Songs that make you cry

But there are lots of songs that will make me tear up if they're passionate and vibrant, and the artist is dead now. Listening to the song makes me grasp the fact that the artist was actually full of life once. Practically every song by Laura Nyro will do this to me.

"Unravel" by Bjork (while seeing her live in Boston in 99)
"Cocoon" by Bjork (first time i heard the record, in the midst of intense unrequited love)
"Switched on Bach" by Wendy Carlos (during a psychological beakdown)
"Caroline Says Pt II" by Lou Reed (while driving home after a breakup)
"Always on My Mind" by Pet Shop Boys (last night was the first time i ever heard this. it didnt make me cry but it did make me sad and feel bittersweet)

-- Orange (monkeynibje...), February 1st, 2005.

Every one of there songs would probably be on my list, but when i think back on it, they mostly just made me momentarily depressed and nostalgic.

~3 years ago, Boards of Canada - "Dawn Chorus" (after a long drunken night, it was actually dawn by this point).
~4-5 years ago... a few DMB songs got me on various occasions when I was entirely sober.

Yeah, that one.

Also:

Somewhere Over The Rainbow - from The Wizard of Oz
Climb Every Mountain - from The Sound Of Music

"Innocent When You Dream"-Tom Waits (first time seeing him play live, 5 years ago)
"Footsteps" - PJ (the first time they ever toured Australia, 1995. I just couldn't believe I was finally seeing them play.)
"Nothing Compares 2 U" - Sinead O Connor (hubby snuck this in on a compilation cd he made for me when we got engaged. him not being the soppy type usually, I burst into tears)
"True Colours"- Cyndi Lauper (Last year, live. My sister -still in Australia- loved this song when we were kids, and I started crying because she wasn't with me to see her sing it.)

Oh. And "If You Leave" by OMD makes me cry every time without fail. No real reason though, I just think it's a sad song.

The live "Train Song" from Big Time kills me.

The first song I remember making me cry was Let it Be when I was in 8th grade. I was such a wuss.

"You've Changed" -- Billie Holiday
Untitled 2 (from ()) - Sigur Ros
"I Believe in You" - Talk Talk

But now I thought of one: "Set Me Free" by Esther Phillips. Something about the break in her voice as she wails into the chorus, especially the last time through, gets me all choked up. Plus, there's something about the construction of the song, a narrated tale of love gone wrong, but told from the third person. Then, before the last chorus, it turns inward: "I just don't know what I'd do if my lover said to me, 'Set me freeee-eee-eeee, let me fly...'" Silly to try to analyze emotional impact, I guess, but man does it tear me up.

"He Stopped Loving Her Today" by George Jones is the saddest song ever, but that just makes me want to drink.

New Order, "Age of Consent"

Like "$1000 Wedding."

Freedy Johnston's "Responsible," as I mention in thread about FJ.

"Waters of March" by Regina and Jobim--such a perfect, almost-blithe song about things that are actually pretty melancholy. Plus it's so beautiful.

Ray Charles, "Don't Let the Sun Catch You Cryin'."

Nick Drake, "Chime of a City Clock." Boy, that one gets me.

Prince, "How Come U Don't Call Me Any More." This is my favorite Prince track ever.

Aretha's "Oh No Not My Baby."

I find Big Star's "Third" somehow not conducive to crying, exactly--it dares you to feel, I guess--but I find the way old Alex sings "She's not afraid to take a chance" incredibly moving, in "O Dana."

Sure, a lot of "Pet Sounds" fits. Actually, I find the title track itself unspeakably evocative, so goofy and so determined to proceed along its way, until that last little guitar lick brings it home.

Oh, and Mekons, "Learning to Live on Your Own," my favorite song of theirs. In fact, I need to hear this now.

Ambushed by unexpected emotion

As I mentioned on that thread, I lost it in August 1998 while merely *thinking* about Lou Reed's "The Kids" (I had heard it either earlier that day or the day before.

That was it for crying until August 2001, when I completely and unexpectedly fell apart listening to Travis' "Driftwood".

Then in April 2003, I blubbed to Drugstore's "I Don't Wanna Be Here Without You", although in truth I think I would have cried anyway, but I wanted to do it to that song (and it was certainly the catalyst).

And that's about it.

coldcut "doctorin' the house" (esp. the big ben chimes near the end)
oddfellows casino "oddfellows shanty"
ultrasound "best wishes"
ooberman "shorley wall"
eric matthews "faith to clay"

"Vieilles courroies" by Harmonium.

