# Songs that make you embarrassingly weepy **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [September 12, 2008, 12:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-that-make-you-embarrassingly-weepy/463187 "2008-09-12T00:11:01Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 8
**Author:** ![KAndre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/5f8ce5/32.png) [@KAndre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KAndre)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2008, 3:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-that-make-you-embarrassingly-weepy/463187/141 "2008-09-21T15:44:59Z")
I, like **Abby\_Emma\_Sasha** , can let the hymns get to me…but in pop songs, subtle can’t get me weepy, I need to be hit over the head. The one with the biggest hammer would be _One Sweet Day_ by Mariah and Boyz II Men. Total gospelly melismafest (especially the [url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xNzijLaKqhc] live version at the Grammies in '96). Played at so many funerals… ---
**Author:** ![OpalCat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/8edcca/32.png) [@OpalCat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OpalCat)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2008, 3:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-that-make-you-embarrassingly-weepy/463187/142 "2008-09-21T15:46:04Z")
> [@TommyTutone](#): > > I’m a devout athiest, but damn if XTC’s ‘Dear God’ doesn’t break me down all the time. Have you heard the Sarah McLachlan version? It’s awesome. [here it is–someone made their own music video to it, but you can still hear the song just fine if you minimize the video 😉](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4UjLPIv-lLQ) ---
**Author:** ![Myrrajh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/87869e/32.png) [@Myrrajh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Myrrajh)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2008, 5:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-that-make-you-embarrassingly-weepy/463187/143 "2008-09-21T17:06:32Z")
Another hand up for Kermit’s _Rainbow Connection_. I remember hearing the news of Jim Henson’s death on the radio as I drove home and they played that song and I bawled all the way home. _Come Come Ye Saints_ (perhaps done a million times by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir). The backstory of the people crossing the plains amid much suffering, hardship and death is weepy enough, but the song is also so hopeful and uplifting. That one brings out sad tears and happy tears. I love it. ---
**Author:** ![An\_Gadai](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d6d6ee/32.png) [@An\_Gadai](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/An_Gadai)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2008, 6:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-that-make-you-embarrassingly-weepy/463187/144 "2008-09-21T18:18:54Z")
Another one. Paul Brady - The Island ([Youtube](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vzW6RQ-5jqM)) Especially the lines "And I guess these young boys dying in the ditches, Is just what being free is all about, And how this twisted wreckage down on main street, Will bring us all together in the end " ---
**Author:** ![Stauderhorse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ce7236/32.png) [@Stauderhorse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stauderhorse)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2008, 6:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-that-make-you-embarrassingly-weepy/463187/145 "2008-09-21T18:37:58Z")
Oh hell, I just remembered another: “Forever Young” as sung by Rod Stewart. If I ever have kids, I’ll never be able to listen to that song without falling apart for days. ---
**Author:** ![Lucky\_13](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lucky_13/32/13209_2.png) [@Lucky\_13](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lucky_13)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2008, 9:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-that-make-you-embarrassingly-weepy/463187/146 "2008-09-21T21:19:39Z")
> [@Stauderhorse](#): > > Oh hell, I just remembered another: “Forever Young” as sung by Rod Stewart. > > If I ever have kids, I’ll never be able to listen to that song without falling apart for days. That was my graduation song. For many years I couldn’t listen to it without tearing up. Damn, my 20-year reunion is next year. Now I feel old… I just remembered another song that made me cry. “Where’d You Go” by Fort Minor. It came out around the time my ex and I first split up. Eventually he moved back in for a few more months, but that song still made me cry. ---
**Author:** ![danielmybrother](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/8c91f0/32.png) [@danielmybrother](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/danielmybrother)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2008, 3:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-that-make-you-embarrassingly-weepy/463187/147 "2008-09-22T03:17:54Z")
There are a number of country songs, but the current one that makes me tear up like a little girl is Jamey Johnson’s “In Color”, where the narrator talks to his grandfather about a cache of photos and their subjects: "I said, Grandpa what’s this picture here It’s all black and white and ain’t real clear Is that you there, he said, yeah I was eleven Times were tough back in thirty-five That’s me and Uncle Joe just tryin’ to survive A cotton farm in the Great Depression And if it looks like we were scared to death Like a couple of kids just trying to save each other You should have seen it in color." Also, “I Will Buy You a New Life” by Everclear: “I hate those people who love to tell you Money is the root of all that kills They have never been poor, they have never Known the joys of welfare christmas.” “Will The Circle Be Unbroken” also makes me cry, because of the following lyrics about a mother: “Undertaker, undertaker, undertaker please drive slow For that woman, that you’re carrying, Lord I hate to see her go.” And finally, “If We Make it Through December” by Merle Haggard. You can look up the lyrics on your own, even reading them will make me weepy. I read somewhere it is one of John McCain’s favorite songs, and I would rather put a rusty nail through my eye than tear up again at hearing it. ---
