Songs that make you cry

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
141

Yes, StStella, I do remember “Shannon.”

Shannon is gone, I heard she’s drifting out to sea
she always loved to swim and play.
Maybe she’s found another cool and shady tree
just like the one in our backyard.

Devastating. Somehow, the hokey falsetto only made it worse. I don’t remember the name of the singer, but the song was based on a true event. I believe the dog in question belonged to one of the Beach Boys, although it was most definitely NOT the Beach Boys who did the song, as far as I know. Oh, great. Now I’M crying!

Other lethal favorites:

 "Desperado" -  The Eagles
 "Why" -  The Eurythmics
 "I Will Be Right Here Waiting for You" -  by I don't know who.
 "Follow You, Follow Me" - Genesis (or Phil Collins?)
 "Hey, Jude" -  The Beatles
 "Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas" - Karen Carpenter
 "Honey" - Bobby Goldsboro (When I was little, anyway!)
 "Tears in Heaven" -  Eric Clapton (Looks like Eric is pulling ahead!)

And many more. There are associations for almost all of these songs. “Shannon” is particularly deadly for me right now as I just put my little cat to sleep.

142

Oh, yeah, I forgot.

How about “Wildfire”? It was also from the 70’s, about a little girl who got sick and died after running off into the snow looking for a lost horse.

When I was a kid, I used to cry at “Alone Again, Naturally.”

God, there are so many! I cry at the theme from A League of Their Own (“This Used to Be My Playground” - Madonna) because I went to see the movie early in my relationship with my beautiful wife, and it was playing on cable tv in the hospital when she died.

Hijack – How about songs that just give you the creeps? Like “The Wreck of the Edmond Fitzgerald”?

(Sorry – I have gotten really bad with the names of singers in my dotage.)

143

Tracy Chapman’s “At this point in my life” is a good one to get the waterworks going, as is the orchestral version of “Both Hands” by Ani Difranco.

“Tears in Heaven” and most of Tori Amos’s “Little Earthquakes” album are good nominees, too. Plus, I have a <ahem> weakness for the previously mentioned Collin Raye song (“Love, Me”). :confused:

Oh, oh…and…if there was a soundtrack for the movie “Fall,” that would probably make me cry, too. :frowning:

144

May I take this opportunity to point out that this thread is from August of 1999? It may possibly be the longest running active thread on the board. I’m so proud!

Zette :slight_smile: :slight_smile:

145

Mainly songs I remember from early childhood - Sometimes When We Touch would make me cry when I was four years old!
Was spurred by this topic to go looking for some half-remembered songs of my childhood - who here remembers Rocky by Austin Roberts? Any idea how hard it is to find a song that obscure when you can’t remember what it’s called, who it’s by or how the chorus goes? :slight_smile:
Back on topic, other songs that make me cry include
The Little Drummer Boy - Bing Crosby
The Last Farewell - Roger Whittaker
Most Barry Manilow songs
The Promise (the Dolphin Song) - Oliva Newton John
Take This Bottle - Faith No More
Patience - Guns N’ Roses (memories of a friend’s mother’s funeral)
In The Ghetto - Elvis

Off topic a bit - my mother had Don’t Cry Daddy on LP when I was very young, but it wasn’t by Elvis. Does anyone know if someone with the surname Boone covered that song? That was another one that made me cry.

146

“Look Away” by Chicago.

I CANNOT listen to this song.

[aside] My old roommate used to play it in the morning (while I was still asleep) at a volume loud enough that I could hear it. I would inevitably have to jump out of bed to make him turn it off. Nice guy, huh? [/aside]

147

I don’t know if it’s the words or just the sound of his voice but the song is Just Like Heaven by The Cure

http://www.ping.be/cure/lyrics/justlikeheaven.htm

148

“The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald” by Gordon Lightfoot. It’s not creepy, it’s mournful.
Does anyone know where the love of God goes
When the waves turn the minutes to hours?
And one of the loneliest guitar riffs in the world.

The “Take a Look at Me Now” that capacitor mentioned is actually Phil Collins’ Against All Odds theme song. When you love and she leaves, this one is the one to play.

“Empty Chairs at Empty Tables” from Le Miserables. Marius mourning his lost friends.

149

Oh, I have another (I hope I didn’t already post this one). My very closest friend on earth moved away last February, and I miss her terribly (she was like my mom). We saw both Toy Story movies together, and loved them SO much- very memorable days. So I’m at work, and over the Musak they play “You’ve Got a Friend In Me”. Suddenly, I’m very glad I don’t wear eye makeup to work. SOB CITY!

“You’ve got a friend in me
You’ve got a friend in me
You’ve got troubles, and I got 'em too
There isn’t anything I wouldn’t do for you
We stick together and see it through
'Cause you’ve got a friend in me
You’ve got a friend in me”

http://www.heavenlywebs.net/midis/kidsmidis/youvegotfrndinme.htm
Ack! Here it comes again.
Zette

150

Ben Folds Five - Brick

A well-written song about abortion.

