A song makes me burst into tears.

[don't ask]

I came home and was listening to Paul Kelly. He is kind of an Aussie Bob Dylan -writes deceptively simple songs that are just pure genius. However they are very Australian and probably aren't much known overseas. Some are about sport and other distinctly Aussie stuff.

I put the headphones on and was listening to How To Make Gravy for the hundredth time and suddenly out of the blue I understood it all.

The lyrics are here (http://www.paulkelly.com.au/lyrics/how-to-make-gravy.html) and if you are lucky you may find a way to hear it too.

Joe is singing to Dan from jail :

Hello Dan, it's Joe here, I hope you're keeping well
It's the 21st of December, and now they're ringing the last bells
If I get good behaviour, I'll be out of here by July
Won't you kiss my kids on Christmas Day, please don't let 'em cry for me


and then he sings about family stuff....until...

Oh praise the Baby Jesus, have a Merry Christmas,
I'm really gonna miss it, all the treasure and the trash
And later in the evening, I can just imagine,
You'll put on Junior Murray and push the tables back
And you'll dance with Rita, I know you really like her,
Just don't hold her too close, oh brother please don't stab me in the back
I didn't mean to say that, it's just my mind it plays up,
Multiplies each matter, turns imagination into fact...........

And that's it - the way he delivers the line about Dan dancing with Rita and then just drives the song to the end, had me blubbering.


The lyric posted says Junior Murvin but although it is PaulKelly.com I'm sure that is wrong.

[TellMeI'mNotCrazy]

Looks like Junior Murvin is a reggae artist, so maybe it's right?

[don't ask]

Maybe.

[TellMeI'mNotCrazy]

The part where I said "But those are great lyrics - I'm sure the song would make me cry too" appears to have been eaten by some hamsters.

[don't ask]

Anyhow I've moved on to To Her Door

They got married early, never had no money
Then when he got laid off they really hit the skids
He started up his drinking, then they started fighting
He took it pretty badly, she took both the kids
She said: "I'm not standing by, to watch you slowly die
So watch me walking, out the door"
She said, "Shove it, Jack, I'm walking out the fucking door"

and Bradman

England 1930 and the seed burst into flower
All of Jackson's grace failed him, it was Bradman was the power
He murdered them in Yorkshire,he danced for them in Kent
He laughed at them in Leicestershire, Leeds was an event
Three hundred runs he took and rewrote all the books
That really knocked those gents
The critics could not comprehend his nonchalant phenomenon
"Why this man is a machine," they said. "Even his friends say he isn't human"
Even friends have to cut something

[The Mermaid]

One song that does it to me everytime is cant cry hard enough by Victoria Williams

The lyrics in part

I'm going to live my life
Like every day's my last
Without a simple good-bye
It all goes by so fast

And now that you're gone
I can't cry hard enough
No I can't cry hard enough
For you to hear me now


This song was used in a very moving tribute to the 9-11-01 victims by Jason Powers (http://www.cantcryhardenough.com/)

[Theodore Striker]

the one that gets my big hairy self blubbering every stinking time is Keep Me In Your Heart by Warren Zevon. Listening to the lyrics while remembering he wrote the song knowing he had terminal cancer with little time to live just makes it even more moving.

[Soul Brother Number Two]

I can never get through Syd Straw's album "War and Peace" without blubbering like a big fool. "Time Has Done This" and "CBGB's" do me in. I very rarely put the album on because of this. snif....

[BrotherCadfael]

It's been 25 years, but Dan Fogleberg's Sometimes When We Touch still gets me.

She was unfaithful, did me wrong, etc., just when that song came out.

[jjimm]

I've posted this before, but Mary Chapin Carpenter's John Doe No. 24 has me in floods every time. It's has the most pathos of anything I've ever heard, and it's based on a true story.

She had read a news article (http://marychapin.thewakinglife.com/johndoe-newspaper.html) about the death of a deaf, dumb, and blind teenager, found wandering in Jacksonville, Illinois, in 1945. He had no discernable identity, couldn't communicate with anyone, and ended up in an institution, where he remained for decades, named John Doe No. 24. Over the years, it was discovered that he could play the harmonica, and dance, and had some affinity for New Orleans. But he died, unknown and unloved, locked in a world of silence and darkness, though it was clear that he was perfectly intelligent.

She was moved to write a song about him, with tremendously evocative lyrics (http://www.coquet-shack.com/lyrics/Carpenter/John_Doe_No_24_1467.htm), and a very simple tune, and expressed the story with intense emotion.

I even learned the words and how to play it to sing with the guitar, but I can rarely get all the way to the end without breaking down. In fact I'm getting all dewy-eyed as I type this.

[TellMeI'mNotCrazy]

Mine are so corny and cliche that I'm almost too embarassed to post them.

Cat's in the Cradle puts a lump in my throat every time.

I don't like country, but Tim McGraw's "Don't Take the Girl" also pushes all the right buttons. And again, in the "I don't like country vein", I once burst spontaneously into tears when listening to Colin Raye's "I Think About You." Boo-hoo city, it was.

And Red Sovine's "Teddy Bear." Damn song gets me every time.

[Girl From Mars]

Embarassed to admit - but always get a tear in my eye when I hear 'Puff the Magic Dragon'. Poor Puff. :(

[C3]

Anyhow I've moved on to To Her Door


That song makes me tear up, as well.

The song that gets me sobbing, though, is Weddings Parties Anything's For a Short Time. Lyrics (http://www.stlyrics.com/songs/w/weddingspartiesanything4917/forashorttime438722.html) I've been told it's a true story about a girl they met while playing in Canada. She died in a car accident after the concert. It's heartbreaking.

