# Songs you can't listen to without crying **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [March 17, 2004, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-you-cant-listen-to-without-crying/234870 "2004-03-17T16:53:17Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2004, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-you-cant-listen-to-without-crying/234870/1 "2004-03-17T16:53:17Z")
I always have to wipe a tear after hearing “Cat’s in the Cradle” and, lately, “Dance With My Father” by Luther Vandross. What songs always get you right _there_? ---
**Author:** ![Wile\_E](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c37758/32.png) [@Wile\_E](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wile_E)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2004, 4:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-you-cant-listen-to-without-crying/234870/2 "2004-03-17T16:56:36Z")
Josh Groban’s “To Where You Are” ---
**Author:** ![Dung\_Beetle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dung_beetle/32/7945_2.png) [@Dung\_Beetle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dung_Beetle)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2004, 4:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-you-cant-listen-to-without-crying/234870/3 "2004-03-17T16:57:12Z")
“Wasted Time” on the Eagle’s Hotel California. There are others, but they make me cry for personal reasons rather than the tearjerking qualities of the song itself. Also, as a kid, “One Tin Soldier” and “Wildfire” always broke me up. :o ---
**Author:** ![Jimmy\_Chitwood](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f475e1/32.png) [@Jimmy\_Chitwood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jimmy_Chitwood)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2004, 4:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-you-cant-listen-to-without-crying/234870/4 "2004-03-17T16:59:01Z")
“The Ballad of Curtis Lowe” by Skynyrd. Also “Patches.” I don’t really cry, but close enough. ---
**Author:** ![plnnr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/7ea924/32.png) [@plnnr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/plnnr)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2004, 5:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-you-cant-listen-to-without-crying/234870/5 "2004-03-17T17:00:03Z")
The whole “Lady in Satin” album by Billie Holiday is a tear-fest. All the more tearful because you could hear her dying. ---
**Author:** ![heater](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/858c86/32.png) [@heater](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/heater)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2004, 5:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-you-cant-listen-to-without-crying/234870/6 "2004-03-17T17:04:27Z")
**Adam’s Song** by **Blink 182** gets me every time. ---
**Author:** ![Slacker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/6bbea6/32.png) [@Slacker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slacker)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2004, 5:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-you-cant-listen-to-without-crying/234870/7 "2004-03-17T17:06:11Z")
“Asleep” by **The Smiths** and “Jezebel” by **10,000 Maniacs**. ---
**Author:** ![askeptic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/eb9ed0/32.png) [@askeptic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/askeptic)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2004, 5:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-you-cant-listen-to-without-crying/234870/8 "2004-03-17T17:10:16Z")
Ripple and Broken Down Palace by the Greatful Dead. “Fare thee well my only true one” ---
**Author:** ![wonky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonky/32/393_2.png) [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2004, 5:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-you-cant-listen-to-without-crying/234870/9 "2004-03-17T17:12:47Z")
“100 Years” by Five for Fighting. I’m okay until it gets to “I’m 99 for a moment, dying for just another moment…” Ack. ---
**Author:** ![jk1245](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/49beb7/32.png) [@jk1245](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jk1245)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2004, 5:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-you-cant-listen-to-without-crying/234870/10 "2004-03-17T17:14:22Z")
**Heaven’s Highest Hill** by Billy Falcon is one of the saddest songs I’ve ever heard. In fact, it’s so sad that I sometimes get pissed listening to it as it seems blatantly manipulative. [Lyrics](http://www.lyricscrawler.com/song/86207.html) ---
**Author:** ![foxymoron](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/d26b3c/32.png) [@foxymoron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foxymoron)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2004, 5:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-you-cant-listen-to-without-crying/234870/11 "2004-03-17T17:28:54Z")
**"Leavin’ on a Jet Plane"** always brings tears to my eyes. For the better part of the last four years, **leenmi** has travelled for his work, leaving (often on a Jet Plane) before the kid and I wake up Monday morning and coming home on Friday night. We’re used to the schedule, but we still miss him when he’s away. (For the record, this part of the second verse _There’s so many times I’ve let you down, So many times, I’ve played around, I tell you now, they don’t mean a thing._ is not relevant to us. But by the time it comes around I’m usually too weepy to notice it.) ---
**Author:** ![Homebrew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/c89c15/32.png) [@Homebrew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Homebrew)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2004, 5:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-you-cant-listen-to-without-crying/234870/12 "2004-03-17T17:42:54Z")
If I’m feeling a little pensive or down about my family’s lack of tolerance, **Cyndi Lauper** ’s _Shine_ will get the waterworks going. ---
