Do you have songs, or singers, that you can’t listen to any more because their music is just_too_sad? I have a few.
Nina Simone doing ‘I Loves You Porgy.’ I can’t take it when she sings ‘Don’t let him handle me…’
Just about any Abbey Lincoln. She used to be one of my favorites. But I’ve seen her perform a few times, and, man, her anguish is so palpable. It hurts just to look at her. I have a bunch of her records I don’t listen to any more.
Syd Straw’s brilliant album ‘War and Peace.’ If I’m not bawling after ‘Time Has Done This,’ ‘CBGB’s’ always gets me. I played this for a friend recently. Big mistake. I’m still not over it.
There’s this one Rosemary Clooney number. I don’t know the name of it, probably because I practically go into anaphylactic shock when I hear it on the radio. Fortunately, my wife has trained herself to automatically switch the station if it comes on.
Last one. The soundtrack to ‘Rent.’ Just went to see it, it was so beautiful, the music and the voices, like angels, I’m telling you. I wept continuously throughout the second half of the first act. The ‘just today’ song, the one the homeless do, ‘will i die with dignity…’. Man. The wife came home with the soundtrack and I had to ask her to take it to work because just seeing the cover makes me weepy.
OK, that’s it. Boy, am I glad I got that off my chest.
How about you, Dopers? Go ahead, you’ll feel better.
hmmm, if one applies that criterion, britney would be at teh top of that list for me. id rather be forced to watch reruns of the old bobby vinton show.
wolfstu, would you be more specific as to which billy joel songs you are referring, unless that would be too painful, of course.
When Jennifer Holliday sings {And I’m Telling You} I’m Not Going, the hairs stand up on the back of my neck.
The song is really about a pathetically dependant woman, but when Jennifer begs her man to keep her I can feel her desperation in the pit of my stomach.
Wild Horses (The Rolling Stones) always gets me. It has a few personal associations that jolt my emotions. I also feel a pull when I hear Jezebel, by 10,000 maniacs. It’s a painful song.
I love Irish traditional music, quite a few songs bring a tear to my eye (even when they are in Gaelic and I have no idea what they are on about). In fact, any Irish traditional song in which fewer than 3 people die is actualy quite a cheery one.
Kenny Rogers’ ‘Twenty Years Ago.’ Ohmigawd. I heard it for the first time when my mom and sister pulled me, kicking and screaming, to a concert of his. My sister’s a HUGE fan, and my brother toured with him for a bit. Anywhoo, I don’t know exactly what it was about that song and that moment, but I BAWLED at the concert, and 14 years later still can’t listen to it without tearing up.
Puff the magic dragon does it for me, too. Damn that little Johnny boy.
Lorenna McKennet’s ‘Highwayman’. (yes, I spelled her name wrong. Brain still not up and functioning, too lazy to get out CD.) Actually, most of her stuff affects me that way… so do Clannad and Anuna.
Memory, from Cats, if I’m feeling extreme self-pity at the moment. That whole ‘I can smile at the old days, I was beautiful then’ sometimes hits too close to home.
‘Hearts’ by Yes.
Most recently, ‘Chances Are,’ the duet by Vonda Shepard and Robert Downey, Jr.
Man, I was thinking I’d have nothing to add to this list, then someone mentioned Puff. God, that song used to make me bawl when I was a little kid. I hated it. Hated, hated, hated. My fourth grade music teacher, on the other hand, loved it. After about a month, I begged him to stop making us sing it, and he took pity on me. “Little Jackie Paper, loved that dragon Puff…” My eyes are stinging right now, and I don’t even remember anymore lyrics. How Pavlovian.
Not too much that makes it onto a radio can touch me much, except Kansas’ Dust in the Wind and Mason Proffit’s Two Hangmen (Hangin’ in a Tree)
Dust in the Wind gives me kind of a lonely morose feeling, like I’m the last person left alive on Earth, and sitting on top of a desolate mountain peak.
Probably due to an incident in basic training.
Two Hangmen is the quintessential '60s protest song.
Oddly enough, though, Beethoven’s Fur Elsie, Handel’s Messiah, quite a bit from Enigma, and Orff’s O Fortuna! can kind of get to me.
And the usual suspects: the Navy Hymm (O Father, Strong To Save) and Amazing Grace. Especially done to pipes.
essvee, I definately can’t answer for wolfstu, but I was going to say Lullabye (Goodnight, My Angel). Knowing the background of the song makes it worse; just too sweet and sad at the same time.
Come to Me (Fantine’s Death) from Les Miserables does it to me. Luckily, I only listen to Les Mis when I feel like making myself cry.
I also have a ‘depression’ tape that I listen to when I’m sad. None of the songs are particularly sad themselves, but they all have a personal meaning to me. Most of the songs I associate with a broken heart, one reminds me of a friend who died.
Rose
Thanks!