[Thinks2Much]

Mine are so corny and cliche that I'm almost too embarassed to post them.

Cat's in the Cradle puts a lump in my throat every time.

I don't like country, but Tim McGraw's "Don't Take the Girl" also pushes all the right buttons. And again, in the "I don't like country vein", I once burst spontaneously into tears when listening to Colin Raye's "I Think About You." Boo-hoo city, it was.

And Red Sovine's "Teddy Bear." Damn song gets me every time.

I have the same problem with "Don't Take the Girl". I don't usually listen to country, either, and maybe that is why, because all of the ones that get me are country songs. A couple that get me every time "Love, Me (http://www.jamesness.com/loveme.html)" sung by Collin Raye - but that is in a sweet way. I don't know the name of it, but some female country singer had a song out in the last couple of years that is a prayer to God not to take her seven year old daughter that is the most tear-jerking thing I ever heard, but I don't know the name of either the artist or the song. I can't even remember enough of the lyrics to google it - I tried.

[Eutychus]

"The Whole of the Moon" (http://www.lyricsfreak.com/w/waterboys,-the/145310.html) by The Waterboys.

Right after Cristi died I took my daughter to Newbury Comics and they started playing this song and it summed up everything I ever felt about her. I almost started crying in the store, but now it just helps me remember what kind of person she was.

[Carm6773]

A country song that gets me every time is Concrete Angel (http://www.martina-mcbride.com/lyrics/concreteangel.shtml). I'm a teacher, so the first stanza really hits me.

One holiday song that gets me all the time is The Christmas Shoes (http://www.lyricsstyle.com/n/newsong/thechristmasshoes.html). What gets me about that song is the chorus is sung by children. I get choked up just thinking about it.

[Carm6773]

Here (http://www.cbs.com/specials/christmas_shoes/band.shtml) is a better link for Christmas Shoes. Make sure you have a Kleenex.

[DMark]

I've posted this before, but Mary Chapin Carpenter's John Doe No. 24 has me in floods every time. It's has the most pathos of anything I've ever heard, and it's based on a true story.

She had read a news article (http://marychapin.thewakinglife.com/johndoe-newspaper.html) about the death of a deaf, dumb, and blind teenager, found wandering in Jacksonville, Illinois, in 1945. He had no discernable identity, couldn't communicate with anyone, and ended up in an institution, where he remained for decades, named John Doe No. 24. Over the years, it was discovered that he could play the harmonica, and dance...

OK, maybe I am a little dense, but how exactly did a deaf guy learn to play the harmonica?
I know the deaf can feel vibrations and can dance quite well, but picking out melodic tones?
Sorry - don't mean to nitpick your song, just curious.

[vl_mungo]

Ode to Joy... or as I've come to know it, The Funeral Song. :(

[LVgeogeek]

The song that always gets me is In My Life (http://www.lyricsfreak.com/b/beatles/14823.html) by the Beatles.

[Melandry]

For some reason John Denver's song Matthew (http://www.sing365.com/music/lyric.nsf/Matthew-lyrics-John-Denver/39C85037912FCBF448256885000CBFE4) always makes me cry. I think I just fidn something very poignant about how the song evokes in a very simple way the loss of childhood and 'the way things used to be' in the last verse (other than the repetition of the chorus).

[emekthian]

The only two songs that have ever made me cry are Don't You (Forget About Me) and Memories of Crono. The former because it reminds me of the end of the very tearjerker Futurama episode "Luck of the Fryrish"; and the latter because of a plot point in Chrono Trigger that would spoil a large portion of the game for anyone who hasn't played it.

[interface2x]

The song Forsaken (http://www.songmeanings.net/lyric.php?lid=38575) by the band VNV Nation (http://www.vnvnation.com) can get me a little teary on occasion. It's an outburst of grief upon the loss of a loved one that truly sounds like he's devastated. The lyrics alone don't translate as well as when they are in context, unfortunately.

The entire song is based on him trying to release all of his grief at once. Starting out the song with the line "When I have nothing left to feel / When I have nothing left to say / I will let this slip away ..." it continues until he literally says he has nothing left to give. The line that gets me is when he says [quote]Have I done something wrong?
Forgive my need to bleed right now
Please forgive my need to breathe
But I've so much to say

It wouldn't matter anyway
You're not here to hear
These words that I must say[/url]
And the song ends with a sample of a line from the movie "Jacob's Ladder" that nicely ties the whole thing together:
[quote]If you're frightened of dying and you're holding on, you see devils tearing your life away. If you've made your peace ... then the devils are really angels, freeing you from the earth.[/url]

[Askance]

Elvis Costello does it for me. Especially, Alison and The Favourite Hour are guaranteed to raise a tear, they are so plaintive. I'm having the latter played at my funeral - damn it, people are going to cry !.

[buttonjockey308]

Blues Traveler Christmas (http://www.mainstreetmusic.com/cgi-bin/msmusic/LA0001406220.html) is one that gets me blubbering every Christmas. It's the emoting in Josh Popper's voice that does it to me.

[buttonjockey308]

Make that John Popper, and I'm going to bed.

[Ogre]

I came home and was listening to Paul Kelly. He is kind of an Aussie Bob Dylan -writes deceptively simple songs that are just pure genius. However they are very Australian and probably aren't much known overseas. Some are about sport and other distinctly Aussie stuff.

I put the headphones on and was listening to How To Make Gravy for the hundredth time and suddenly out of the blue I understood it all.

The lyrics are here (http://www.paulkelly.com.au/lyrics/how-to-make-gravy.html) and if you are lucky you may find a way to hear it too.

