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Your Happy Place Music


Tom Guernsey

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As I sat, genuinely dewy eyed through a large proportion of three How to Train Your Dragon movies at the weekend, it occurred to me that Powell's scores have pretty much become my happy place music. It was very much tears of joy again hearing music that I absolutely love and always makes me feel better if I'm having a shit day. As I mentioned in the favourite non-JW musical moments thread, when the horns come in about a minute into during Test Drive gets me every time, but the scores are filled with moments like that, little moments that to me are magical or thrilling that render me humming one or other of the themes all day.

 

There's a few other pieces that give me the feels (as they say), I Am the Doctor from Season 5 of Doctor Who by Murray Gold, A Tall Ship from Star Trek V (seriously, it's a glorious minute and a half... Jerry truly scoring the movie as it should have been rather than actually was), Mary Poppins Returns by Marc Shaiman, yeah, I know, it's not the Shermans but it always brings a smile to my face and I love the songs and score so there.

 

So... over to you... what makes you feel all warm and fuzzy when everything else is going to shit?!

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If I'm feeling sad or irritated or whatever, "happy music" just makes me more sad or irritated. Sad and solemn music is the only thing that ups my spirit in such circumstances.

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53 minutes ago, Thor said:

If I'm feeling sad or irritated or whatever, "happy music" just makes me more sad or irritated. Sad and solemn music is the only thing that ups my spirit in such circumstances.

Well I never said it had to be happy music… 

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I think a pretty specific one for me is the more warmhearted John Williams stuff from 2001-4, just what happened to be coming out when I first became a Williams fan and what was always appealing to me as a big softy. Especially HP 1-3, Catch Me If You Can, and The Terminal, those are big "take me back" scores. But John Williams and The Beatles are my two where virtually everything works like a charm for me at this point, I'm in too deep. Thomas Newman's a pretty reliable happy pill for film composers, especially 90s-00s, sappy Silvestri too around that time.

 

I have a favorites playlist that started with my old iPod's "most played" and now I just add as I go along. That runs the gamut and I'll dip into that if I'm looking for a good soak. Mostly happy or bittersweet music, I don't go all that dark for catharsis. Warren Zevon, Fiona Apple, Weezer's Pinkerton, that's about the threshold, I guess. Some Tom Waits.

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Okay, recently I found a perfect meld between the Braveheart OST love themes, and the kind of surreal, ethereality found in Meeting the Maidens. It's so perfect... I just wish I could find better versions/arrangements. Never watched this show.

 

 

 

This even has the exact pentatonic leap as Polovtsian Dances another favorite LOL. So Aika is 3 for 1, this is Crazy.

 

 

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10 hours ago, Thor said:

If I'm feeling sad or irritated or whatever, "happy music" just makes me more sad or irritated. Sad and solemn music is the only thing that ups my spirit in such circumstances.

 

This is one of my all-time favourite pieces of music. Sublime.

 

 

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I don't necessarily go to music to help me feel better when things are bad - I'm more likely to journal, watch something cynical on TV, or just take a damn nap. But that's not to say music doesn't brighten my day, particularly when I'm already feeling decent. My musical "comfort food" tends to be stuff that goes way back to my childhood...The Planets, the original Star Wars, Mary Poppins, etc.

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1 hour ago, Jurassic Shark said:

This is one of my all-time favourite pieces of music. Sublime.

 

Sure, I agree. But it's very difficult to hear this piece now, without the mind immediately going to A CLOCKWORK ORANGE.

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