Time to pretend by MGMT got me real emotional driving to a med school test the other day. Hit me straight in the stomach. Hopeful I'm not pretending

nizlopi jcb song

Unexpectedly, "Grounded" by Pavement got to me a couple weeks ago. I guess age & nostalgia put it over the top because I've always loved the pathos of it, it's been one of my favorite songs for decades now, but it never made me cry before. Suddenly, it was like I was seeing it from the old doctor's perspective and all the boys he'd seen dying on these streets throughout his career & malkmus just driving the chorus right into my chest.

I guess I'm not the only person this happens to. I guess maybe I'm getting more emotional as I get older. Its weird because sometimes I get a little teary-eyed about a song that is not even such a sad song. Other songs that are much sadder have no effect. It seems kind of random, but particular singers seem to have the effect more than others.

billie eilish’s ‘what was i made for?’ does this on the reg for me recently

This is kind of embarrassing but sometimes it feels more like tears of gratitude than tears of grief. Like I'm crying that such a beautiful song exists or something. I don't know. Guess I should see a therapist.

suede - “sleeping pills”

give me the time they kill

i've had the stones exile on main street on repeat in my car cd player for literally months and almost every time i get to 'shine a light' i cry. 'make every song you sing your favorite tune'

crying because a song is beautiful is one of life's greatest pleasures. i think most people could probably do with some therapy, but not for that reason.

Aside from the songs of my youth and a brief dalliance with poptimism in the 00s, I'm not really into pop. We play some around the house for our kids but shake it off was literally the only taylor swift song I knew. So I put on 1989 in the house a couple of times and got into it a little bit, then yesterday decided to put it on when I went for a run. When the chorus of out of the woods came on I started welling up, wtf! I think it was 10% crying @ beauty, 10% feeling simpatico with the lyrics, and 80% welling up at completely random things now I'm a dad.

I pity people who don't tear up from the beauty of music

Sorry, I'm a crying elitist

The bit in What a Wonderful World when he says 'they'll learn much more than I'll ever know' always tips me over the edge.

Bonnie Raitt “Nick Of Time”

The 6ths - Just Like a Movie Star

Pet Shop Boys, Being Boring

By the time we get to the third verse, I’m a weeping mess (I never dreamt that I would get to be the creature that I always meant to be, but I thought, in spite of dreams, you'd be sitting somewhere here with me)

A couple Bruce Hornsby songs of late but Song C got me real good

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NTiMCE8Z32A

Anchorage by Michelle Shocked

map, “shine a light” doesn’t make me cry but it does make my heart feel bigger. same with “let it loose”

last song to make me well up was probably “this is the sea” by the waterboys. zevon’s “desperados under the eaves” got to me a few days ago too

The 6ths - Just Like a Movie Star

As You Turn To Go will do it for me

sometimes it feels more like tears of gratitude than tears of grief. Like I'm crying that such a beautiful song exists or something.

YES, I dig it.

This sort of thing happens to me so often since I last had neurosurgery that I could probably almost eschew music that doesn't elicit such observable physiological responses lol. Endless songs, many already mentioned, but it's the ability of wordless music to do it that endlessly amazes me.

eg.
Messiaen - 5th movement of Quator pour la fin du Temps
Love Unlimited Orchestra - Love's Theme
Janko Nilovic - Pop Avenue (HEAPS of corny/manipulative library music c.1972 really - those cats knew what they were doing)
Andrew Wasylyk - Last Sunbeams of Childhood
Ravel - 2nd movement of Piano Concerto in G
Piero Umiliani - almost the entire soundtrack of La ragazza fuoristrada fercrissakes
Aphex Twin - Mookid/Alberto Balsalm sequence
Donald Byrd - Lansana's Priestess

There's several that make me tear up, the one that gets me going more than any other is Wyatt's Sea Song

there are a few songs that make me cry in grief and pain on sade's soldier of love, like absolutely bawling. for such a smooth and immaculate recording artist, that is a seriously harrowing album.

Messiaen - 5th movement of Quator pour la fin du Temps

is this the cello one?

Cello and piano, yep!
Also apologies to the French for mangling spelling.

I was just on a car drive with an early 00s Low soundtrack going and pretty much every Mimi lead had me misty-eyed.