Joe is singing to Dan from jail :

Hello Dan, it's Joe here, I hope you're keeping well
It's the 21st of December, and now they're ringing the last bells
If I get good behaviour, I'll be out of here by July
Won't you kiss my kids on Christmas Day, please don't let 'em cry for me


and then he sings about family stuff....until...

Oh praise the Baby Jesus, have a Merry Christmas,
I'm really gonna miss it, all the treasure and the trash
And later in the evening, I can just imagine,
You'll put on Junior Murray and push the tables back
And you'll dance with Rita, I know you really like her,
Just don't hold her too close, oh brother please don't stab me in the back
I didn't mean to say that, it's just my mind it plays up,
Multiplies each matter, turns imagination into fact...........

And that's it - the way he delivers the line about Dan dancing with Rita and then just drives the song to the end, had me blubbering.


The lyric posted says Junior Murvin but although it is PaulKelly.com I'm sure that is wrong.
Junior Murvin is exactly right. Paul Kelly is a big fan, from what I've read. FWIW, I live in the USA, and I've loved Kelly's music since "Dumb Things," back in '88(?)

[Ogre]

Oh, and Imeant to say that "How to Make Gravy" is a wonderful song, as are most of the songs on that particular album (besides "Gutless Wonder," which I think is unbelievably sub-par.)

[SteveinSpain]

"Atlantic City" by Bruce Springsteen really gets to me as does "She's Leaving Home" by the Beatles.

[Trunk]

I said "pogo stick" the other day and my wife got weepy.

Why?

Because someone in "On the Beach" wanted a pogo stick and the mere mention of that book (and apparently anything related to it) makes her weepy.

And, this is from a woman who doesn't cry at ANYTHING. I think she cried early on when I met her in 1997 (old boyfriend shit), and never again until 2002 when she read "On the Beach".

[Dung Beetle]

This is really stupid, but the other day I ran across "Tie A Yellow Ribbon Round the Old Oak Tree" on the radio. I brought it to the kids' attention and started to explain to them that this song is the reference people are making when they use yellow ribbons to symbolize bringing soldiers home safely, but I was unable to finish speaking because I kept choking up! I had to turn the damn thing off.

[todd33rpm]

Can't watch any of the Christmas standards with the kids because I'll cry my head off.

You name it, if it's "Why Am I Such A Misfit?" from Rudolph, The Red-Nosed Reindeer to Frosty The Snowman to anything from that show about Santa Claus on ABC, I won't be able to talk for the lump in my throat. And it's a cumulative process...I can't get myself back together at all once it starts.

Exceptions: The South Park Christmas shows and the Christmas movies from Mystery Science Theater 3000, but those aren't that music intensive. Thank God.

In "regular" music, a lot of Anne Murray's stuff pre-1975 can get me going, if I'm caught in a bad moment.

Almost any version of "When I Fall In Love" will do it.

Joni Mitchell's title track remake of "Both Sides Now" is a rough one for me to play on the air.

[todd33rpm]

Oh, nearly forgot..."Skywriter" as performed by Art Garfunkel. From the piano intro to the end, I absolutely can't handle it.

[jjimm]

OK, maybe I am a little dense, but how exactly did a deaf guy learn to play the harmonica?
I know the deaf can feel vibrations and can dance quite well, but picking out melodic tones?
Sorry - don't mean to nitpick your song, just curious.I'd imagine he learned to play and dance before he lost his senses.

[gigi]

I don't know the name of it, but some female country singer had a song out in the last couple of years that is a prayer to God not to take her seven year old daughter that is the most tear-jerking thing I ever heard, but I don't know the name of either the artist or the song. I can't even remember enough of the lyrics to google it - I tried.

This Sherrie Austin, "Streets of Heaven".

I also tear up at "Remember When" by Alan Jackson, and "Touch the Wind" by Donovan. Both feel so poignant.

[don't ask]

My country song would have to be 11 year old genius Billy Gilman's One Voice from a few years ago. What happened to him - he was a male Judy Garland. I used to listen to him and found it hard to believe that an 11 year old could manage the delivery of the songs he was doing. He must be a young boy with an old soul.

[TastesLikeBurning]

Jeff Buckley's version of Hallelujah is always guaranteed to make me wistful.

[don't ask]

Jeff Buckley's version of Hallelujah is always guaranteed to make me wistful.

Yet another example of SDMB synchronicity. I heard this version a couple of weeks ago while laying in bed. I only knew of Leonard Cohen's original and had to look up the playlist (http://www.abc.net.au/rage/playlist/archive/2004/20041120.htm) from RAGE! to find out who it was.

[iggy popov]

Looks like Junior Murvin is a reggae artist, so maybe it's right?


Junior Murvin is a reggae artist. He did the original version of "Police and Thieves"

[Infovore]

Two that never fail for me:
Dan Fogelberg's "Run for the Roses" (lyrics (http://www.twin-music.com/azlyrics/f_file/songs/fogelberg/run.html)) ...and I can't even figure out why, because it's a *happy* song!

C. W. McCall's "Roses for Mama" (lyrics (http://www.cw-mccall.com/works/roses/roses.shtml)) - pure schmaltz, but it does it to me every time.

Another one that gets me going if I sit down and listen to it is Assemblage 23's "30KFT" (lyrics (http://s3.invisionfree.com/crying_inside/index.php?showtopic=641&view=getnewpost)) (sorry about the odd location, but the lyrics are a bit hard to find). Not a 9/11 song, but it easily could have been.

[NinjaChick]

Okay, embarrassing confession time. There's a song that I believe was originally by Bob Carlisle, but the only version I've heard was a cover by some contemporary country artist. It's really a wedding song - Butterfly Kisses (http://www.weddingvendors.com/music/lyrics/song-134.html). It's such a sickeningly sweet father-daughter song, and I first heard it when I was, basically, going through a period of reconciling with my dad after a lot of animosity. I'd been a Daddy's Little Girl when I was little, and it just...*snif*.

