Songs that make you cry

-- 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"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_NxYbfNYZU

I've only heard the Mott version.

"Dreaming With a Broken Heart"--John Mayer. just captures the exact feeling you have when someone you loved is gone and you are still in the stage where you can't get her out of your mind, so it's just torture to go to sleep, but too painful to stay awake.

This one also hits me for other reasons...namely:

*There was a devastatingly beautiful and sad routine choreographed to it on So You Think You Can Dance
*John Mayer's Continuum was one of the first things my g/f and I bonded over. When we split briefly the first time, I thanked God I didn't hear that song or I woulda lost it.

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.