# A song makes me burst into tears. **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [December 2, 2004, 3:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-song-makes-me-burst-into-tears/277699 "2004-12-02T15:34:15Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![todd33rpm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/a5b964/32.png) [@todd33rpm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/todd33rpm)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2004, 2:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-song-makes-me-burst-into-tears/277699/61 "2004-12-05T02:01:33Z")
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. ---
**Author:** ![mangeorge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d78d45/32.png) [@mangeorge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mangeorge)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2004, 5:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-song-makes-me-burst-into-tears/277699/62 "2004-12-05T05:27:12Z")
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 ---
**Author:** ![MrJones](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/eb9ed0/32.png) [@MrJones](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrJones)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2004, 6:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-song-makes-me-burst-into-tears/277699/63 "2004-12-05T06:08:12Z")
_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. ---
**Author:** ![Crandolph](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/7cd45c/32.png) [@Crandolph](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crandolph)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2004, 6:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-song-makes-me-burst-into-tears/277699/64 "2004-12-05T06:52:52Z")
> [@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. 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… 😛 ---
**Author:** ![Kid\_A\_1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ed8c4c/32.png) [@Kid\_A\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kid_A_1)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2004, 7:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-song-makes-me-burst-into-tears/277699/65 "2004-12-05T07:10:47Z")
: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. ---
**Author:** ![Crandolph](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/7cd45c/32.png) [@Crandolph](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crandolph)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2004, 7:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-song-makes-me-burst-into-tears/277699/66 "2004-12-05T07:15:54Z")
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…” ---
**Author:** ![Scissorjack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c67d28/32.png) [@Scissorjack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scissorjack)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2004, 12:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-song-makes-me-burst-into-tears/277699/67 "2004-12-05T12:05:57Z")
“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. ---
**Author:** ![Anastasaeon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/73ab20/32.png) [@Anastasaeon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anastasaeon)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2004, 12:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-song-makes-me-burst-into-tears/277699/68 "2004-12-05T12:36:25Z")
[30Kft](http://www.leoslyrics.com/listlyrics.php;jsessionid=34FF9B6C74FC9B695F576D7954256AF2?hid=OmTcKVdIZD4%3D) by Assemblage 23. ---
**Author:** ![zephyrine](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/35a633/32.png) [@zephyrine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zephyrine)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2004, 3:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-song-makes-me-burst-into-tears/277699/69 "2004-12-05T15:04:32Z")
“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. ---
**Author:** ![Liz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/liz/32/17737_2.png) [@Liz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liz)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2004, 3:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-song-makes-me-burst-into-tears/277699/70 "2004-12-05T15:12:34Z")
> [@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. 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. ---
**Author:** ![look\_ninjas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/b2d939/32.png) [@look\_ninjas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/look_ninjas)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2004, 3:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-song-makes-me-burst-into-tears/277699/71 "2004-12-05T15:15:11Z")
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. ---
**Author:** ![Nobody](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/94ad74/32.png) [@Nobody](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nobody)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2004, 4:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-song-makes-me-burst-into-tears/277699/72 "2004-12-05T16:24:11Z")
> [@Girl From Mars](#): > > 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. ---
**Author:** ![AuntiePam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f19dbf/32.png) [@AuntiePam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AuntiePam)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2004, 4:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-song-makes-me-burst-into-tears/277699/73 "2004-12-05T16:41:45Z")
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 ---
**Author:** ![Wile\_E](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c37758/32.png) [@Wile\_E](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wile_E)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2004, 4:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-song-makes-me-burst-into-tears/277699/74 "2004-12-05T16:52:20Z")
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”. ---
**Author:** ![Wile\_E](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c37758/32.png) [@Wile\_E](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wile_E)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2004, 5:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-song-makes-me-burst-into-tears/277699/75 "2004-12-05T17:26:24Z")
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. ---
**Author:** ![Nightingale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecae2f/32.png) [@Nightingale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nightingale)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2004, 9:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-song-makes-me-burst-into-tears/277699/76 "2004-12-05T21:25:40Z")
[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. ---
**Author:** ![mangeorge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d78d45/32.png) [@mangeorge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mangeorge)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2004, 9:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-song-makes-me-burst-into-tears/277699/77 "2004-12-05T21:37:16Z")
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. ---
**Author:** ![casdave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c6cbf5/32.png) [@casdave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/casdave)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2004, 10:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-song-makes-me-burst-into-tears/277699/78 "2004-12-05T22:45:03Z")
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](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](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](http://www.lyricsfreak.com/s/sarah-mclachlan/122004.html) ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2004, 1:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-song-makes-me-burst-into-tears/277699/79 "2004-12-06T01:44:09Z")
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.” ---
**Author:** ![Crandolph](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/7cd45c/32.png) [@Crandolph](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crandolph)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2004, 7:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-song-makes-me-burst-into-tears/277699/80 "2004-12-06T07:39:49Z")
> [@gigi](#): > > “Touch the Wind” by Donovan. Both feel so poignant. “_Catch_ the Wind”? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-song-makes-me-burst-into-tears/277699.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-song-makes-me-burst-into-tears/277699.md?page=5)