That, and Colorblind (www.lyricsstyle.com/t/thecountingcrows/colorblind.html) by Counting Crows. That song's just...sad.

[Regallag_The_Axe]

One of the most saddening songs I've heard (it's also just a good song) is Watching Over Me by Iced Earth. Quite a sad story. And it's metal. Some of you may find that wierd, but the genre can have emotions.

[Dung Beetle]

Dan Fogelberg's "Run for the Roses" (lyrics (http://www.twin-music.com/azlyrics/f_file/songs/fogelberg/run.html)) ...and I can't even figure out why, because it's a *happy* song!


They play it before the Kentucky Derby, showing pictures of all the little horses and their mamas, and I bawl.

[Winnie]

When I was pregnant with the Winniebaby, I would bawl everytime I heard Billy Joels "Goodnight Saigon". It still gets to me, but not to the point where I have to pull over to the side of the road anymore.

"Cats in the Cradle" gets to my husband so much. Especially now that he's a father of a new baby boy and thinks about the non-existant relationship he had with his dad when he was young.

Simon and Garfunkel's "Sounds of Silence" reduces me to tears every time.

[Thinks2Much]

This Sherrie Austin, "Streets of Heaven".

I also tear up at "Remember When" by Alan Jackson, and "Touch the Wind" by Donovan. Both feel so poignant.

Thanks! I was hoping someone would identify it for me. :)

[TellMeI'mNotCrazy]

But there was a Christmas song by Aaron Tippen (I believe) that got me a little teary. I can't remember what it was, exactly, except I think it had to do with some homeless guy, and it was a truly bleak song.

[Thinks2Much]

Here is a link (http://www.coquet-shack.com/lyrics/Austin_Sherrie/Streets_Of_Heaven_2118.htm) to the lyrics of the song I mentioned - It hits home for me so badly because my best friend lost her three year old daughter in a car accident on Christmas eve of 2002 and nearly lost her (at the time) 7 year old daughter in the same accident as well. The girl was in a coma for over two months (and here it is nearly 2 years later and she still isn't back to normal function, but at least she is here). How any parent can read/hear these words and not cry is beyond me. In listening to it, the tone of voice really makes a difference - these words almost sound arrogant or selfish when reading, but she doesn't sing it that way - she sings it like she knows she can't win but just had to ask anyway.

[Cajun Man]

This thread is better suited for Cafe Society. I'll move it for you.

Cajun Man
for the SDMB

[jsgoddess]

For some inexplicable reason, I'm bawling every time I hear the Trans Siberian Orchestra's Christmas version of Pachelbel's Canon in D.

Something about children's choirs can do me in.

It's not sad! It's pretty! *sob*


Israel Kamakawiwo'ole's version of "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" makes me cry and then Eva Cassidy sings it and I'm bawling and then Sting sings "Fields of Gold" and I'm hysterical and then Eva sings it and, well, it's not pretty, people. My face puffs up like the Michelin Man.

I think this should be a signal never to listen to Eva Cassidy, but I would rather cry than give her up.

[phaishazamkhan]

Psht, I must be a mouth breathing philistine. Glycerine by Bush, Johnny Cash's cover of Hurt and Disarm by Smashing Pumpkins make me cry.

[brianjedi]

Jeff Buckley's version of Hallelujah is always guaranteed to make me wistful.

Amen. That song is POWERFUL.

[tracer]

Bah. None of those songs can hold a candle to ABBA's "Our Last Summer" in the tearjerker department.

(At least, until it gets to the last verse about working in a bank.)

[HelloKitty]

Right after 09-11-01 the song Superman by Five For Fighting took on a whole new meaning and caused the tears to fall frequently.

[todd33rpm]

This album (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B00005NY8B/qid=1102136028/sr=8-2/ref=pd_csp_2/103-5401104-7294249?v=glance&s=classical&n=507846) by Libera, a boys' choir from England, especially the title track, which is a reworking of Clair De Lune. I've almost given this disc away more than once because I could hear it in any context and cry like a little girl.

If you're looking for an excuse to cry...a lot...buy this album.

At first I thought it was just me, then I played the title track for a couple coworkers and we ALL had the same reaction - one even ran out of the room.

[InternetLegend]

the one that gets my big hairy self blubbering every stinking time is Keep Me In Your Heart by Warren Zevon. Listening to the lyrics while remembering he wrote the song knowing he had terminal cancer with little time to live just makes it even more moving.His "Don't Let Us Get Sick" (http://members.aol.com/zevonfan1/private/lky.html#lky#11) does the same to me, and no less so even though he wrote it before he was diagnosed.

"Nightswimming" (http://www.murmurs.com/index.php?page=lyrics&album_id=3&song_id=151), by R.E.M. always does it, and when it's followed immediately by "Find The River (http://www.murmurs.com/index.php?page=lyrics&album_id=3&song_id=23), I'm invariably bawling like a baby by the time the final notes fade away. The wistful nostalgia in the lines, "Nightswimming deserves a quiet night/I'm not sure all these people understand/It's not like years ago,/The fear of getting caught,/of recklessness and water" and the lines, "The river to the ocean goes,/a fortune for the undertow" do it to me every time.

[jsgoddess]

This album (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B00005NY8B/qid=1102136028/sr=8-2/ref=pd_csp_2/103-5401104-7294249?v=glance&s=classical&n=507846) by Libera, a boys' choir from England, especially the title track, which is a reworking of Clair De Lune. I've almost given this disc away more than once because I could hear it in any context and cry like a little girl.