**Author:** ![keithdavid75](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/59ef9b/32.png) [@keithdavid75](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/keithdavid75)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2008, 6:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-that-make-you-embarrassingly-weepy/463187/148 "2008-09-22T06:47:07Z")
**Operator** by Jim Croce gets me every time in the middle of the 2nd verse. Also the video for Johnny Cash’s **Hurt** really chokes me up. ---
**Author:** ![Doctor\_Peste](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/3ec8ea/32.png) [@Doctor\_Peste](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Doctor_Peste)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2008, 9:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-that-make-you-embarrassingly-weepy/463187/149 "2008-09-22T21:40:17Z")
That one Christmas song about the little boy buying shoes for his ailing mother gets me every. freaking. time. Aside from that… Life by the Drop, by Stevie Ray Vaughan Castles Made of Sand, by Jimi Hendrix Green Fields of France (cover), by Dropkick Murphys Faraway Boys, by Flogging Molly and I Can’t Make You Love Me, by Bonnie Raitt. I’m getting a little misty just thinking about 'em, really. ---
**Author:** ![catnaplb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/b2d939/32.png) [@catnaplb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/catnaplb)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2008, 11:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-that-make-you-embarrassingly-weepy/463187/150 "2008-09-22T23:22:53Z")
Just a Housewife from the musical Working Ugh. It got to me when I was younger and heard it. Even worse after I had kids and started staying at home to take care of them. Oy. On the fathers and sons subject, there is a great song called “Don’t Lose Me Boy” by The Bacon Brothers. Also another by them called “Brown Eyes” that is about Kevin’s kids and wife. And come to think of it, another called “Chop Wood” about legacies of love and respect (or lack thereof). I could go on, but I think I’ll just go pull up some mp3s and weep instead. ---
**Author:** ![catnaplb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/b2d939/32.png) [@catnaplb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/catnaplb)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2008, 11:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-that-make-you-embarrassingly-weepy/463187/151 "2008-09-22T23:27:55Z")
> [@Cosmopolitan](#): > > _Hallelujah_ - the Jeff Buckley version - always gets me. I think it might have something to do with the fact that he died so young combined with the fact that the lyrics are just so beautiful and brilliant. I first heard this one on the tail end of an episode of “House.” I cried so hard, I had to go look it up and find it. Naturally, I didn’t download it illegally or anything. Then to read Jeff Buckley’s rather tragic, cut-short life. What a waste of beauty. ---
**Author:** ![SuntanTigerTamer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e5b9ba/32.png) [@SuntanTigerTamer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SuntanTigerTamer)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2008, 12:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-that-make-you-embarrassingly-weepy/463187/152 "2008-09-23T00:37:20Z")
“I Am Trying To Break Your Heart” by WILCO gets me every goddamned time. It captures the feeling of the wheels falling off your life so perfectly. I can’t stand how it makes me feel, but I will listen to it and sing along every time it goes by… ---
**Author:** ![Levolor\_the\_Blind](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/bc8723/32.png) [@Levolor\_the\_Blind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Levolor_the_Blind)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2008, 4:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-that-make-you-embarrassingly-weepy/463187/153 "2008-09-23T16:58:53Z")
Sandy Denny - Take away the load ([lyrics](http://www.stlyrics.com/songs/s/sandydenny3370/takeawaytheloadsandyssong732668.html)) Gets me every time, as do a few other songs by her. It is a combination of the sentiment and the thought that she died too soon. ---
**Author:** ![OpalCat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/8edcca/32.png) [@OpalCat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OpalCat)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2008, 6:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-that-make-you-embarrassingly-weepy/463187/154 "2008-09-23T18:31:05Z")
> [@SuntanTigerTamer](#): > > “I Am Trying To Break Your Heart” by WILCO gets me every goddamned time. It captures the feeling of the wheels falling off your life so perfectly. I can’t stand how it makes me feel, but I will listen to it and sing along every time it goes by… Maybe the studio release is better? Because I’d never heard of it and so I went to find it and all I found were live performances on YouTube, and they were horrible\*–bored to tears after 30 seconds and didn’t make it to the end of any of them–I tried three different ones. The lyrics don’t have much impact on their own so I can only assume it’s something about the delivery in the album version? Here is another one for me… maybe 50% of the time when I try to sing [“Christmas Dinner” by Peter, Paul, and Mary](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h5sDpwEnWuE) I can get all the way through without crying. Ok maybe more like 40%. \*edited to add: this is often the case, I find. I virtually never like recordings of live performances. Edited again to add: I found a non-live recording of the song I myself listed: [here](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cwyWOaeWslw) ---
