# Songs you find unbearably moving **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [November 28, 2006, 10:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-you-find-unbearably-moving/382050 "2006-11-28T10:09:21Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 9
**Author:** ![Key\_Lime\_Guy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/48db29/32.png) [@Key\_Lime\_Guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Key_Lime_Guy)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2007, 8:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-you-find-unbearably-moving/382050/161 "2007-01-20T20:07:57Z")
Nice to see the Springsteen appreciation in this thread. Agree with all of 'em, and will add **My Hometown**. (I swear I had the _exact same experience_ - years before the song - sitting on my father’s lap driving through town as he pointed out the shitty landmarks with the idea that he was giving me a worse world than he found.) also: **Grace** by Jeff Buckley (not **Hallelujah** so much) **Ice Cream** by Sarah McLachlan **Song for the Boys** by Pat Metheny **The Hours main theme** by Philip Glass off the top of my head ---
**Author:** ![Geobabe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/geobabe/32/3908_2.png) [@Geobabe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Geobabe)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2007, 8:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-you-find-unbearably-moving/382050/162 "2007-01-20T20:14:54Z")
[What’s The Matter Here? by 10,000 Maniacs](http://www.geocities.com/bennies12/8Maniacs1.html) is one that has always been impossible for me to sing along with because I’m crying so hard. Now that I have kids, it makes me cry just thinking about it. ---
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2007, 8:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-you-find-unbearably-moving/382050/163 "2007-01-20T20:23:50Z")
Wow, Geobabe, never heard the song, but the lyrics got me pretty choked up. ---
**Author:** ![That\_creates\_more\_Q\_s\_than\_A\_s](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/54ee81/32.png) [@That\_creates\_more\_Q\_s\_than\_A\_s](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/That_creates_more_Q_s_than_A_s)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2007, 8:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-you-find-unbearably-moving/382050/164 "2007-01-20T20:28:36Z")
I like “Puttin’ On The Ritz”, the version from Young Frankenstein where the monster (Peter Boyle) sings it with top hat and cane. The monster struggles mightily to get the words out but his pal the doctor (Gene Wilder) is so supportive that it moves me every time. ---
**Author:** ![Sierra\_Indigo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f0a364/32.png) [@Sierra\_Indigo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sierra_Indigo)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2007, 12:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-you-find-unbearably-moving/382050/165 "2007-01-21T00:11:53Z")
I don’t know why, there’s really no adequate explanation, but the one song I can’t, can’t, can’t listen to (can’t even put it on my iPod, because the first few notes of the song will cause me to tear up, and I can’t stop it) is \*Late Goodbye \* by **Poets of the Fall**. It’s the theme from the Max Payne soundtrack, and for some reason it just makes me burst out and I end up crying almost uncontrollably. \*In our headlights, staring, bleak, Beer cans, deer’s eyes On the asphalt underneath, our crushed plans and my lies Lonely street signs, powerlines They keep on flashing, flashing by And we keep driving into the night It’s a late goodbye, such a late goodbye And we keep driving into the night It’s a late goodbye\* ---
**Author:** ![nashiitashii](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/7c8e57/32.png) [@nashiitashii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nashiitashii)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2007, 12:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-you-find-unbearably-moving/382050/166 "2007-01-21T00:30:43Z")
At the moment, I’m getting a bit soppy every time I listen to _Cancer_ by **My Chemical Romance**. It’s a tune about a person dying of cancer accepting death, but that’s not really the issue as to why I get soppy. I get soppy because the hardest part about death for me is separation from those I love most, which is the message that the song slowly builds up to. Lyrics under spoiler [spoiler]\*Turn away If you could get me a drink, of water 'cause my lips are chapped and faded call my aunt marie help her gather all my things and bury me in all my favorite colors my sisters and my brothers still I will not kiss you 'cause the hardest part of this is leaving you Now turn away 'cause i’m awful just to see 'cause all my hairs abandoned all my body oh my agony know that i will never marry baby i’m just soggy from the chemo but counting down the days to go It just ain’t living And I just hope you know that if you say goodbye today I’d ask you to be true 'cause the hardest part of this is leaving you 'cause the hardest part of this is leaving you\*[/spoiler] Sometimes I get soppy listening to **Queen** ’s _Millionaire Waltz_, because I’m soppy when it reminds me of my fiance. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Big\_Cheese](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8baadc/32.png) [@The\_Big\_Cheese](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Big_Cheese)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2007, 3:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-you-find-unbearably-moving/382050/167 "2007-01-21T03:02:37Z")