Oh dear. I found a link with an excerpt.

I tell you, there's something about children's choirs.

And Clair de Lune is one of my very favorite pieces of music ever, so it's a double whammy.

[todd33rpm]

I seriously worry about playing "Luminosa" on the Christmas edition of my radio show, so I may have to bury it in a three-song set so I have a couple minutes to calm myself down. It's not that I don't like the song...I mean, I want people to hear it, but whether I'll be able to keep my composure long enough to back-announce it is another crockpot o' hot cider entirely.

At first, I worried more about the possibility of listeners having the same reaction, but would pulling off the road and parking the car and NOT stressing out our fellow travelers for a few minutes in the holiday season be a bad thing?

Normally I'm indifferent about children's choirs, but this piece changed my mind. Amazingly, the first time I heard it was on an episode of Music From The Hearts Of Space on public radio, near the holidays a couple years ago...not the place I would normally expect to find something like that. It hit me like a brick.

[Proudest Monkey]

Yes, I'm embarrassed to admit this one. It was played at my brother's wedding (I was 8 months pregnant and full of mind-altering hormones), and I wept--We've Only Just Begun by The Carpenters. I'm not a huge Carpenters fan, but Karen C's voice is so poignant and wistful and hopeful during this song. . . well, it still gets to me today.

Just last week, I waited in the car while my husband went into his favorite tobacco shop for some cigars. As I watched the cars stream past on route 4, the song popped into my head. I started singing it to myself to see if I could analyze why it makes me so misty. I had to stop because I didn't want him to come out with his stinky turd sticks (just kidding--I don't mind his cigars) and find me in a sobbing wet heap on the passenger seat.

p.s. My brother was divorced 4 years later.

p.p.s. If my daughter plays this song at her wedding, I am doomed.

p.p.p.s. I'm doing it again and I need to stop. So much of life ahead, we'll find a place where there's room to grow... sob.

[TastesLikeBurning]

This thread reminded to add Jeff Buckley - Live at Sin-é to Windows Media Player.

Disc 2 has a nine minute version of Hallelujah that is breathtaking.

[Tangent]

My Immortal - by Evanescence (http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/evanescence/myimmortal.html)

This song reaches deep down into my soul and stirs up old memories and feelings I'd thought were faded and gone, making them seem new and fresh and painful again. Beautiful lyrics, beautifully performed. I hate it, but I love it.

[todd33rpm]

So I made the mistake of landing on the ABC Family channel tonight.

Yup. The animated 'Twas The Night Before Christmas. "Even A Miracle Needs A Hand" hadn't even gotten through the first flippin' verse and I'm sittin' there snorkin' like an espresso machine.

God, I'm such a puss.

[mangeorge]

The guitar work near the end of the Eagles' Hotel California on Hell Freezes Over. Some other instrumental stuff, mostly guitar. Cello, too.
Not happy or sad. Just, I don't know, beautiful.
Peace,
mangeorge

[MrJones]

Joey from Bob Dylan always puts a lump in my throat, especially near the end when he sings
I saw the old man's limosene
head back towards the grave
I guess he had to say one last goodbye
to the son that he could not save

R.E.M.'s Nightswimming also gets me choked up. That entire album (Automatic For The People) is very beautiful but kind of sad, but Nightswimming gets me the hardest.

[Crandolph]

This is really stupid, but the other day I ran across "Tie A Yellow Ribbon Round the Old Oak Tree" on the radio. I brought it to the kids' attention and started to explain to them that this song is the reference people are making when they use yellow ribbons to symbolize bringing soldiers home safely, but I was unable to finish speaking because I kept choking up! I had to turn the damn thing off.

Uh...hate to "spoil" your downer, but that's probably a song about a guy being released from prison (http://www.loc.gov/folklife/ribbons/ribbons_81.html), and is possibly based on a true story. That's why there's suspense as to whether or not she still wants him...

My short list: "Solitary Man" (the Neil Diamond original and the Johnny Cash version)

"The Long Cigarette" by The Roulettes, a UK beat band in 1965 or so ("baby" is late to the bar, his friends are sure he's been dumped, "baby" does show up... very sweet song, filled with all the fears of unrequited love)

"Small Town Commotion" The Visions - small town burns to the ground, US psych band c. 1968

"Old Rivers" Walter Brennan
"Mr. Bojangles" Nitty Gritty Dirt Band
"Burial Waltz" Fugs

I'm a sucker for this stuff... :p

[Kid_A]

:o I cried tonight at a song. I was watching the Punk Show on Much Music (Canada's MTV) and they played the Redemption Song by Joe Strummer and the Mescaleros, the Bob Marley cover. Wow, it was a great video on Joe's life and a great song to boot. And much to my surprise, it started to get a bit dusty in the room and I began to well up.

It really surprised me, I mean I love The Clash, but London Calling was released 4 years before I was born.

We miss you Joe.

[Crandolph]

Oh yeah, "Sam Stone" esp. the Swamp Dogg version:

"There's a hole in daddy's arm where the money goes
Jesus Christ died for nothin', I suppose..."

[Scissorjack]

"Better Be Home Soon", by Crowded House: borrowed their "Best Of" from an Aussie friend while I was living in Japan, put it on one night, and for a seven year Kiwi ex-pat - yes, I cried.

[Anastasaeon]

30Kft (http://www.leoslyrics.com/listlyrics.php;jsessionid=34FF9B6C74FC9B695F576D7954256AF2?hid=OmTcKVdIZD4%3D) by Assemblage 23.

[zephyrine]

"I Tried to Leave You" by Leonard Cohen. It doesn't make me cry, but it's so damn SAD!