**Author:** ![SaharaTea](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9a140/32.png) [@SaharaTea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SaharaTea)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2008, 7:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-that-make-you-embarrassingly-weepy/463187/155 "2008-09-23T19:53:55Z")
I love Elton John’s “Sacrifice.” He doesn’t perform it much, but I had the honor of hearing him play it at a benefit concert for Matthew Shepard. Sinead O’Connor also does a painfully beautiful cover. The second movement of Dvorak’s New World Symphony also gives me a lump in my throat every time I hear it. ---
**Author:** ![catnaplb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/b2d939/32.png) [@catnaplb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/catnaplb)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2008, 7:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-that-make-you-embarrassingly-weepy/463187/156 "2008-09-23T19:54:19Z")
> [@kittenblue](#): > > “Eye of the Hurricane” by David Wilcox > > “Danny Boy” I was just listening to a mix tape that someone made me back in college. Man… Eye of the Hurricane still packs a punch! ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2008, 4:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-that-make-you-embarrassingly-weepy/463187/157 "2008-09-26T04:12:44Z")
> [@SaharaTea](#): > > The second movement of Dvorak’s New World Symphony also gives me a lump in my throat every time I hear it. Have you ever heard it on the pipes? The tune from the 2nd Movement was used as the basis for the spiritual “Going Home”, which then jumped to the pipes. It’s often played at funerals, the most notably being the funeral of the golfer Payne Stewart. There was a heavy mist, and the piper walked away from the service into the mist, playing Going Home, and leaving only his footprints in the dew. That was definitely lump-worthy. ---
**Author:** ![Cyberhwk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/7993a0/32.png) [@Cyberhwk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cyberhwk)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2008, 8:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-that-make-you-embarrassingly-weepy/463187/158 "2008-09-26T08:04:20Z")
If we’re talking embarrassing, then I have to add **Our Town** by _James Taylor_ (the one from the movie Cars). ---
**Author:** ![SomeUserName](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e480ec/32.png) [@SomeUserName](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SomeUserName)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2008, 8:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-that-make-you-embarrassingly-weepy/463187/159 "2008-09-26T08:54:45Z")
> [@Sleeps\_With\_Butterflies](#): > > “Danny Boy” because someone I loved dearly had it sung at their funeral. Me too. It makes me think of my brother and my grandmother. She used to sing that to him when we were little. They played it at her funeral and I cried for the both of them. Takes me back to that day everytime I hear it. **I hope you dance** by Lee Ann Womack makes me tear up everytime. It makes me think of my children and the lives they have yet to lead and I hope they dance through life with the least amount of cares. **Daniel** by Elton John is another one. “Daniel my brother you are older than me Do you still feel the pain of the scars that won’t heal Your eyes have died but you see more than I Daniel you’re a star in the face of the sky” My brother took his own life at 18 and that part of the song turns me into a blubbering idiot everytime. _sob_ ---
**Author:** ![Ritzytrailer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/90ced4/32.png) [@Ritzytrailer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ritzytrailer)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2008, 4:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-that-make-you-embarrassingly-weepy/463187/160 "2008-09-26T16:35:19Z")
> [@MadPansy64](#): > > Every freakin time, for me. Even when I’m not at a funeral. I can’t make it past the first 3 notes without bursting into tears. > > The other “make me bawl like a baby no matter where I am” song is a Country song I don’t know the name of. Something about Grandma writing Grandpa a note and leaving it in a tree. Tears from Heaven, maybe, But I will NOT google it. I don’t why, but that damn song just kills me. I had to turn into a Bitch Boss who banned all radios on the production floor when that damn song was Top 10. _It’s if you get there, before I do_ (don’t give up on me.. i’ll see you when my time is through.." Ick. While it’s a beautiful ballad, and a crafty piece of work - it came out right about the same time my mum died.. and I nearly killed myself everytime I heard it while driving on the expressway… Sheesh ! [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-that-make-you-embarrassingly-weepy/463187.md?page=7) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-that-make-you-embarrassingly-weepy/463187.md?page=9)