Best Songs about a Flood?

[northzax]

obviously, it's a sad song. I can think of three good ones off the top of my head:

Aaron Neville's Louisiana 1927
Johnny Cash: Highway Patrolman and Going to Memphis (not about a flood, per se, but about building the levees)

Anyone else have a good one to listen to today?

[Sequoia]

1. Johnny Cash's "How High's the Water Mama?"

2 Feet high and rising.....posted yesterday.

[Sequoia]

2. Johnny Cash's "How High's the Water Mama?"

2 Feet high and rising.....posted yesterday.

[underpants]

3. Let me be the first to mention Johnny Cash's "How High's the Water Mama?"

:bounce:

[northzax]

9. right, forgot that one, thanks

anything else? I need a flood playlist for this weekend, I was throwing a housewarming party anyway and I've turned it into a benefit for the Red Cross...

[XNASA]

4. Peter Gabriel - "Here Comes the Flood"

When the flood calls,
You have no home, you have no walls
In the thunder crash
You’re a thousand minds, within a flash
Don’t be afraid to cry at what you see
The actors gone, there’s only you and me
And if we break before the dawn, they’ll use up what we used to be.

[dubyaD40web]

5. Texas Flood ~SRV

[jane_pippin]

6. I will second and third the Johnny Cash "How High's the water, Mama" posts

I haven't been able to get it out of my head.

On a sidenote, I just saw a Red Cross ad this morning with another Johhny Cash song in it and it had me in tears. I miss him.

[LynneSin]

7. When the Levee Breaks

Led Zeppelin

[hobbit709]

10. Originally by

Memphis Minnie and Kansas Joe McCoy in 1927.

[Systematic Chaos]

8. Peter Gabriel's "Here Comes the Flood"

When the night shows
the signals grow on radios
All the strange things
they come and go, as early warnings
Stranded starfish have no place to hide
still waiting for the swollen Easter tide
There's no point in direction we cannot
even choose a side.

I took the old track
the hollow shoulder, across the waters
On the tall cliffs
they were getting older, sons and daughters
The jaded underworld was riding high
Waves of steel hurled metal at the sky
and as the nail sunk in the cloud, the rain
was warm and soaked the crowd.

Lord, here comes the flood
We'll say goodbye to flesh and blood
If again the seas are silent
in any still alive
It'll be those who gave their island to survive
Drink up, dreamers, you're running dry.

When the flood calls
You have no home, you have no walls
In the thunder crash
You're a thousand minds, within a flash
Don't be afraid to cry at what you see
The actors gone, there's only you and me
And if we break before the dawn, they'll
use up what we used to be.

Lord, here comes the flood
We'll say goodbye to flesh and blood
If again the seas are silent
in any still alive
It'll be those who gave their island to survive
Drink up, dreamers, you're running dry.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

17. I'll second that

Such a moving, hanuting song...

[4_Legs_Good]

18. Both versions!

But I particularly like the one on his first solo album when preceeded by "Down the Dolce Vita"



You guys are crazy!

david

[MnFats]

11. Springsteen: Lost in the Flood. "That ain't oil, it's blood.'

Artist: Bruce Springsteen Lyrics
Song: Lost In The Flood Lyrics




The ragamuffin gunner is returnin' home like a hungry runaway
He walks through town all alone--"He must be from the fort," he hears the high school girls say
His countryside's burnin' with wolfman fairies dressed in drag for homicide
The hit-and-run plead sanctuary, 'neath a holy stone they hide
They're breakin' beams and crosses with a spastic's reelin' perfection
Nuns run bald through Vatican halls, pregnant, pleadin' immaculate conception
And everybody's wrecked on Main Street from drinking unholy blood
Sticker smiles sweet as Gunner breathes deep, his ankles caked in mud
And I said, "Hey, gunner man, that's qucksand, that's quicksand, that ain't mud
Have you thrown your senses to the war, or did you lose them in the flood?"

