Elliott Smith can do it for me with several of his songs, but King’s Crossing in particular reaches through my shell of desensitization and rips into my heart. The way the song finishes:
“Open your parachute and grab your gun
Falling down like an omen, a setting sun
Read the part and we turn out fine
It’s a hell of a role if you can keep it alive
But I don’t care if I fuck up
I’m going on a date
With a rich white lady
Ain’t life great?
Gi’me one good reason not to do it
This is the place where time reverses
And dead men talk to all the pretty nurses
Instruments shine on a silver tray
Don’t let me get carried away
Don’t let me get carried away
Don’t let me be carried away”
The song is an anthem of rage and despair, and the almost free association of imagery makes it feel so intimate and palpable. Knowing about his constant struggles with his mental health and how he died (suicide via double stab wound to the heart), it’s hard not to picture and slip into this tortured mind, and then feel utterly wrung out by that devastating last gasp ending.
Wish the song itself weren’t so damn good that I often feel like listening to it for the musicianship and then keep getting punched in the gut as my reward.
Paul McCartney’s song We Got Married from the Flowers in the Dirt album. It’s such a moving tribute to a long and happy marriage, it gets me every time. Even more so since Linda died & Paul’s recent troubles.
I have never ever, ever cried at a movie – I’m just too aware that what I’m seeing is fiction – but when that song ended, I was damn close to breaking down. In a movie about toys! I felt like an idiot. But that entire sequence, the song in the context of the images, is as perfectly done as anything I’ve ever seen in a movie.
Also, for some reason Jim Croce’s Operator just makes me depressed. I don’t know why, but just thinking about this poor guy trying to call his old girlfriend (who left him for his best friend!) and pretend like he’s fine with it . . . it’s just unbearably sad.
Kelly Clarkson’s Break Away makes me tear up, mostly because of memories. It was getting a lot of airplay around the time my grandmother died and the line, “but I won’t forget all the ones that I love” still gets to me.
Stan Rogers 45 Years From Now also got to me for years. A man I loved dearly played it for me right before he proposed; after the engagement ended, every time I listened to it I felt the anger and loss again.
A couple of these came out around the time of a very painful breakup, so that’s the reason for some of my picks.
Whenever You Call - Mariah Carey
Unbreak My Heart - Toni Braxton
All Cried Out - Allure
Jumper - Third Eye Blind (I was contemplating suicide the first time I heard this song, I believe it helped save my life)
Good one there. The song seems to be about a group of good friends. That’s how I understand it, anyway. Gives me the warm fuzzies for my own circle of friends. Good times, good times…
Dervorin mentioned the Bocelli version but for me Time To Say Goodbye by Sarah Brightman gets me every time. Hey that’s no way to say Goodbye by Leonard Cohen especially:
“but lets not talk of love or chains
and things we cant untie
your eyes are soft with sorrow
hey that’s no way to say goodbye” Love the Same by Damien Jurado
Sufjan Stevens’ Casimir Pulaski Day is a double-edged sword to me. I always want to listen because it’s so well done and then, afterwards, I feel like the emotional equivalent of being stepped on by a horse.
Lessee: Biko Peter Gabriel Asimbonanga Johnny Clegg
Both reminders of the struggle against apartheid. Fragile Sting
Beautiful song similar in some ways to the first two, and then again, not. The Man With The Child In His Eyes Kate Bush
I take this one so damn personally. Severance Dead Can Dance
It’s just sad, sad, sad. Like the melancholy bit (there’s always a melancholy bit) in a Ghibli film, ya know?
Tom Paxton: “The Last Thing on My Mind:”
Are you going away with no word of farewell?
Will there be not a trace left behind?
Well, I could have loved you better, didn’t mean to be unkind
You know, that was the last thing on my mind.
I agree with “In My Life” and “Perfect Circle” (though I always thought it was about a relationship that was about to crap out – the perfect circle of acquaintances and friends was going to take his place “where he left off.”)
To that add:
“Billy Austin” – Steve Earle
“Slip Sliding Away” - Paul Simon
Silent All These Years - Tori Amos Verdi Cries - 10,000 Maniacs If I Were Your Woman, and You Were My Man - Gladys Knight & the Pips If You’re Ready, Come Go With Me - the Staple Singers Photographs & Memories - Jim Croce (but I cannot stand “Time In a Bottle”; for some reason, P&M moves me, but TIAB irritates me.) Lather - Jefferson Airplane I Can’t Get You Out of My Mind - Hank Williams I Get Along Without Very Well - Billie Holiday
The Ballad of Ira Hayes by Johnny Cash has to be about the most depressing song ever recorded. Two inches of water in a lonely ditch was a grave for Ira Hayes.
