I went to read the lyrics just to see and I teared up at that. Damn poor building circulation- damn allergies at work…
[quote=“DooWahDiddy, post:10, topic:463187”]
I defy any grown man to listen to “Cat’s in the Cradle” without tearing up.
And some grown women too.
Second for Eric Clapton’s “Tears from Heaven”
Plus:
James Taylor: Fire and Rain
“Sweet dreams and flying machines in pieces on the ground.”
Silly Wizard: “The Highland Clearances” Strangely enough it’s the penny whistle (?) solo at the end that gets me.
“Rainbow Connection” gives me a lump, but the song is hopeful enough that I can sing it through without a problem.
The one that gets me lately is “I Loved Her First”, by Heartland. I first heard the song watching this video someone made with “The Sims 2”, and cheesy though it may be, I’m now reduced to a watery-eyed heap whenever I hear it. The song’s about a father giving away his daughter on her wedding day. What gets me the most is the images of the father putting the little girl to sleep in her crib…probably because that’s just what I’ve been doing just about every night for the last year and a half.
Dione Warrick’s That’s What Friends Are For. I always liked that song, but ever since it was played for a very good friend’s funeral, I associate it with him, and I can’t listen to it anymore.
I just thought of another one that makes me sob… not tear up, mind you, I’m talking bawl like a little baby: Pearl Jam’s versons of “Last Kiss”. The original is great, but something in Eddie Vedder’s voice just makes it so heart-and-gut wrenching. When he sings this verse I just fall apart:
“When I woke up the rain was pourin down. There were people standin’ all around. Something warm flowing through my eyes, but somehow I found my baby that night. I lifted her head, she looked at me and said, ‘Hold me darling, just a little while.’”
Wow, I just realized that my two saddest songs (this one and “A Little Fall of Rain” from Les Mis) are about a woman dying in the man’s she loves arms. Hmmmm…
I never used to be sentimental about songs at all, but as I get older I find myself sniffling often at a song on the radio. Latest was Elvis - “In the Ghetto”.
“One” by U2 gets me every time.
“Danny Boy” because someone I loved dearly had it sung at their funeral.
“Sunshine On My Shoulders” by John Denver because my mother has told us that she wants it played at HER funeral. Even though she’s happy and healthy, just thinking of it makes me cry when I hear that song.
‘wish you were here’ - pink floyd
a great song made eternally sad for me since it was played at a great friends funeral…
iirc:
how I wish
how I wish you were here
we’re just two lost souls
swimming in a fish bowl
year after year
going over the same old sounds
what have we found?
the same old fields
wish you were here
“Cherry Tree” by 10,000 Maniacs. It is about someone who is illiterate but longs to be able to read and it just tears me up.
Stay Gold by Stevie Wonder
Jesse written by Janis Ian as performed by Roberta Flack.
Both of these songs have the perfect recipe of sadness, mixed with a bit of appreciation for happier times, and add a generous helping of yearning.
Voila! Tear-jerker.
I was going to say this, except “as sung by my mom.”
I used to have to leave the room when she would sing it because otherwise I’d cry. (My mom is a good singer/guitar player, and my dad pretty more tore her heart out when he left when I was 10 months old. She’s still single, in fact, over 35 years later. So she put, uh, a lot of emotion into that song.)
I think the recording above was the first-ever performance of it at MarCon 1990.
He later performed this at MarCon 2005 (there’s a live album not on his website called Homecoming 2005 - basically the anniversary of his first public performance at MarCon). After the song was over, among quiet sniffles he told his story about writing it then started playing “Rainbow Connection” and the whole audience was singing along at the end. You talk about the perfect definition of cathartic - and still is every time I hear these two particular recordings.
I just heard this on Scrubs the other night (of all shows). Sometimes they like to throw a curve in their comedy routine and this was one of those times. And I think it was an episode about some young kid dying. Where is the damn remote… you’re not gonna depress me. Uh uh.
Many of these do it for me - Hallelujah, Wish You Were Here, etc…
However, without fail, Casimir Pulaski Day by Sufjan Stevens does it - the confusion and despair at the loss of a friend at a young age combined with the overturning of the classic Biblical injunction does it:
If there is a God, he seems to take just as much as he gives…
Well, sure it’s inspiring. I mean the hooker does get to live and feel horribly guilty for the poor dead righteous folks and then she gives that bloody bible to her bastard kid so everything’s okay.
I love a great many gospel songs because I love to sing, and so many gospel tunes have such rich melodies. A few that reduce me to tears are: How Great Thou Art, In The Garden, Blessed Assurance.
My favorite Christmas album is Luciano Pavarotti’s ; Ave Maria(Schubert) and Panis Angelicus always make me weepy.
REM’s Everybody Hurts. Michael Stipe is such an emotional singer anyway, and, well, around that time I lost my infant daughter. I kept hearing him sing, “hold on … hold on” and knew that I could, in fact, hold on. I didn’t imagine that song was written for me, but in a little way, I felt like it was. And then there’s Man in the Moon on there just for fun, too.
I remember singing America the Beautiful at Mass the Sunday after 9/11 and crying – as were many other people. Now every time I hear it, the associations make me tear up. Especially the line, “God mend thine every flaw.”
Danny Boy has been mentioned quite a few times. I swear, I heard that tenor on the old Lawrence Welk show singing it one time and I thought I would have a nervous breakdown.
Amen.
Rainbow Connection, as sung by Kamakawiwo’ole.
And a handful of songs by Lyle Lovett. Dude can sing some pain. The Fat Girl, and Promises, and Nobody Knows Me. That last one just about did me in after my divorce.
They also used in the West Wing in about season 5 or 6, the one where CJ’s bodyguard boyfriend gets shot. I’ve loved it ever since then.
I thought that song made everyone cry. I had a Peter, Paul and Mary album on in the car a few months ago and that one came on, and I had a very hard time singing along because I kept getting choked up. I always have.