Reading @XOldiesJock’s post got me thinking this would make an interesting discussion. (I’m sure it’s been done before, but I don’t remember seeing it.)
There are just some songs that hit hard, right in the gut, the moment you hear them. In that other thread, The A Team by Ed Sheeran was mentioned. For me, that song is Teardrop by Massive Attack.
I still remember the first time I heard it. I had just assembled a bunch of song recommendations from online forums and downloaded them from LimeWire. I was in an exploratory phase with music, headphones on, skimming through snippets of each track–until I got to this one.
It caught me completely off-guard. The sparse heartbeat rhythm in the intro, the vinyl fuzz, the harpsichord fading in with a simple figure, then that haunting piano playing root notes in the bass; the song just oozed atmosphere. It was in a major key, yet it made me want to cry. It wasn’t dark, but it tugged hard at something inside.
And then Beth Fraser’s airy, enigmatic, almost incomprehensible vocals came in, like a language of pain and loss. The melody felt simple and almost joyous, but the mood was pure longing. Quite appropriately, I teared up. I didn’t even know why. I couldn’t understand most of the lyrics, but I could understand the feeling. Every time I hear the song to this day, I think back of the first day I heard it, and I get shivers.
The Boys Of Summer, specifically the video. It came out when I was in a relationship that I knew was over but was hoping against hope that there was something I could do to make it work. It didn’t help matters that the woman in the video had more than a passing resemblace to my soon-to-be ex-girlfriend.
That Joan Baez song at the end of Silent Running (“Rejoice in the Sun”). Written by Peter Schickele of all people. I’m not sure if it’s the song that brings me to tears or if it’s the associated scene.
I think I’ve told this story here before … Brighter Days by JJ Grey and Mofro is a plaintive, hopeful song about moving away from home and being uncertain about one’s future. The first time I heard it was when I was just about at rock bottom. I had quit drinking by then but I was depressed, unmedicated and I had no one to talk to. I had Peter Principled myself into a shitty job at LL Bean, and I interpreted the lyrics as suicidal. Not that I ever had any suicidal ideation - other than that skewed lyrical interpretation.
One particular line, that doesn’t sound like much, but under the circumstances, would put me near tears every time:
You look at me and you say, “What’s wrong, boy?”
What else do you want me to say?
So that’s when I decided to stop moping and get going. I saw a therapist and got some anti-anxiety medication in me and while I’m still working shit jobs and I’m generally broke, I haven’t been this emotionally centered in decades.
“In the Real World,” by Roy Orbison. It’s about a love that isn’t fated to work out, and every time I hear it, and Roy’s soulful voice, it reminds me of a relationship I was in, many years, ago, which was intense, but ill-fated. It’s been decades, and the song still makes me cry every single time.
Casimir Pulaski Day by Sufjan Stevens. The loss of a loved one combined with the loss of faith.
I guess it’s my Baptist upbringing but the combination of a kid dying to bone cancer with the prayer circles that don’t work and the “it’s all God’s plan” pablum hits hard every time.
My hair still stands on end when I hear the solo to “Sympathy for the Devil” by the Rolling Stones or “Making the Nature Scene” by Sonic Youth.
I’m pretty sure everyone’s heard this one, but here it is.
Not sure how many have heard this one, but it boils away underneath through the whole song, then erupts.
Yep, both of them still work after decades of listening to them.
But the one that totally debilitates me is George Jones’ “He Stopped Loving Her Today”. When it comes on the radio, I’ve got to either change the station as soon as I hear the opening lines, or pull over to the side of the road. If I don’t, I’ll be crying and unable to see by the first chorus. Just typing the title in the YT search made me tear up. Why? I don’t really know. I know George is pushing all those emotional buttons and it’s a stylish Nashville production. It still somehow gets to me for no really good reason.
My City of Ruins - Bruce Springsteen
I’ve always been just a casual fan of Bruce. Really liked Born in the USA album and then just kind of moved on. Flash forward to Sept. 12th, 2001 and the Tribute to Heroes benefit concert.
He stood on that candlelit stage and sang MCoR and I just blubbed uncontrollably. Obviously it wasn’t written for or about the 9/11 attacks, but it was worked perfectly. I realize my emotional state had a lot to do with my reaction at the time, but years later I still get a dull pain in my heart.
Star Spangled Banner has always made me tear up a little. I’ve never considered myself overly patriotic, but I grew up feeling really lucky and proud to have been born here. Now I tear up for different reasons.
So many songs that I could list… Many get me because the circumstances at the time I first heard them, or weirdly, that they were playing while I was reading a deeply emotional scene in a book, and it always brings that moment back to me…
I think I’ll keep it to just a few that I’ll always stop and actually listen too, because they always evoke an emotion (generally melancholy).
“The Last Time I Saw Her Face” by Gordon Lightfoot, one of his best songs ever. The last verse:
The last time I saw her face Her eyes were bathed in starlight and she walked alone The last time she kissed my cheek Her lips were like the wilted leaves Upon the autumn covered hills Resting on the frozen ground The seeds of love lie cold and still Beneath a battered marking stone It lies forgotten
Even reading the lyrics sends me for the Kleenex. Pure poetry.
May your hands always be busy
May your feet always be swift
May you have a strong foundation
When the winds of changes shift
May your heart always be joyful
May your song always be sung
And may you stay forever young
May you stay forever young
These 4 songs always get me. They just speak volumes to me about my life and how I see society and my role in it.
Peggy Lee’s incredible “Is That All There Is?”
Steely Dan’s masterpiece “Deacon Blues”
Two Japanese songs that I consider to be amazing.
Original Love’s “Words of Love”
(I heard this first on a Japan Airlines flight from Honolulu to Tokyo in 1996 when I moved there for the 2nd time. I instantly fell in love with it and after arriving and clearing immigration and customs, searched for a record store and found the exact single CD shown in this video.)
And lastly (though there are many, many more I could share), Hamada Shogo’s “Kataomoi” (it means “unrequited love” in English. Watching this video brought me to tears because it really suits the lyrics to the song.
Sorry to post 2 Japanese songs, but I lived approximately 1/3 of my 61 years in Japan and nothing means more to me in my life than those years.
I had a very similiar reaction to another Don Henley song-- The Heart of the Matter. I was dealing with a breakup with someone I had been with for several years. I had hoped we could get back together for a long time but was beginning to accept the fact that we were done for good. When that song came out and was getting a lot of radio play, it seemed like every word of it could have been written by me.