**Author:** ![ivylass](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/9de053/32.png) [@ivylass](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ivylass)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2004, 5:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-you-cant-listen-to-without-crying/234870/13 "2004-03-17T17:53:01Z")
_Where Were You When the World Stopped Turning_ by Alan Jackson. It was read into the Congressional record. ---
**Author:** ![G.B.H.Hornswoggler](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/c67d28/32.png) [@G.B.H.Hornswoggler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/G.B.H.Hornswoggler)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2004, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-you-cant-listen-to-without-crying/234870/14 "2004-03-17T17:54:04Z")
A lot of songs get me weepy (sometimes oddly, or unexpectedly), especially if I’m doing something else and not consciously listening to the song. But that seems to have more to do with the music than the lyrics. One song that gets me nearly every time I listen to it, though, is **This Woman’s Work** by Kate Bush. I can hardly stay dry-eyed just thinking about it. (But a lot of the songs mentioned above just sound corny to me. Maybe mine will sound corny to you, though, so then we’ll be even.) ---
**Author:** ![cowgirl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8c91f0/32.png) [@cowgirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cowgirl)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2004, 5:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-you-cant-listen-to-without-crying/234870/15 "2004-03-17T17:59:58Z")
Joni Mitchell, _Both Sides Now_, and _Case of You_, particularly the line > [@](#): > > I remember that time you told me, you said, > “Love is touching souls” > Surely you touched mine > 'Cause part of you pours out of me > In these lines from time to time I don’t udnerstand why. But I’m crying right now. There are many more ! I will be back … ---
**Author:** ![Only\_Mostly\_Dead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/f19dbf/32.png) [@Only\_Mostly\_Dead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Only_Mostly_Dead)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2004, 6:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-you-cant-listen-to-without-crying/234870/16 "2004-03-17T18:11:15Z")
For a while, I couldn’t hear Billy Joel’s “Miami 2017 (Lights Go Out On Broadway)” without getting choked up. It’s passed a bit by now, but it can still get me a little melancholy. And in some moods, U2 “Pride (In the Name of Love)” does a pretty bang-up job. And though the music itself doesn’t do it to me so much anymore, thinking about the staging at the end of **Rent** during the Finale/Curtain Call gets me bawling. My girlfriend found it endearing when we went to go see the show together early in our relationship. ---
**Author:** ![Manatee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/50afbb/32.png) [@Manatee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Manatee)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2004, 6:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-you-cant-listen-to-without-crying/234870/17 "2004-03-17T18:12:57Z")
Johnny Cash’s “Supper Time” always did it for me. Even more so when he died. ---
**Author:** ![Shayna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/shayna/32/17976_2.png) [@Shayna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shayna)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2004, 6:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-you-cant-listen-to-without-crying/234870/18 "2004-03-17T18:31:39Z")
Harry Chapin’s [Taxi](http://www.lyrics007.com/Harry%20Chapin%20Lyrics/Taxi%20Lyrics.html) gets me every time (even now, just reading the lyrics), as does Gordon Lightfoot’s [The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald](http://home.pacbell.net/chabpyne/lyrics.html). > [@](#): > > Does anyone know where the love of God goes > When the words turn the minutes to hours > The searchers all say they’d have made Whitefish Bay > If they’d fifteen more miles behind her. Dammit, where’s my kleenex? ---
**Author:** ![Lady\_Venom](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/9fc348/32.png) [@Lady\_Venom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lady_Venom)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2004, 6:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-you-cant-listen-to-without-crying/234870/19 "2004-03-17T18:32:43Z")
**Living Years** - Mike & The Mechanics **Brick** - Ben Folds Five and **Tears in Heaven** - Eric Clapton. Tears in Heaven just breaks my heart. I could listen to it no problem before my Mom died. My fiance and I were getting ready to go out Friday night and this song came on the CD shuffle. I just sat there and cried. ---
**Author:** ![pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/a9a28c/32.png) [@pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pseudotriton_ruber_ruber)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2004, 6:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-you-cant-listen-to-without-crying/234870/20 "2004-03-17T18:33:44Z")
“A Case of You” gets me choked up, too, but there’s also a James Taylor song, forget the title now, starts something like “Just yesterday morning, when they said you were gone…” that always makes me think of a specific loved one, gone these many years. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-you-cant-listen-to-without-crying/234870.md?page=2)