That pure American brother, dull-eyed and empty-faced
Races Sundays in Jersey in a Chevy stock super eight
He rides 'er low on the hip, on the side he's got "Bound for Glory" in red, white and blue flash paint
He leans on the hood telling racing stories, the kids call him Jimmy the Saint
Well, that blaze-and-noise boy, he's gunnin' that bitch loaded to blastin' point
He rides head first into a hurricane and disappears into a point
And there's nothin' left but some blood where the body fell, that is, nothin' left that you could sell
Just junk all across the horizon, a real highwayman's farewell
And I said, "Hey kid, you think that's oil? Man, that ain't oil, that's blood"
I wonder what he was thinking when he hit that storm, or was he just lost in the flood?

Eighth Avenue sailors in satin shirts whisper in the air
Some storefront incarnation of Maria, she's puttin' on me the stare
And Bronx's best apostle stands with his hand on his own hardware
Everything stops, you hear five quick shots, the cops come up for air
And now the whiz-bang gang from uptown, they're shootin' up the street
And that cat from the Bronx starts lettin' loose, but he gets blown right off his feet
And some kid comes blastin' 'round the corner, but a cop puts him right away
He lays on the street holding his leg, screaming something in Spanish, still breathing when I walked away
And somebody said, "Hey man, did you see that? His body hit the street with such a beautiful thud"
I wonder what the dude was sayin', or was he just lost in the flood?
Hey man, did you see that, those poor cats are sure messed up
I wonder what they were gettin' into, or were they just lost in the flood?

[sniffa]

12. they might be giants

[johnnie]

13. Louisiana 1927

I saw something that was put together on some show that used that song with some shots from the flood. It was very powerful.

What has happened down here, is the winds have changed
Clouds roll in from the north and it started to rain
It rained real hard, and it rained for a real long time
Six feet of water in the streets of Evangeline
The river rose all day, the river rose all night
Some people got lost in the flood, some people got away alright
The river had busted through clear down to Placker Mine
Six feet of water in the streets of Evangeline
Louisiana, Louisiana
They`re trying to wash us away, they`re trying to wash us away
Oh Louisiana, Louisiana
They`re trying to wash us away, they`re trying to wash us away
President Coolidge come down, in a railroad train
With his little fat man with a note pad in his hand
President say "little fat man, oh isn`t it a shame,
What the river has done to this poor farmer`s land"
Oh Louisiana, Louisiana
They`re trying to wash us away, you`re trying to wash us away
Oh Louisiana, oh Louisiana
They`re trying to wash us away, oh Lord, they`re trying to wash us away
They`re trying to wash us away, they`re trying to wash us away

[Swede]

14. Flood by Tool

Here comes the water.

All I knew and all I believed
are crumbling images
that no longer comfort me.
I scramble to reach higher ground,
some order and sanity,
or somthing to comfort me.

So I take what is mine,and hold what is mine,
suffocate what is mine, and bury what's mine.
Soon the water will come
and claim what is mine.
I must leave it behind,
and climb to a new place now.

This ground is not the rock I thought it to be.

Thought I was high, and free.
I thought I was there
divine destiny.

I was wrong.
This changes everything.

The water is rising up on me.
Thought the sun would come deliver me,
but the truth has come to punish me instead.

The ground is breaking down right under me.
Cleanse and purge me
in the water.

[jane_pippin]

15. Also, what about

some songs that aren't exactly flood related but have NO/Southern ties and are great songs?

Like, Ike & Tina's version of Proud Mary or Otis Redding's Dock of the Bay? Or anything by Irma Thomas--she's from New Orleans--I think--(is The Soul Queen of New Orleans) and she's amazing. Here's an Irma link for you: http://www.irmathomas.com/

[TransitJohn]

16. Here Comes Sunshine......Grateful Dead

Here Comes Sunshine

Lyrics: Robert Hunter
Music: Jerry Garcia

Wake of the flood, laughing water, forty nine
Get out the pans, don't just stand there dreaming, get out the way
Get out the way

Chorus
Here comes sunshine
Here comes sunshine

Line up a long shot, maybe try it two times, maybe more
Good to know you got shoes to wear, when you find the floor
Why hold out for more



Asking you nice now, keep the mother rolling, one more time
Been down before, you just don't have to go no more
No more



"(Remembering the great Vanport, Washington flood of 1949, living in other people's homes, a family abandoned by father; second grade)"

[DrDan]

19. Galveston Flood

James Taylor has a great version