Then again, alot of Ben Folds Five songs are that way… BFF is a really good band, but they recently broke up. :frowning:

151

The singer and songwriter of “Shannon” was Henry Gross. It was a hit in 1976.

Gross had toured with The Beach Boys, and the song was indeed written about Beach Boy Carl Wilson’s Irish Setter named Shannon. But there’s quite a twist on this story. For the full version, go here:

http://www.henrygross.com/bio.htm

and scroll to the bottom of the page.

152

So many of the songs listed in this thread seem to be of the type that are calculated or at least expected to elicit a tearful response.

That doesn’t work for me. Nor do tear-inducing lyrics alone. They have to be mated with music and/or vocals that push some emotional buttons.

The last poster I responded to mentioned a “corny falsetto” in connection with Henry Gross’s “Shannon,” which is of course modeled on the sound of The Beach Boys.

But I find nothing corny about Brian Wilson’s voice. It’s achingly pure and beautiful, with an underlying sadness that, it turns out, was grounded in reality.

There’s a song on the album “Beach Boys Today!” called “She Knows Me Too Well” that has moved me to tears more than once. There’s nothing terribly sad about the lyrics, it’s mostly the melody, the way Brian sings it, and the rich backing vocals of the other Beach Boys.
Mention has been made earlier in the thread of “Where’ve You Been” by Kathy Mattea. A good example of a song that could easily have been overdone, but is saved by a subtle arrangement that’s almost still in its quietude. And the chorus really points up the importance of the melody to its emotional impact. That upward arc on “Where’ve you” that comes back down on “been” is what makes it.
I’ll mention two other country songs that move me deeply. Neither one of them is an obvious weeper like “He Stopped Loving Her Today,” which is OK but tremendously overrated in my book.

A year or so before Mattea’s song, a singer named Judy Rodman had a minor hit with a song co-written by Janis Ian, “I Want a Love Like That.” If you’ve stayed with me this long, I might as well drag this post out a bit longer by quoting the first verse and the chorus:

When that old man was married
They fought like dogs and cats
Everybody wondered
How long would it last
Fifty years of living
Neither one of them packed their bags
Lately he’s been missing
The way she used to nag

I want a love like that
I want a love like that
I want a love like that
A love like that

I can get choked up just hearing the chorus in my head.
The second one is “Just Like Real People” by The Kendalls. Premise is she’s pledging her life to this guy, but she wants to be sure he understands that “I ain’t no angel in white satin/Been around some, if you know what I mean.” What makes it work is the complete humbleness and honesty Jeannie Kendall projects, the willingness to leave herself open in a way she’s never done before. The chorus of this ballad, sung with devastating three-part bluegrass harmonies, is:

Just like real people
We can settle down and have us a home
Just like real people
Together we can make it I know
I know, writing about music is stupid, in that it can hardly convey the impact of hearing it. But I felt compelled to do so. Seek out these songs, and see if they do for you what they do for me.

153

Another vote for “Puff the Magic Dragon” “Danny Boy” and a bunch of stuff from Les Miz…

I’ll add:
“Where have all the flowers gone?”

“Nearer my God to thee” (as featured in Titanic)

The finale from Porgy and Bess (it’s made all the more tragic by how happy the music sounds and how optimistic Porgy is)

“Slow Train” by Flanders and Swann

154

jet plain…

155

plane

156

The hymn “It Is Well With My Soul”, especially played on the guitar.

157

This song has been messing with my head as of late.

And my biggie: Amazing Grace

158

Oh, my.

Anybody see “The Civil War” on PBS a while back? We have the soundtrack. It ends with a beautiful (modern) fiddle and guitar duet song, entitled “Ashokan Farewell.” Beautiful instrumental. On this last track, though, they overlay a mane reading out loud a letter sent by a soldier to his wife the day before the Battle of Bull Run. It is the most beautiful love letter I have ever heard. It will make you cry within the first few sentences, I guarantee it. The soldier knew he was probably not going to make it through the next battle, so he writes to her to not mourn for him. It is a real letter, so it just rips your heart out. The soldier died a few days after he sent the letter, I believe.

159

Earlier on in the thread, someone mentioned Mike and the Mechanics, “In the living years” and the line, “I wasn’t there that morning, when my father passed away.”

I hate that song. I can’t even listen to it on the radio. When my dad died, we missed getting to the hospital to say goodbye by just a few minutes. I had visited him early that evening, but didn’t stay as long as he wanted me to. I didn’t realize how bad the situation was, or was in denial or whatever. But I told him I’d visit him the next day and the next day never happened. All I remember about the situation was that he wanted me to stay, I stayed a little while longer, but not long enough. I should have been there, and now I hate that damn song.

160

Dear Abbie by Kinky Friedman