"The clouds never hung so low before": Some blessed music to help get us through this worst of all catastrophes

As a necessary respite from the horrors that we're obliged to track and publicize, some outstanding live performances (including several covers) of great songs

From The Last Waltz, “It Makes No Difference,” by Robbie Robertson, featuring the heartbreaking vocal by Rick Danko. (May they both rest in peace.)

A recent version by that greatest of guitarists (and survivors), Eric Clapton:

Moms Mabley sings Dion de Mucci’s “Abraham, Martin and John” on “The Merv Griffin Show” in 1969":

Dylan’s ‘Like a Rolling Stone,” performed by Seal (who’s still with us) and Jeff Beck (R.I.P.):

Jeff Buckley’s exquisite rendering of Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah):

In Madison Square Garden, 2002, Bob Dylan paid this (abbreviated) tribute to his dear friend George Harrison:

Tom Jones, in 2022, does Dylan’s “It’s Not Dark Yet”:

Emmylou Harris sings “Where Will I Be” with Daniel Lanois, live on the BBC, 1995:

The Edwin Hawkins Singers, featuring Dorothy Combs Harrison, perform “Oh, Happy Day,” their gospel rendering of the Rev. Philip Doddridge’s hymn, written in 1755. This is a longer version of the song as they recorded it in 1969:

Finally, a fitting coda for this spiritually inflected compilation, Bob Dylan sang “You Gotta Serve Somebody” at the Grammys in 1980 (when that ceremony honored great musicians, and featured first-rate songs, unlike the repulsive show of glittering quasi-Satanic mediocrity that it’s long since become):

BONUS

Moving back into more worldly territory, just because it’s fun and also pretty weird, I offer you this seven-minute medley of pop classics sung by David Bowie and Cher, on her TV show in 1975. The medley comes in the middle of Bowie’s “Young Americans.”