# 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:** 8\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![Time\_Like\_Tears](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/df705f/32.png) [@Time\_Like\_Tears](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Time_Like_Tears)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2004, 3:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-you-cant-listen-to-without-crying/234870/121 "2004-03-21T03:31:21Z")
☹ I just made the mistake of listening to Winter right after I posted… And I realised there’s an S in crescendo. Isn’t there? ---
**Author:** ![Leonidas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/cab0a1/32.png) [@Leonidas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leonidas)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2004, 5:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-you-cant-listen-to-without-crying/234870/122 "2004-03-21T05:47:53Z")
I can’t say I had a song reduce me to tears, but there are a few that I have avoided becuase I didn’t like the struggle it took to prevent that from happening. REM - Nightswimming Probably because the song is mostly about remembering good times that are past, and are not to return. It didn’t help that I was listening to that song a lot while dating a certain girl, and things just didn’t work out. I had to put that one away after that and didn’t listen to it for years. Linda Ronstadt - Long Long Time Essentially for the same reason as above. Few songs I’ve ever heard capture the feeling of not having sombody know how much you care about them, as they choose to let you go because they don’t care enough about you, or don’t even notice you enough to see you trying. Perhaps Bonnie Rait’s “I can’t make you love me”, but that one doesn’t have the same effect to me, though the feeling seems genuine enough. The Dolly Parton version of “I Will Always Love You” is possibly the only other one that gets this effect. Several others have mentioned get ot me also. The include: Puff the Magic Dragon - Peter once explained that there never was an actual “Puff”, and that the song was merely about the loss of innocence in a child. Somehow that made things even worse to me than if it had been about a discarded toy. When the timbre of this song changes with the line “Dragons live forever, but no so little boys”, and you realize that its about discarding a childhood, its hard not to feel something. Angel - Sarah McLachlan - There is just something about this song that makes me think of everybody I ever knew that died while I still had things I needed to ask them. There are probably others, but I’m going to stop now before I depress myself. ---
**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 21, 2004, 8:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-you-cant-listen-to-without-crying/234870/123 "2004-03-21T08:39:19Z")
Ok, I’ll 'fess up to a really sappy one. I can’t seem to get through [The Rainbow Connection](http://www.songlyrics.com/song-lyrics/Kermit_The_Frog/Miscellaneous/The_Rainbow_Connection/163250.html) (yes, the Kermit song) without choking up. > [@](#): > > Who said that every wish > Would be heard and answered > When wished on the morning star > Somebody thought of that > And someone believed it > And look what it’s done so far > What’s so amazing > That keeps us star gazing > What do we think we might see > > Someday we’ll find it > That Rainbow Connection > The lovers the dreamers and me Ok, well at least I don’t take it nearly as far as [this chick](http://www.cowgirlfunk.com/rainbowconnection.htm) did and _analyze_ the dang thing. But maybe now that I’ve read this, I won’t ever have to worry about crying when I hear this song anymore… > [@](#): > > The beginning of the song begins like this piece did, in the voice of the cynical and downtrodden: > > Why are there so many songs about rainbows > What’s on the other side? > Rainbows are visions, but only illusions > And rainbows have nothing to hide > > Then comes one of the most notorious progressions of intervals: > > …So we’ve been told and some choose to believe it. > > And then that damned frog MADE OF FELT sings with all the earnestness in the world > > I know they’re wrong, wait and see… > > I think we all know what comes next. Yes, gales and gales of laughter. BWAH! I’m sorry, but that just cracked me the hell up. I’ll now return you to your regularly scheduled sad thread. \ ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Rieux](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/aeb1de/32.png) [@Dr.Rieux](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Rieux)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2004, 9:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-you-cant-listen-to-without-crying/234870/124 "2004-03-21T09:02:43Z")
“Because You Loved Me” by Celine Dion, because I heard it a lot around the time my mother died. “Vincent” by Don McLean “Rainy Night in Georgia” “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald” Several of Jim Croce’s–especially “Photographs and Memories” The Carpenters’ cover of “Little Altar Boy” ---
**Author:** ![PunditLisa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/4af34b/32.png) [@PunditLisa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PunditLisa)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2004, 8:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-you-cant-listen-to-without-crying/234870/125 "2004-03-21T20:49:39Z")
Ditto on **Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald**. However, slight correction on Shayna’s posted lyrics, now that you all have the song stuck in your head. Does anyone know where the love of God goes When the words turn minutes to hours should be: When the _waves_ turn minutes to hours My list also includes: **I Can’t Make you Love Me** by Bonnie Raitt, words by Mike Reed **Unbreak my Heart** by Toni Braxton **Angel** by Sarah McLaughin **On the Roof** by James Taylor, sung live at the 9/11 tribute 😭 **Puff the Magic Dragon** by Peter, Paul and Mary. (Poor Puff!) ---
**Author:** ![Beltane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/aca169/32.png) [@Beltane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beltane)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2004, 9:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-you-cant-listen-to-without-crying/234870/126 "2004-03-21T21:14:35Z")
**Bridge over Troubled Waters** I’ve menitoned this one a few times on this board My sister once told me, while I was listening to that song, obviously really being moved by it, that I could always think of her when I heard it. This was during a time that I was suffering from severe depression and trying to fight my way out of being suicidal. Years latter, it was played at her funeral, after she killed herself. That was over three years ago, and I have tears running down my cheeck right now. I really am much better, though. ---
**Author:** ![Akaadji](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e480ec/32.png) [@Akaadji](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Akaadji)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2004, 9:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-you-cant-listen-to-without-crying/234870/127 "2004-03-21T21:25:06Z")
Hmm…well, for personal reasons, Thief, and half the time listening to The World or Aura ( both songs from .hack//sign, I believe) makes me want to cry… ---
**Author:** ![Jimmy\_Joe\_Meager](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/bb73d2/32.png) [@Jimmy\_Joe\_Meager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jimmy_Joe_Meager)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2004, 10:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-you-cant-listen-to-without-crying/234870/128 "2004-03-21T22:12:29Z")
**The Babysitter’s Here** by Dar Williams Not a sad sort of cry, just makes me remember my innocence as a child thinking my 17 year old babysitter was “all grown up”! At 8 or 9 years old I had a crush on her (hey… she could sit on her hair and she was as tall as my dad), got my parents to take me to see her in her high school play, and I did cry when she told me she was going to college that fall. Now as an adult I hear the lyrics and realzie just what a “kid” she was, too. Not immature, but dealing with grown-up troubles for the first time: her boyfriend pressuring her, going away to school, etc. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-you-cant-listen-to-without-crying/234870.md?page=6)