Empty Garden by Elton John.
It’s about the death of John Lennon but it makes me think about my brother’s death.
At Jim Henson’s funeral, they also sang “Sing” and every time I hear that song now, I choke up a little too.
What a Wonderful World, Louis Armstrong
The Show Must Go On, Queen
Silent Night, sung as a group on Christmas (this says the atheist…brings back fond childhood memories)
S’truth. The first time I heard it I didn’t know it was a cover. It fit him so well the thought it might be never crossed my mind.
I don’t know the artist or even the name of the song because I only heard it a couple times, but it was a country-western song of a father talking to his son on the phone, saying he’s sorry can’t come home because he’s got something to do. Sounds like your typical divorce song until you slowly realize he’s on United flight 93.
I had to pull the car over and stop for about five minutes.
Indeed. No competition. 
…maybe Taps on trumpet though.
I Will Follow You Into the Dark by Death Cab for Cutie. I seriously can’t think about the lyrics too much or I will cry, no matter what the situation.
Mylène Farmer, Pas Le Temps De Vivre.
You don’t need to speak French for it to get to you. Just watch her.
The song’s story, and the composition, make it a diamond among other gems. That entire musical is gorgeous, but that song seems like the writer just woke up one day with unexpected inspiration and wrote that piece.
The rap remix of “Every Breath You Take” (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3QJse82M6BM&feature=related), memorializing the Notorious B.I.G. I’ve never been one for rap, but it don’t matter.
“Silence is Golden” hit me hard before it was the first song I heard after my friend Blake had died. Now it’s permanently associated with him.
So much of Evanescence’s stuff sounds the same that pretty much any song by that group gets me because one of their songs, “My Immortal,” was the first one that played after I found out Persephone had died.
Any music from Schindler’s List.
Hey Jude, if for no other reason than “The movement you need is on your shoulder.”
Real Time’s version of “Loch Lomond,” which has apparently been taken off YouTube, got me every time.
I’m confident there are more, but as is always the case with these things, once you’re asked to think of them, they hide.
Light One Cancle. It makes me think of 9/11
Light one candle for the pain they endured
When their right to exist was denied
**Baby Mine **from *Dumbo *has already been mentioned. It makes me so teary that I don’t watch Dumbo if I’m feeling at all melancholy.
Also a song from my childhood called Scarlet Ribbons. I cry every time. It’s about a parent trying to find ribbons for her child, but all the stores are closed, and then the ribbons show up by miracle.
“Hallelujah”–Jeff Buckley’s version.
“Breathe Me” by Sia.
Word!
Also, “Danny Boy,” sung by any pure-voiced Irish tenor.
Baby Mine gets me too.
I can’t even make it through the beginning banjo of “Rainbow Connection”. It kills me. I’m crying right now-its ridiculous but its the saddest song i’ve ever heard. Have yourself a merry little christmas done by Judy Garland gets me too because it reminds me of the first few christmases after my dad died when I was twelve and how miserable they were.
My brother sometimes hand me a big bunch of songs I import to my iPod, but don’t tell the police.
The good thing is I listen to a lot of music I wouldn’t listen to otherwise and one day on the train home there was *Mockingbird *by Eminem
DooWahDiddy:
“I defy any grown man to listen to “Cat’s in the Cradle” without tearing up.”
This song has meant so many things to me over the years, but always, always brings the tears. I love it and hate it, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. But one thing this song doesn’t make me, and that is embarrassed. I have no shame about how I react to this song. I see it as a testament to how important art can be in someones life. I’m not sure I’d be who I was today if it wasn’t for this song. Even typing about it is hard, as I try to focus through the blur of fresh tears.
“The Promise” by Tracy Chapman
We’ve done this before and people have pointed and laughed at me, but I cry whenever Three Wooden Crosses plays, and I’m a heathen who’s dead inside and has no soul. Go figger.
There was a song by Conway Twitty some years ago called Don’t Cry Joni, that made my eyes water. Creepy, since it evokes a pedophilial tendency.
That makes two of us in the world. I learned all the words for the first time when my little girl decided she liked a recorded version of it, and for the first few (dozen) times blubbed at the last verse.
A dragon lives forever, but not so little boys
Painted wings and giant rings make way for other toys…
For anyone who needs a cure for Danny Boy, I give you the Leprechaun Brothers, yeeeeayyyy: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OCbuRA_D3KU.
It was also played in ‘The West Wing’ over the scene where C.J. Cregg (played by Allison Jeney) learns her Secret Service bodyguard has just been murdered.
As for ‘Desperadoes waiting for a train’ by the Highwaymen, it reminds me of talking to my Dad just before he died. (But those tears doesn’t embarrass me.)
The Star Spangled Banner. Seriously. Instantly, every frickin’ time. Seeing that I coach, and my kids are involved in all sorts of sports, it’s embarrassing to be standing there, tears starting, wiping my eyes.
There are plenty of other songs that make me tear up on occasion, but the anthem is the kicker.