Which is Conchita’s best ever song? There is no comparison…
I’ve had a Repeat Rotation Video feature on Leo Sigh for four years. A feature where I choose a video I think is brilliant, and watch it umpteen times throughout one day.
And it dawned on me today, I haven’t had a Conchita video as my Repeat Rotation Video since October, 2015, when I chose her performance of ‘Put That Fire Out‘ at the Voices for Refugees concert in Vienna. A concert that was also the first time I ever saw the Austrian diva in the flesh, after coming to Vienna from Bangkok to meet her.
So today I’m choosing another Conchita video for my Repeat Rotation Video. But, because it is so bloody difficult to choose which is the best out of all the videos of this song there currently are, I’m throwing three up here.
Three videos of, what I think is Conchita’s best ever song. One she doesn’t perform live nearly as often as she should. (And if this beyond beautiful thing doesn’t end up in studio quality on an album at some time or another, I really am going to be inconsolable).
The song, of course, is Conchita’s ‘Waters Run Deep‘. Written by her, and performed for the first time in Linz at Conchita’s concert with the Bruckner Orchestra.
And it’s a song I have heard fan after fan say they love more than anything else she has sung yet, for some reason, it’s not one we get at every concert. And we should.
Because ‘Waters Run Deep‘ is a song that suits Conchita perfectly.
It has a gorgeous guitar-focused addictive melody, an insistent dirge-like drum beat that roots itself to your being, an instrumental section where you get to watch her be as dramatic as she can possibly be (don’t you just f*cking love that!!!!), and as many ridiculously powerful high notes as you could possibly want.
And when she sings “Cause I’m holding on for someone. And maybe I’m holding on for you” — the way she sings ‘holding’ is just the most beautiful thing.
And so the three videos to watch as mine, and your, Repeat Rotation Videos today are these:
a) Conchita’s performance of ‘Waters Run Deep‘ with the Bruckner Orchestra. Because it is the first time she sang the song in front of an audience. It also has that orchestral sound that gives it even more of a dramatic feel. It’s not the best performance of the song as she has worked on it since so it is even richer now, and it is also missing the gorgeous instrumental interlude we get nowadays. An instrumental piece that has added something so special.
But it does have her with that incredibly sweet look on her face as she finishes singing. A look as if to say, “Be kind. Because I wrote that myself”.
b) Conchita’s performance of ‘Waters Run Deep‘ in Tulln, Austria in August, 2017. Because that concert was freezing cold and rain-drenched, there’s a fabulous mix of stage smoke and rain mist sweeping across the stage that makes Conchita look all Wuthering Heights dramatic, and it was performed right around the time she was starting to look comfortable on stage for the first time.
So comfortable, she does this beautifully dramatic bending forward almost in anguish as she gets towards the end of the song that is still to this day one of the loveliest things I’ve seen her do.
c) Her performance of the song in Graz in August last year. Because she starts off with this throaty almost hoarse sound to her voice. And she is full-on drama here, both in vocals and facial expressions, which suits this gorgeous song to perfection.
And, Conchita — this — it is literally the best and most beautiful song you have ever sung. Hands down. No competition. Now would you sing it more please. 🙂
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Related: Conchita’s Bad Mitterndorf soundcheck of ‘Unbreakable‘ has the most beautiful raw emotion