule. anybody else familiar w/the Hollies' version of "Jesus Was A Crossmaker"?? it's really good.

"Doner" and "Lamb"

Yum. Also, The Phoenix is great.

"The Phoenix" for me.

The Donor walks this poll.

i think my fav is the live version of lady-o at the end of the s/t reish. but yes i love most of these songs

and i voted for loping along through the cosmos

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

I voted for 'Crayon Angels.' It has everything I love about Judee Sill, including crispy deadpan lyrics, vibrato-free voice with a few odd affectations (the way she pronounces 'what' at the end, like Stewie pronounces 'whip' in 'Cool Whip'). The way you simply cannot tell what is religion, what is drugs, what is something worse. But I could have voted for so, so many others as easily. She still scares the shit out of me.

That's The Spirit

Only know the two albums, don't know all that other stuff. "The Kiss"

Maybe I need to revist this, as I bought the reissue on the strength of some reviews, and was just... underwhelmed. Will start with whatever tops this poll.

Believing some reviews, that was yer mistake right there

This is hard. I absolutely love The Pearl, The Donor, most of it really. But it's 'Rugged Road' that started it all of for me, so I'll go with that one. Goosebumps just thinking about that song.

"that's the spirit" is fabulous and so so underrated

Well, it was Plan B, who I usually found quite believable.

ooh

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0feFedDW_iQ

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

A6 Jesus Was a Cross Maker 3:20 9
A2 The Kiss 4:32 8
B4 The Donor 7:55 3

those three would have been my guess for top results, not necc in that order

shocked that only me jaxon and anagram voted donor

More shocked that no one voted "til Dreams Come True" (just found the poll today myself).

shocked i forgot to vote (woulda been "lamb")

I would have voted for The Donor but assumed everyone else would as it's unfuckingdeniable. Had to go with The Kiss, because the chord changes are utter gorgeousness. I do prefer the more sparse, strings-less arrangement of the latter, like the version posted above.

Didn't see this poll, probably would've voted Lady-O or Archetypal Man or The Kiss. Lady O for sure, actually.

haha i guess 2009 was the time for these kinda polls huh. pov:

crayon angles
thats the spirit
jesus was a crossmaker
the donor
im over

and a special mention to her cover of 'blackbird'

the kiss, but there's a good dozen that are just sublime

― buzza

lady-o only got one vote o_0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bj8RFOp7iVQ

I absolutely adore this version, one of my favourite things ever.

"Lopin' Along Through The Cosmos" for me. Those strings...

Would have went for "The Kiss", but it could have been easily any track off Heart Food.

No votes for "'til Dreams Come True"? Y'all had some lead ears.

I woulda voted Lady-O.

Lady-O and Crayon Angels got stiffed.

love love love the frida version of crossmaker

ooh

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=0feFedDW_iQ

― rural juror (get bent), Tuesday, June 30, 2009 7:36 PM (4 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

^^^ <3 this vid!

2.3 Emerald River Dance (home recording) 3:08 0

this is one of the most beautiful things ever put to tape imo
https://open.spotify.com/track/4QGlZqAxFtcjV97rULUVTn?si=3o-K4ObtQHm-A64OVRV_EQ

It seems like everyone's so afraid of emotion cause they can't bear the pain
But the deeper sorrow carves in the heart of your being the more joy you can contain

Donor ftw

Kyrie Ellison also referenced in a Maria Minerva house track

The Kiss is probably the most beautiful song ever written

Kiss is so gorgeous

The Donor is incredible - those harmonies

Blinding me, his song remains reminding me
He's a bandit and a heartbreaker
Oh, but Jesus was a crossmaker

^Some of the best lyrics ever on that song, especially this:

He wages war with the devil
A pistol by his side
And tho' he chases him out windows
And won't give him a place to hide
He keeps his door open wide

0 votes for “When the Bridegroom Comes” is a shame

Yep, same for The Lamb Ran Away with the Crown

Emerald River Dance (home recording) is really one of the best recordings ever

JWACM is really kind of singular in lyrics, vocal, style, I can't think of anything else like it, and it's so good and so clever

I'd put Soldier of the Heart in my top 5 (and I rate her general catalogue extremely highly)

The Pearl is a top 5 for me that didn't get much love

I like both of her "proper" albums, and don't know a lot about either addiction or religious faith, but I have some cognitive dissonance how someone who apparently had so much trouble simply living takes such a tone of rectitude or spiritual confidence in her songs. I don't hear any doubt or questioning in her music.

california baby. also i don't think loving drugs and having a wild side would be viewed by j.s. as having trouble simply living. also when have drugs and wildness been at odds with intense inner spirituality. also trauma factors in here with the addiction and disregulation part imo.

the bbc radio documentary and the newish rolling stone piece are worth checking out.

I did read that Rolling Stone article, it gave a more nuanced perspective of her life than the strictly tragic one you would get if you only read liner notes and reviews.

must be this one? https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/judee-sill-songwriter-profile-1130869/
look fwd to reading it

I guess her wild history (she was involved in armed robbery as well as hard drugs etc) seem perceptually at odds with her bookish, ascetic and dry persona, not to mention the music which is about as far from rock n roll derring do as it gets. But yes, these are all just assumptions we make

I never dug "Jesus Was A Crossmaker" much. I was saddened to see it on a compilation once because I'd never be drawn in to hear more from just that song. I heard "The Kiss" on a compilation and I needed more urgently. I should probably hear the former again because people think so highly of it.

i think it's incredible but i don't think she has another song quite in that vein, i.e. it's unique. that's about as peppy as she gets afaik. if you get more out of "the kiss" i would definitely give a listen to the rest if you haven't already, sorry if you have i wasn't clear on that from your post.

one of the things i love about her work is that it still startles me. it's both very sophisticated and very singular. i can still put the albums on and think "holy shit what and who am i listening to".

I heard a brief interview once with Andy Partridge, who was moved to tears by "The Kiss." IIRC, it was on an episode of the KCRW Unfictional podcast about Judee's life and work.

Yeah I got her stuff many years ago after hearing that compilation appearance of "The Kiss", it was one of those excitingly impatient moods where I was just needing it.

When did people find out how she died? Maybe memory is fooling me but I thought when I got into her in the 00s, nobody knew where she went?

I don't really hear "rectitude" or "spiritual confidence" in most of her music, hard to see where one would get that other than maybe in The Kiss. There's a much more complex, playful, and sometimes cynical engagement with religion going on in most of her work. Jesus Was a Crossmaker and The Pearl are two obvious examples that come to mind.

I get the sense that she found something approaching spiritual enlightenment through drugs but also very self-consciously understood the tension in this, and had a tragic sense that it was always slipping out of her grasp again, in part because it was achieved through drugs, and in part because that's just how it is.

That's an excellent explanation.

I don't really hear "rectitude" or "spiritual confidence" in most of her music

I guess I'm thinking of songs like "The Vigilante" or "Soldier of the Heart", the more straightforward devotional things.

this is a beautiful tribute

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

Once I heard a serpent remark....

"Make my fear fuel, and the fuel hi-octane" <3

lady-o has always been her song that stuck with me the most. i assumed that was the canonical pick but now everyone is going for cross-maker.

i kept meaning to hear that case/lang/veirs record, what a beautiful tribute.

the boston music hall performance of that is one of my favorite judee sill moments, moves me to tears every time.

i'm not even sure who 'lady-o' is for me - the earth maybe lol

wow hadn't heard that boston music hall performance, it's wonderful