"Johnny Come Home" by the Fine Young Cannibals: I have to leave the room. It reminded me of my then boyfriend at the time, and he died of an overdose a few years later.

[Liz]

:o I cried tonight at a song. I was watching the Punk Show on Much Music (Canada's MTV) and they played the Redemption Song by Joe Strummer and the Mescaleros, the Bob Marley cover. Wow, it was a great video on Joe's life and a great song to boot. And much to my surprise, it started to get a bit dusty in the room and I began to well up.

It really surprised me, I mean I love The Clash, but London Calling was released 4 years before I was born.

We miss you Joe.
Listening to Joey Ramone's cover of "It's a Wonderful World" gets me every time. I think it's knowing that he was dying of lymphoma when he recorded it that gets me. To be dying and still be able to sing that song.. wow.

[look!ninjas]

I'll third Jeff Buckley's "Hallelujah" and second "Hurt" by Johnny Cash. It doesn't hit me so hard now, but right after he died... I couldn't listen to it for a while.

"Black Sheep Boy" by Pierce Pettis hits me pretty hard, although I'm not sure why. It's the line in the last verse where he sings "I'm startled by the silence / The minute that he's gone." Chokes me right up.

[Nobody]

Embarassed to admit - but always get a tear in my eye when I hear 'Puff the Magic Dragon'. Poor Puff. :(
Hehehe, although I don't cry, for some reason, I do feel kind of sad when I heard, despite the fact that it's purely fictional.

The only song that ever really gets to me is Cat's in the Cradle. I don't cry, but all my life, every time I hear it (well, the original version anyway) it bums me out.
My parents never married and I only visited my dad from time to time until he died a couple of years ago.

[AuntiePam]

Where've You Been by Kathy Mattea -- you'd need a heart of stone to get through that without crying. How did she manage to sing it?

La Vie En Rose sung by Edith Piaf

We'll Meet Again -- either the one from Dr. Strangelove by Vera Lynn or Johnny Cash's rendition

[Wile E]

I also cry over "Run for the Roses", not sure why.

The one that gets me really weepy is Josh Groban's "To Where You Are".

And I am such a nerd that most of the songs from the Lord of The Rings movies get me teared up, especially "Into the West".

[Wile E]

Another one is the song from Madame Butterfly, "Un Bel Di, Vedremo". I have no idea what's she's singing but it seems very sad.

[Nightingale]

Sunrays and Saturdays (http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/verticalhorizon/sunraysandsaturdays.html) by Vertical Horizon gets me every time (and my husband, too). I think it's because it summarizes the point our relationship had reached about a year ago. Even though we're better (and having a baby!), hearing that song brings back every bit of the heartache I felt then.

Actually, I started to cry while reading the lyrics just now.

[mangeorge]

Actually, pretty much all of Johnny Cash's last double can move me. Even the obvious Give My Love to Rose. And the one where he (accidentally?) shoots a man. So real. It's the way he sings. Pure, and simple.

[casdave]

Natalie Merchant -------- Life is sweet - From the CD Ophelia

Black ----------------------- Wonderful life, this song is pretty much about grief though the lyrics are not that obvious they become so when the music is added.

http://www.lyricsbox.com/47-black-lyrics-wonderful-life-29dmbw2.html

The Beatles -------------- Song for No-one - from the "Revolver Album". When someone leaves you and leaves you in an empty house this can really cut.

Mary Chapin-Carpenter- Only a dream - From the album "Come on come on". Just voice and piano, about an elder sister leaving home, its a very initmate personal song.

Tim Hardin ---------------- Reason to Believe. Now on the"Hang on to a dream" anthology, sad that he could write something like this and be pretty much lost for most of the rest of his life to drugs, who know what else he might have achieved

McIain of Glencoe ------- Moira Kerr, from the album titled to the song. It's pretty much an old Scottish poem set to music about the massacre of the McDonalds at the hands of the Campbells, this is a keening lament.

Same 'oul town ---------- The Sawdocters. You might want to check them out, this is about the frustrations of a restless Irish serf stuck in a hard life in a mundane litle town with no future.

I'm a dreamer ------------ Sandy Denny. From the CD set 'Who knows where the time goes'. The song is about a woman agonising wether she should leave her partner, in the end she makes the decision to go, but its a tough call. Shes much better knwon for her work with Richard Thompson who wrote much of her repertoire, this song is heartbreaking.

She's gone ---------------- Darryl Hall & John Oates, you need a live in relationship breakup to feel the full force of this song, what comes as a surprise to me is that these two could produce something so exceptional from all their very average stuff.

Fields of Gold ------------- Eva Cassidy. Penned and originally sung by sting, Eva Cassidy adds a winsome sound that completes it, one of the very few covers that is better than the original, she's sadly missed.

Angel ---------------------- Sarah McLachlan. Her voice just cuts straight through any hard shell you might have developed, clean into your heart. I defy anyone not to be moved by this song.

http://www.lyricsfreak.com/s/sarah-mclachlan/121956.html

When she loved me---Sarah McLachlan. From the film 'Toy StoryII'. Again she just bypasses all your cynical defenses, true its just about a rag doll, true its a bit mushy, and yet it still reaches in there because of the way she sings.

http://www.lyricsfreak.com/s/sarah-mclachlan/122004.html

[Sam Stone]

Another John Prine song: Hello in There. It makes me think of my grandparents every time I hear it:


We had an apartment in the city,
Me and Loretta liked living there.
Well, it's been years since the kids had grown,
A life of their own,
Left us alone.

John and Linda live in Omaha,
And Joe is somewhere on the road.
We lost Davy in the Korean war,
And I still don't know what for,
Don't matter anymore.

