Every single time, and sometimes even merely the first bar:
Amazing Grace (any version)
Freebird (Skynard, of course)
Two out of three ain’t bad (meatloaf)
Jet plane (PP&M only, John Denver just makes me snicker)
That stupid Country song about his grandma leaving grandpa a note under the stupid tree.
Yep. I’m a weepy dork.
Another vote for 30K ft, by Assemblage. The first time I heard it, I’d borrowed the cd from friend, and was listening to it straight through. I was on the computer, and halfway through I just started helplessly sobbing.
It came on my mp3 player when I was dowtown today, and I had to skip it.
Forever, by Bruderschaft (sp?) sometimes does it, too.
My husband has started tearing up when The Ballad of Serenity Valley plays. Yeah, the [Firefly theme.
Repeats of other posters:
Annie Lennox - “Into the West”
Johnny Cash’s cover of NIN’s “Hurt”
My contribution: Rufus Wainwright, “Hallelujah”
“Maybe I’ve been here before
I know this room, I’ve walked this floor
I used to live alone before I knew you
I’ve seen your flag on the marble arch
love is not a victory march
It’s a cold and it’s a broken hallelujah”
Love songs don’t make me tear up, and ‘sad’ songs rarely do, either. Only exception:Travel by The Gathering. It’s a song about Mozart, and to get the full effect you really need to see them perform it live, as Anneke van Giersbergen kind of goes into her own world as she sings and really just emotes…there’s a point in the song toward the end where she sings:
*I wish you knew
your music was to stay forever
And I hope…
I have no clue
if you know how much it matters
And I hope… *
It’s just a very touching tribute to a musical genius, and how his music has truly endured and inspired her.
Grr, forgot one. It’s sappy, but Robbie Williams’ “Nan’s Song” (about his deceased grandmother looking after him from beyond) brings tears to my eyes too.
Steve Goodman’s rendition of The Dutchman.
*
The Dutchman still wears wooden shoes.
His cap and coat are patched with the love that Margaret sewed there.
Sometimes he thinks he’s still in Rotterdam.
He watches the tug-boats down canals
And calls out to them when he thinks he knows the captain
Till Margaret comes to take him home again
Through unforgiving streets that trip him, though she holds his arm.
Sometimes he thinks he’s alone and he calls her name.
Let us go to the banks of the ocean
Where the walls rise above the Zuider Zee.
Long ago, I used to be a young man
And dear Margaret remembers that for me.*
I am a caretaker for my mother here. She has Parkinson’s and some dementia.
“When She Loved Me” by Sarah McLachlan, from “Toy Story 2” gets to me every time.
*So the years went by, I stayed the same
And she began to drift away, I was left alone
Still i waited for the day, when she’d say “I will always love you.”
Lonely and forgotten, never thought she’d look my way,
She smiled at me and held me, just like she used to do,
Like she loved me, when she loved me*
Starting Over Again by Natalie Cole. Reminds me of a particularly fragile point in my life.
America the Beautiful by Lee Greenwood. When I hear the last verse, I think of the towers and how I felt that day.
**Hail to the Chief
**
(Since 2000, anyway)
The soundtrack from Les Miz, every damn time. Good for hormonal days when a cathartic sobfest is in order just to clear the pipes. Rent and Miss Saigon are acceptable substitutes.
Allentown by Billy Joel
Silent Legacy by Melissa Etheridge
El Paso by Marty Robbins
And just about any patriotic song, but that’s all twisted up with being a little girl who’s Daddy was a Marine and stuff, not just the songs.
victory of love -Alphaville
glasgarten- **Goethes Erban and Peter Heppner **
What a Wonderful World by Louis Armstrong - obviously not an inherently sad song but I’ve always seen it as such since it was used to great ironic effect in the movie 12 Monkeys.
Love, Me by Collin Raye.
Agreed, it’s very sad.
The Star Spangled Banner does it for me esp. at the start of a hockey game. (so, I’m wierd).
“Wicked Little Town” by Ben Kweller, Ben Folds and Ben Lee. It’s a song from Hedwig and the Angry Inch, but this version is on the cover album, Wig in a Box. It really touches me every time. For a while I couldn’t stop playing it, just out of sheer fascination at how I could possibly be so moved. It gets me in some place that not many songs can touch. Its kind of scary, but wonderful too.
The one song that always makes me cry is Will Smith’s version of The Two of Us.
Cat Stevens’ Seasons in the Sun also rips me up, but it doesn’t get much airplay anymore.
I don’t have a particular song as such, but I do find that I get quite overwhelmed with live music performed by an orchestra - it’s something about the sheer richness and beauty of it and the volume it hits you with.
So whenever we go to the theatre or to a concert, I spend the first ten minutes discretely wiping my eyes.
Country song - Holes in the Floors of Heaven
I am a wuss…
Yep, that’s the one. <sniff> I hate that stupid song. <sob>
Sheesh, that’s just pathetic <sniff>
Total agreement on all three.
About that last one: I have not heard Wainwright’s version, but Jeff Buckley’s did me in.