Which is funny- As a fellow filthy heathen, that song always makes me feel somehow inspired.
For weepy, I have two:
One, Two suns in the Sunset by Pink Floyd. Not the song itself; just one moment in it. When the singer says, “And you’ll never hear their voices, and you’ll never see their faces,” and in the background there’s the sound of a small child crying, “Daddy! Daddy!”… Doesn’t matter what mood I’m in. A chill up my spine, and uncontrollable tears.
Two, The Drinking Song by Moxy Fruvos (sorry, don’t know how to put the umlaut over the u). The line, “Told him he couldn’t just die…” I first heard the song after the tragic accidental death of one of my best friends…
I’m going to stop now before the memories alone get me weepy.
Me, too. I absolutely have to switch the station when I hear that song, or skip if it comes up on my iPod.
I loved the song before I had my own son, because I could feel righteously angry at my father and stepfather, but now all my own inadequacies as a father come to mind when I hear it.
Especially the verse about “my son turned ten just the other day…” Crap, my son really did turn ten just the other day…and now he’s almost twelve!
Back in high school (20+ years ago), I told my stepfather that it was my favorite song.
Actually, this song makes me weepy, too. It was my favorite song when I was about 5 years old, and I used to play this old Peter, Paul, & Mary LP repeatedly. I probably wore out the record. Anyway, the song now just fills me with nostalgia for the time before my parents split up, no doubt heightened by the theme of the song.
This used to be my favorite song between the ages of, oh, about 7 and 15. That line, and one just before it, where he breathes out “Oh, no…” conveys such a sense of hopelessness.
Reminds me of a connection I made the other day. (Hopefully you’re enough of a Floyd fan to get the reference.) I was watching 9/11 tribute stuff, and came across a book called Out of the Blue. I’ve always thought it was a beautiful sad song, but it carries a little more weight for me now.
There was also one my dad used to play on the piano when we were kids called ‘Who killed Cock Robin?’
I just remember a few bits but it used to make me very sad. ‘Who killed Cock Robin?’
‘I’, said the sparrow, ‘with my bow and arrow. I killed Cock Robin!’
All the birds of the air were a-sighing and a-sobbing
When they heard of the death of poor Cock Robin
When they heeeeaaarrrd of the death oh-of pooooor Cock Robin.
and so on as it describes the trial and the funeral and so on…nice kids’ song! :eek:
One of the two good things to come from the film “Robin Hood Prince of Thieves”, was Alan Rickman as the Sheriff of Nottingham, and this song by Bryan Adams…
Look into my eyes - you will see
What you mean to me
Search your heart - search your soul
And when you find me there you’ll search no more
There’s a ‘Milton the Mouse’ song that my wife sings to the kid she baby-sits. I can’t find it online, but it’s about being in love with a mouse named Daisy & how he’d tell her if he weren’t so painfully shy.
It kills me. I have no idea why, but I can’t stay in the same room. I’m teary-eyed now just thinking about it. Poor Milton!
My Dad’s favorite song was “Amazing Grace” - it’s still very difficult to listen to by almost anyone. However, "Amazing Because It Is leaves me lurching for the tissues within a measure of the childrens’ chorus.
I also reach for the tissues for “Stand By Me” by Ben E King.
As glurgy as it is, “Jesus, Take the Wheel” by Carrie Underwood.
“You Can Let Go” by Crystal Shawanda - copious tears. TheKid came out of her room one night, about a year after Dad/Gramps died and a few months after her Dad disappeared, just bawling. She gave me one earphone of her iPod and we listened together. Gawd…
That’s “Love, Me” by the sweet-voiced Collin Raye, and it’s lethal.
The (now-defunct) country station I used to listen to played it a lot – somebody at that station did not have top scheduling-software skills, and nearly every morning at about 8:30 they’d play what I thought of as the “bummer set” of tragedy tunes. That was a fave – along with Mark Wills’ deeply weird plane-crash ditty, “Wish You Were Here.”
One that always makes me tear up: Dixie Chicks’ “You Were Mine.”
“A Little Fall of Rain” from the musical Les Miserables ALWAYS makes me cry. It is the saddest thing I have ever heard. Several other songs from that musical are tear or close-to-tear jerkers as well (like “I Dreamed a Dream”). Les Mis definitly lives up to its title.
Mmm. This, on account of my wife. She loves this song, so I think of her when I hear it.
I am not prone to getting sentimental through music. I am more prone to tear up at particularly magnificent or dramatic passages. For example, it is hard for me to keep my eyes dry when Wotan dooms Brunhild to sleep in the ring of fire only to be woken by a great hero, whereupon the horns and trombones open up a salvo of the Siegfried motif. It is magnificent beyond description.
But my tastes are not exactly universal.
Like with Dante’s Prayer, I am more inclined to feel sentimental by associating songs with my wife.
I always find an excuse to leave the room at the end of February, by Dar Williams. I have an image to maintain here.
At least this is a very good song.
An inferior song that still wreaks internal havoc is 100 Years by 5-4 Fighting.
It is deeply manipulative, sure, but it always results in my wife getting a hug. So it’s not too bad, all things considered.
I have a live version of John Gros from Papa Grows Funk doing Randy Newman’s “Louisiana 1927” from WWOZ’s “Piano Night”, that I listened to right after hurricane Katrina, and almost had to pull over.
P.S. I’m linking to youtube blindly, as it’s blocked at work, so I can’t vouch for the video quality.
You know that kinda dumb song “Superman” by Five for Fighting?
It may sound absurd…but dont be naive
Even heroes have the right to bleed
I may be disturbed…but wont you concede
Even heroes have the right to dream
Its not easy to be me
Not long after (oh God, I’m crying even trying to type it) September 11, I was watching one of the big dog shows (can’t remember which) and they did a tribute to the rescue dogs who helped find the survivors and the bodies at Ground Zero. Apparently, quite a few of them did not survive, and the ones that did would get so discouraged at not finding survivors that they started having live people hide in the rubble.
Anyway, they trotted out the dogs while they were playing this song and showing some montage of them doing their rescue work. I can’t even talk about it without outright sobbing, and I’ve had to leave stores before when the song came on.
I just had to get up and close my office door so I can be choked up in private. I don’t even know half of the songs mentioned in this thread but those that I do know are all chipping away at the stoic, professional mask I wear every day. It started with the first song mentioned in the OP, Just the Two of Us by Will Smith.
This passage:
And if the world attack, and you slide off track
Remember one fact- I got your back
gets me every damn time.
One I haven’t seen mentioned yet- Father of Mine by Everclear.
Now I’m a grown man, with a child of my own
And I swear I’ll never let him know
All the pain I have known
I came on to post “Baby Mine” but was beat twice. I almost died during childbirth and the hospital wouldn’t let me have my baby while I was in ICU recovering. So, one of my ICU nurses would sneak me down to the nursery late at night and let me hold my baby and every time that song would pop into my head and I’d hum it to her. Ugh. Makes me choke up just thinking about it.
The other one that gets me is “Hero” by Foo Fighters. Kind of random, but it reminds me of my kid brother when he left for basic training. He was getting on the bus and right before he put his foot on the first step, he looked back where we were all standing, watching him go. And then he disappeared onto the bus. I’d never been more proud or more scared in my entire life. (Until he left for Iraq. Twice.)
Luckily for me, I don’t hear these songs very often.