Chorus:
Ya' know that old trees just grow stronger,
And old rivers grow wilder ev'ry day.
Old people just grow lonesome
Waiting for someone to say,
"Hello in there... hello."

[Crandolph]

"Touch the Wind" by Donovan. Both feel so poignant.

"Catch the Wind"?

[zoogirl]

http://www.alicecoopertrivia.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/lyrics/hs.php#6

This is the song that's making me misty right now. There's a bit in it that just gets me. The chorus is -

I'm on the roof and I'm staring at the stars
looking down at all the cars
I can see you
In the window of your favorite corner bar
But to reach is just too far
And I might as well be on Mars...

So, he's on the roof and he's pretty upset, right? At one point there's a bit of a bridge and the way Alice sings it - well, I didn't connect it the first couple of times and then I realized.

He's thinking he should just go over.

The line is -

Baby, I can't fly
If I could, I'd come down to you
Maybe I should try...


Oh, damn.

[Dung Beetle]

Uh...hate to "spoil" your downer, but that's probably a song about a guy being released from prison (http://www.loc.gov/folklife/ribbons/ribbons_81.html), and is possibly based on a true story. That's why there's suspense as to whether or not she still wants him...


I know what the song is really about, and I still just about lost it. Everything makes me cry these days; apparently I'm getting soft in my old age.
Another lame one: Coven's One Tin Soldier. I'll be singing along, and when I get to the line "Peace on earth" was all it said my throat closes right up.

[gigi]

"Catch the Wind"?
Thank you, yes. :o

There's also a version of "Redemption Song" (mentioned above) by Stevie Wonder, on the "Get on the Bus" soundtrack, that has a very stirring sound to it.

[KRC]

I cried over Iggy Pop's song The Passenger . It seems to be about a guy who drifts through life observing things rather than actually living. Hit a little to close to home, I guess.

One corny song that would probably make me cry is Romance del Enamorado y la Muerte , a medieval Andalusian folk song redone in 1967 by Chilean singer Victor Jara. In it a man discovers death is coming for him, begs death for a day to live, and gets an hour. He rushes to his girlfriend's house but she can't let him in because her parents are home. She offers to make a cord of silk so he can climb into the window (yeah, I said the song is kind of corny .) The cord breaks, death arrives, and the girlfriend decides to go off and die with her lover. I had a recording of it on tape but my parrots ate it. That was 20 years ago and I'd probably cry if I got to hear it again.

[Infovore]

[url] Baby, I can't fly
If I could, I'd come down to you
Maybe I should try...


Oh, damn.

Oh, yeah! That's been one of my favorite Alice Cooper songs for a long time. That line doesn't make me misty but it makes me kind of tingly because it's so intense. In my mind I always picture him jumping off a big tall stack of amps as he sings it. (If there's a video I've never seen it, and I've never seen him in concert, but that's what I picture anyway).

[EmeraldGrue]

"What A Good Boy" by the Barenaked Ladies (the live version) gets me all sniffly. And any version of "Country Roads", no matter how punk-like the cover is.

[maikai]

The Blower's Daughter by Damien Rice. The way he sings "I can't take my eyes off of you," oh man.

Please Forgive Me by David Gray.

"I got half a mind to scream out loud
I got half a mind to die
So I won’t ever have to lose you girl
Won’t ever have to say goodbye
I won’t ever have to lie
Won’t ever have to say goodbye."

[mangeorge]

Sting and Police, Roxanne.
Probably because I knew a Roxanne.
Tellin' stuff right outta my soul now. :eek:
Peace,
mangeorge

[Chanteuse]

Where've You Been by Kathy Mattea -- you'd need a heart of stone to get through that without crying. How did she manage to sing it

Oh, I agree! And how about How Can I Help You To Say Goodbye by Patty Loveless? From what I heard, it took several takes before she got through it without tears. I've never been able to sing it without crying.

And Streets of Heaven and Teddy Bear always get to me, too!

He Stopped Loving Her Today--I never much cared for the song, I found it too depressing. Then a few years ago, my ex-BIL, despondent over many things, including his twice-failed marriage, committed suicide. Now I can't bear to hear the song at all, because it makes me think of him and the pain he must have been in.

[TellMeI'mNotCrazy]

And Streets of Heaven and Teddy Bear always get to me, too!




Oh good, I was starting to wonder if I was either a) the only one who knew the song or b) the only one reduced to tears by it.

Although, my dad also gets choked up by it. If you ever saw him, you'd likely vote him the least likely to get choked up by anything, much less by Teddy Bear.

[coleridge78]

I'll have to take John Cale's version of "Hallelujah".

Tim (The Real) Buckley's "Dolphins".

"And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda", to bring back the Aussie theme.

--
And when the ship pulled into Circular Quay
I looked at the place where me legs used to be
And thank Christ there was no one there waiting for me
To grieve and to mourn and to pity

And the Band played Waltzing Matilda
When they carried us down the gangway
Oh nobody cheered, they just stood there and stared
Then they turned all their faces away ...

[Ol'Gaffer]

Wow...what timing coleridge78..I was just going to post Waltzing Matilda...not that I cry or anything, but my allergies do seem to act up when I hear it. ;)

I'm also, ahem, affected by The Town I Loved So Well by The Dubliners.

[coleridge78]

I'm also, ahem, affected by The Town I Loved So Well by The Dubliners.

Oooo, good one. How 'bout the Chieftains version of Coast of Malabar.

[TastesLikeBurning]

Originally posted by coleridge78 - Tim (The Real) Buckley's "Dolphins".

What do you mean by that?

[coleridge78]

What do you mean by that?

