songs that make you cry

Yaz(oo)'s "Only You" used to have that effect, but now it's just cute...

And whoever was right about Wheatus - it's..... poignant.

Joni Mitchell - Amelia
Dylan - Girl from the North Country

Big crybaby me.

but still i got a black heart

"Musette and Drums" -- Cocteau Twins. Why? It's not like the words mean anything. But when I first heard it, I was shattered. It can still do it occasionally, too.

"Good Woman" -- Cat Power. So fucking magnanimous and kind. And those kids, even Vedder. A mess, but a gorgeous one.

"The Partisan -- Leonard Cohen. So lonely (and I'm not talking about the police), so hollow and lost.

(god, look at my choices).

Some, I cry on the inside, in the same way I get inner goosebumps occasionally. Like these:

"Metal Heart" -- Cat Power
"Have You Forgotten" -- Red House Painters
"The Plan" -- Low
"Point of Disgust" -- Low
"In Metal" -- Low
"Atmosphere" -- Joy Division
"Decades" -- Joy Division
"Faith" -- The Cure (most of that album, actually)
"Sanvean" -- Lisa Gerrard
"Yele" -- Wyclef Jean (!)
"I Will" -- Radiohead
"Wolf at the Door" -- Radiohead
(plus most of Amnesiac and half of Kid A, really)
(lots of Dylan and Tom Waits)
(some Lucinda Williams, Neko Case, Nina Nastasia)

This could go on for a long time, so I'll stop there.

And there's a band called Sin Ropas that I've been listening to lately, and their "Syrup Coat" reduces me to tears on a regular basis.

(Somebody stop me.)

off hand.

REM's "Nightswimming". It makes me feel like a love-struck teenager on a gorgeous summer night. It makes me feel like there's something right with the world.

Serart's "Love is the Peace". This one is really all Arto Tunc Boyaciyan. I was not expecting anything nearly this gorgeous on this album. Absurdly powerful for something so sonically subdued. It took me out of my 'self' for the duration in a way I was very surprised and moved by.

antiphon by charles atlas for a number of reasons, the first time I heard them play it live, it was so heartbreakingly pretty, and so perfectly composed (they're friends), the room fell so silent, and I felt so good for them, as thought they had written the perfect lullaby. and then they let me name it.

HAhhahahahahahaha

and, many eons ago:

Night Shift - Commodores

there's more, I think.

james- out to get you
cat power- good woman
cat power- color and the kids
portishead- roads
johnny cash f/ fiona apple- bridge over troubled water
mary timony- aging astronauts
sebadoh- willing to wait
flaming lips- waiting for a superman
low- will the night
low- point of disgust
low- two step
granddady- miner at the dial-a-view/so you reach to the skies

more i cant remember

All of Blood On The Tracks.

'Slippin' by DMX

'Toilet Tisha' by Outkast (the part where her mum starts screaming).

I'm Not Crazy - Versus

oh yes.

but i'm without this song now, as I've only ever had it on mp3 and i've switched computers. can't ever seem to find it on slsk! (and the song's just called "Crazy" btw)

Radiohead- Exit Music For A Film
REM- Perfect Circle
Cody Chesnutt- Deliberation, Enough Of Nothing
Maggie's Dream- Why Do We Sigh As We Sing
Clash- Complete Control (this 'un makes me FEEL alive)
Replacements- Unsatisfied, Answering Machine
Tito & Hector- anything by these two makes me weep for humanity

And many, many more...

"No Regrets" by Tom Rush
"Little Green" by Joni Mitchell
"Wild Billy's Circus Story" by Bruce Springsteen
"Season's in the Sun" by Terry Jacks
"Is that all there is?" by Peggy Lee

BUT THE PRIZE GOES TO

"Alone again, naturally" by Gilbert O'Sullivan

Previously in tears/close to tears, to:
Roy Harper - 'When an Old Cricketer Leaves the Crease' (one of my favourite songs bar none; my whole being was transfixed when I saw him play this live last month... and it was followed by 'Me and My Woman', which ain't bad either! ;-))
Tom Waits - 'Innocent When You Dream'/'I'm Still Here'
Fats Waller - 'Two Sleepy People'
Rose Royce - 'You're on my mind' (esp. in the context of the film "Car Wash")
Big Star - 'Nightime'/'Take Care'...
Gilbert O'Sullivan - 'Alone Again (Naturally)' ('the only man she had ever loved had been taken...')
The Beatles - 'Julia', 'Do You Want to Know a Secret?' 'Ask Me Why' - those "Please Please Me" songs ring a nostalgic core in me; some of the first music I get into.
Abba - 'The Day Before You Came'/'Dancing Queen' - two opposite sides of melancholy... 'Dancing Queen' is partly nostalgic for me and so tearfully joyous, and the other, well, need I explain?
Debbie Reynolds - 'Tammy'
Rolf Harris - 'Two Little Boys' - years ago you understand! Though it still can move, it really affected me more as a child.
The Wayfarers - 'Whistle Down the Wind'/R. Ronalde - 'La Monastery Creek' (a pair of instrumentals on a Hallo Children Everywhere compilation... yearning, nostalgic vibraphone on the first... a chap doing the birds on the second... very personal chord these strike)
John Fahey - much of 'Transfiguration of Blind Joe Death' album, particularly "On the Sunny Side..." and "Daisy"...
Talking of old music hall songs;
Albert Chevalier - 'The Future Mrs 'Awkins' - such a beautifully alien recording to today; made possibly 100 years ago. That odd, withered voice and long outmoded London accent; all with a wonderfully odd and moving tune.
Herb Alpert/Tijuna Brass - 'This Guy's in Love With You'
The Carpenters - 'Close to You' - in the oddest of contexts, I was reduced to watering eyes by this; it was played over the credits of an averageish student film at a student film festival last year. It had been ages since I'd heard it, but well, it hit home, esp. concerning affairs in my life at the time.
Barry White - 'Never Never Gonna Give Ya Up'
The Bonzo Dog Band - 'Ready-Mades'/'Sport'/virtually all of their last album.
The Smiths - yes, 'Asleep' and 'Please Please Please...'; the second almost more so due to that sublime wash of sound that comes in near the end. 'Asleep' has that affecting musical box at the end though as well. 'William It Was Really Nothing', as it was really the main song that got me into the Smiths, along with 'This Charming Man'. It just moves me inexplicably and crucial is that backwards guitar descending into quietitude in the fade.
Isaac Hayes - 'By the Time I Get to Phoenix'
'By a Waterfall' - that whole unspeakably beautiful Busby Berkeley sequence in "Footlight Parade". Same goes for 'Over the Rainbow' and 'Singin' in the Rain'. That song that cuts through it all at the end of "Paths of Glory". The use of that wonderful ballad in "High Noon"...
Much of the 'Singing Detective' soundtrack; not just "We'll meet again" and "Lilli Marlene", but things like the deathless xylophone solo in Henry Hall's "Teddy Boys' Picnic". Potter's positioning of the music within his drama really lends incredible poignancy to them, at many points.

Whenever I hear Roy Orbison or Daniel Johnston's voices with the right songs, there's instantly pause for emotion...

Just now, felt very wistful and reflective in a sad way on hearing Jake Thackray;s "Rain on the Mountainside" - just a pastoral melancholy and his wonderfully expressive nylon-string guitar... great teary-eyed stuff.