Even then, I didn’t have the language to explain what I was feeling. I just knew that her voice felt like a refuge. Something stable. Something magnificent and healing.

As a kid, I clung to it like a safe space I could carry in my headphones. And now, decades later, I still do. 

Now, when I return to the songs I listened to in childhood, high school, college, my twenties—they don’t just move me. They transport me. There’s something about the constancy of her voice that turns each recording into a kind of emotional time capsule. If you’ve listened to Audra McDonald for a long time, you know: her different recordings are capable of time travel.

This isn’t a ranking or a greatest hits list—it’s a collection of performances that have stayed with me. Songs that held me in quiet moments. Songs that opened something in me. Songs that still do.

1. “Old Maid” – 110 in the Shade (Broadway Revival)
If you fancy your heart being broken, look no further. This performance isn’t dramatic for the sake of drama—it’s aching with everything she won’t let herself say. I swear I forget to breathe during the last minute. She turns longing into stillness, then into devastation.

2. “The Man That Got Away” – How Glory Goes
I always come back to this one when I need something sweeping and bittersweet. It’s torchy and timeless—but never overdone. She sings it like someone who has been through it and still holds the memory like it’s warm in her hands.

3. “I Think It’s Going to Rain Today” – Build a Bridge
My heart shan’t ever recover from this—and it’s been nearly twenty years. There’s something in her delivery that lands like truth. It stays with me long after the song ends.

4. “Being Green” – Build a Bridge
I don’t care how old you are—this song will hug your inner child. There’s something so pure and kind in the way she sings it. Like she’s looking right at you and saying: You’re allowed to be exactly who you are.

5. “Edelweiss” – Go Back Home
Stunningly beautiful. So simple, and yet somehow it feels like a whispered blessing. When I’m overwhelmed, I come here.

6. “Wheels of a Dream” – Ragtime (Original Broadway Cast Recording)
A masterclass. Not just in voice, but in emotional scope. She and Brian Stokes Mitchell build this into something almost unbearably hopeful. You feel the dream rise. You feel what it costs. And still, it soars.

7. “Beautiful” – Marie Christine (Original Broadway Cast Recording)
This one showcases the sheer force of her power. It’s not about belting for applause—it’s power with precision. With purpose. She builds the song into something spellbinding. Controlled. Mesmerizing.

8. “Hard to Say Goodbye” – Dreamgirls in Concert
Audra McDonald, Heather Headley, and Tamara Tunie on one stage? Come on. The vocal layering, the phrasing, the harmony—it’s enough to melt the roof off the universe. It’s radiant, emotional, and vocally flawless. A once-in-a-lifetime performance.

Some voices change with time. Hers carries it. From the kid I was to the person I’m still becoming, this voice has always been there—steady, luminous, and quietly powerful. I don’t know what that kind of presence is made of. But I’m grateful I get to listen.

And honestly? I still think about those moments—sitting beside friends who loved her just as much, listening to her recordings and quite literally yelling at how impossibly good she is. That mix of reverence and total freak-out? It never really goes away. Not when a voice keeps showing up the way hers does.