Tim Buckley, Jeff Buckley's father. Just my personal preference... I like Jeff's stuff, but it always, to me, sounded like a conservative version of his dad. Eh. Different strokes.

[TastesLikeBurning]

Tim Buckley, Jeff Buckley's father. Just my personal preference... I like Jeff's stuff, but it always, to me, sounded like a conservative version of his dad. Eh. Different strokes.

If by conservative you mean more coherent and accessible, then I'd have to agree. Other than that, you're spot on in regards to personal preference.

Have you read "Dream Brother"?

If you're a fan of either, it's quite an insight into both of their lives with the book equally split into covering Tim and Jeff.

[Tracy Lord]

"And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda", to bring back the Aussie theme.

--
And when the ship pulled into Circular Quay
I looked at the place where me legs used to be
And thank Christ there was no one there waiting for me
To grieve and to mourn and to pity

And the Band played Waltzing Matilda
When they carried us down the gangway
Oh nobody cheered, they just stood there and stared
Then they turned all their faces away ...

I opened this thread just to post this song -- although the verse you quoted isn't the one that does it for me:

For I'll go no more waltzing Matilda
All around the green bush far and free
To hump tent and pegs, a man needs both legs
No more waltzing Matilda for me.

Which gets me sniffling through the rest of the song, until the last verses, which make me cry in these gut-wrenching, choking sobs:

And so now every April I sit on my porch,
And I watch the parade pass before me
And I see my old comrades, how proudly they march
Reviving part dreams of old glory

Those old men march slowly, old bones stiff and sore
They're tired old heroes of a forgotten war
And the young people ask, 'what are they marching for?'
And I ask myself the same question

And the band plays Waltzing Matilda
And the old men still answer the call
But as year follows year, more old men disappear
Someday no one will march there at all.

[Sam Stone]

How about, "You Are My Sunshine?" So many people think it's a happy song...


The other night dear, as I lay sleeping
I dreamed I held you in my arms
But when I awoke, dear, I was mistaken
And so I hung my head and I cried.

You are my sunshine, my only sunshine
You make me happy when skies are gray
You'll never know dear, how much I love you
Please don't take my sunshine away

I'll always love you and make you happy,
If you will only say the same.
But if you leave me and love another,
You'll regret it all some day:

You are my sunshine, my only sunshine
You make me happy when skies are gray
You'll never know dear, how much I love you
Please don't take my sunshine away

You told me once, dear, you really loved me
And no one else could come between.
But now you've left me to love another;
You have shattered all of my dreams:

You are my sunshine, my only sunshine
You make me happy when skies are gray
You'll never know dear, how much I love you
Please don't take my sunshine away

In all my dreams, dear, you seem to leave me
When I awake my poor heart pains.
So when you come back and make me happy
I'll forgive you dear, I'll take all the blame.

You are my sunshine, my only sunshine
You make me happy when skies are gray
You'll never know dear, how much I love you
Please don't take my sunshine away

[koeeoaddi]

Joni Mitchell is the Queen of Sobs:

Song for Sharon:

A woman I knew just drowned herself
The well was deep and muddy
She was just shaking off futility
Or punishing somebody
My friends were calling up all day yesterday
All emotions and abstractions
It seems we all live so close to that line
And so far from satisfaction.

Down to You

In the morning there are lovers in the street
They look so high
You brush against a stranger
And you both apologize
Old friends seem indifferent
You must have brought that on
Old bonds have broken down
Love is gone

I Had a King

I had a king in a tenement castle
Lately he's taken to painting the pastel walls brown
He's taken the curtains down
He's swept with the broom of contempt
And the rooms have an empty ring
He's cleaned with the tears
Of an actor who fears for the laughter's sting-

I can't go back there anymore
You know my keys won't fit the door
You know my thoughts don't fit the man
They never can they never can

:(

[coleridge78]

Have you read "Dream Brother"?


No. I'll look out for it. Books about musicians that I love are almost always disappointing... but on the other hand, Joe Klein's Woody Guthrie bio is my all-time favorite (so much so that I still owe a replacement copy to the Perrysburg OH public library, oops), so one never knows!

[LtningBug]

Count me as a complete weirdo, 'cause Death Cab for Cutie's album Transatlanticism just about puts me over the edge. The darned album is just so completely depressing that I can't hardly do anything but cry. Especially "Tiny Little Vessels":
so one last touch and then you'll go
and we'll pretend that it meant something so much more
but it was vile, and it was cheap
and you are beautiful but you don't mean a thing to me
yeah you are beautiful but you don't mean a thing to me
Not only are the lyrics sad, the melody and chord progression just ooze with sadness.

It mostly hits me because I listened to it a few too many times during a breakup with a girl who was beautiful and meant a heck of a lot to me.

Try listening to that and then watching Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. That's something I won't ever do again. Depressing.

Unfortunately, I really like Transatlanticism, and I thought Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind was great, but they're both off limits for me now, 'cause I hate feeling that depressed. Just thinking about this is getting my eyes watery and putting a lump in my throat.

[colour wolf]

Billy Bragg has several weepy songs, the most obvious being Tank Park Salute, about his recently deceased father.

Some photographs of a summer's day
A little boy's lifetime away
Is all I've left of everything we've done
Like a pale moon in a sunny sky
Death gazes down as I pass by
To remind me that I'm but my father's son

[scabpicker]

I'll have to second "He Stopped Loving Her Today". It is about as predictable a song as there is, but I have to pull over if it comes on the radio. I'll add another second for Mr. Cash's "We'll Meet Again", but the one from Dr. Strangelove just makes me smile.

"You are My Sunshine" makes me cry too, if the right person does it.

I will have to add Robert Johnson's "Love In Vain" as well. Willfully helping someone leave you will make me cry every time.