Oh, yeah!
I’ll add:
Cheryl Wheeler, “Arrow”
Barenaked Ladies, “War on Drugs”
The theme song from the movie Somewhere in Time.
I first heard Sugarland’s “Baby Girl” when my parents and I were moving my stuff from Michigan to Louisiana last year. I thought it was a cute song, but when the last verse came on:
… And there are fancy cars and diamond rings
But you know that they don’t mean a thing
'Cause they all add up to nothing compared to you,
Well remember me in ribbons and curls,
I still love you more than anything in the world,
Love your baby girl…
… I started BAWLING, thinking about how kind it was for my parents to drive my stuff a thousand miles to help me out, when they didn’t even want me to leave home. I wanted to flag their car down and get out and hug the living daylights out of them.
sniffle
“And The Band Played Waltzing Matilda” was written by Eric Bogle, who is so brilliant at getting me to cry I stopped taking his albums to work. Some more of his that always do it for me are “No Man’s Land” (also called “The Green Fields of France”; my favorite recording is June Tabor’s), “What Kind of Man” and “The Gift of Years”.
Oh, I forgot - “The Whole of the Moon” by The Waterboys. I took that off my computer so it wouldn’t load onto my MP3 player and make me cry at a bad time. It holds a lot of meaning for me, involving a long story about a friend of mine who died a few years ago.
I am a Rock, it’s all tough and strong till that last line, and then I lose it,
Hiding in my room, safe within my womb.
I touch no one and no one touches me.
I am a rock,
I am an island.
And a rock feels no pain;
And an island never cries.
“Still Fighting It” by Ben Folds chokes me up ever so slightly, for reasons I can’t quite place.
“Somebody” by Depeche Mode. DH wanted to use it as a ‘first dance’ type song at our wedding, but I think it’s a good thing the wedding/reception we wound up with wasn’t conducive to dancing. I would have been a basket case.
“My Heart So Blue” by Erasure.
“Amazing Grace” on bagpipes.
As a kid, certain lullabys and Christmas carols got to me. “Away In A Manger” is one I remember bawling through in church one year. And nowadays, “O Holy Night” just shreds me. It was my grandmother’s favorite, and she died during the Christmas season.
Okay, I guess I’ve got the weirdest - Black Sabbath’s Electric Funeral.
Despite the title, you really can’t call it a sad song in itself, it just reminds me of something. Many years ago my first boyfriend and I used to hang out in a greasy spoon that had two things going for it - a jukebox and an owner who liked us.
One day we started having a song war. Me playing the Sabbath and him blasting Johnny Cash’s Rock Island Line. We made it to about six plays each before the owner finally shut us down.
Fast forward to about five years ago. Boyfriend is long gone. Permanantly, having passed away in '91.
I hauled out my Paranoid, thinking to crank up some tunes, hit Electric Funeral and totally fell out. Bawled all over.
“The Living Years” by Mike & the Mechanics. This one reminds me of my father, who succumbed to three heart attacks in four days at the age of 50. I’d seen him the day after the first one. After I walked out into the waiting room, he had a massive one that required him being put on a ventilator for the next few days. And, as the last verse of the song starts, “I wasn’t there that morning” when my father died.
For similar reasons, “Evaporated” by Ben Folds Five.
Someone mentioned “our” songs, and I have to chime in with George Michael’s “Father Figure,” for that reason.
One that no one’s mentioned yet, in the love-lost category, is “Nobody Knows” by the Tony Rich Project.
I have it for the flute, which is where I discovered it. It’s hard to play with tears in your eyes!
This is the post I intended to quote, naturally. I forgot to check the little button.
Even Ostragoths get a little misty over Kilkelly.
You’re Beautiful by James Blunt - It makes me think of a girl I had a huge crush on when I was in high school. Unfortunately I was never able to tell her this.
The Breaking of the Fellowship - Howard Shore & Fran Walsh (specifically the last 3, 3.5 minutes)
One - U2
“A Long December” by Counting Crows, while it doesn’t make me cry, it reminds me of the year my oldest brother left for college. When he left the second time, after returning for Christmas break, I think the realization that things were never going to be the same really sank in.
I knew this, but it’s Shane’s singing as much as the song that make me cry.
One I forgot, was Pippin’s rendition of Bilbo’s walking song from RoTK. Took something that was wistful and made it sad. Context is king, once again.