\*\*Annabelle \*\*by Gillian Welch. \* I had a daughter called her Annabelle She’s the apple of my eye Tried to give her something like I never had I didn’t want to ever hear her cry When I’m dead and buried I’ll take a hard life of tears For every day I’ve ever known Anna’s in the churchyard, she’s got no life at all She’s only got these words on a stone \* ---
**Author:** ![mangeorge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d78d45/32.png) [@mangeorge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mangeorge)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2007, 3:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-you-find-unbearably-moving/382050/168 "2007-01-21T03:13:24Z")
Geez, guys! Can we get back to lost love? ☹ Did I mention “Lips of an Angel”, by _Hinder_? The guy’s on the phone with his ex-girl while his new one’s in the other room. Been there. mangeorge ---
**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:** [January 21, 2007, 4:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-you-find-unbearably-moving/382050/169 "2007-01-21T04:27:11Z")
Eva Cassidy’s version of Sting’s “Fields of Gold” is something I have to skip most of the time. Maybe all of the time by now. It’s just too much for me. The religious song that gets me is “Here I Am, Lord.” It was sung at my aunt’s funeral as they wheeled the casket in and the combination of that image and those lyrics just destroyed me. ---
**Author:** ![Slithy\_Tove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slithy_tove/32/18248_2.png) [@Slithy\_Tove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slithy_Tove)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2007, 4:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-you-find-unbearably-moving/382050/170 "2007-01-21T04:29:30Z")
[QUOTE=Made in Macau] Hi everyone! I’m the OP. My question was which songs \*\*\*do you skip \*\* \* \*as they are unbearably moving, as opposed to which songs make you cry; the former category being a tearjerking league above the latter. My dad’s dying - hence the two specific songs in the OP. I’m not doubting that many have answered with skipee’s, but some have answered with cryee’s. I’ve enjoyed reading them all tho’ (and downloading not a few…) MiM [/QUOTE] Hmm, that would only be songs that had such awful connotations. I don’t have any, but my first wife couldn’t listen to Simon & Garfunkle’s “The Boxer’ because a date had once put it on to show his 'sensitive” side so that she’d have sex with him, and when she didn’t he raped her while it was still playing. Hardly the song’s fault. Otherwise, for me there’s no music that qualfies as unbearable; rather it serves to make everything else a little more bearable - even if, although very, very sad music, it provides a vehicle for catharsis. Coincidentally, I’ve been going through a bad patch lately, and recalled a song of which I only heard a few notes over 23 years ago, but never forgot. Didn’t know the title, could only guess the composer. Resolving that I should have at least one small triumph, I spent hours on Amazon tracking it down: [“Where Corals Lie” from Edward Elgar’s Sea Pictures](http://www.amazon.com/Elgar-Concerto-Pictures-Cockaigne-Overture/dp/B0002VEQGG/sr=1-2/qid=1169353090/ref=pd_bbs_sr_2/002-3455483-1317630?ie=UTF8&s=music) We remember what Picasso said: “Art is the lie that allows us to see the truth.” One beautiful song during a spell of ugly is sometimes all it takes. ---
**Author:** ![mangeorge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d78d45/32.png) [@mangeorge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mangeorge)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2007, 5:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-you-find-unbearably-moving/382050/171 "2007-01-21T05:49:48Z")
Hendrix’s “Star Spangled Banner”. I’d gotten out of the Navy the previous year, and I was seriously doubting my own patriotism. I still do. I’ve heard (read) most of the opinions and debates around the piece, but it really moved me and it still does. It hurts. But it’s rarely heard now. I don’t think youngsters would get it. ---
**Author:** ![eenerms](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/cdc98d/32.png) [@eenerms](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eenerms)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2007, 6:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-you-find-unbearably-moving/382050/172 "2007-01-21T06:24:59Z")
Nina Simone’s versons of: **Just Like a Woman and Mr.Bojangles** & from Disney’s Dumbo, **Baby Mine** Liberal, you made me cry with the \*\*In Arms of an Angel \*\* link [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-you-find-unbearably-moving/382050.md?page=8)