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.
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.
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.
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.
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).
“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.
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.”
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.
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.
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 …
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.
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.*
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
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!
