“Comrade, Raise no glass for me” by Stephen Foster, Ron Sexsmith’s version is a killer.
“On Raglan Road” by Patrick Kavanagh, as sung by Luke Kelly
“The Island” by Paul Brady
“The Internationale”, Billy Bragg’s version
“Kevin Barry”, Paul Robeson’s version
they all get me weepy.
bainne
I am getting a lump in my throat just thinking about ‘Raglan Road.’
The one I know is sung by Van Morrison.
But for me the real tearjerker has always been John Hiatt’s Have A Little Faith In Me. I liked the starker original version, the one without the choral group in the background, but either one gets me.
When the road gets dark
And you can
no longer see
Let my love throw a spark
Have a little faith in me
I should add, also, that Shine On You Crazy Diamond will do this to me also. All the parts.
So will In My Life- The Beatles.
And I’m “also” being redundant “also”. Delete whichever “also” you want.
For me, it’s Hey There Delilah by the Plain White T’s. I really don’t like PWT and I never thought one of their songs would affect me on any sort of emotional level. But my boyfriend is a big fan, and he and I are in a long-distance relationship. He said that song makes him think of me. I can’t listen to it without blubbering.
Yeah, I’d have to second Tom Waits. Take It With Me is the one that usually gets to me.
In a land there’s a town
And in that town there’s a house
And in that house there’s a woman
And in that woman there’s a heart I love
I’m gonna take it with me when I go
The cover of **Bridge Over Troubled Water **that Johnny Cash did on his last album does it too.
Be Thou my Vision
Even Van Morrison’s version on Hymns to the Silence, with his voice rough and ragged, and what sounds like the Chieftans playing behind him after they’ve all had several pints of Guinness – just tears me all to pieces. I can’t drive when it’s playing.
as a second generation irishman, i am genetically predisposed to tear up at “danny boy”
as a music lover, i once was moved to tears at the beauty of fredericka von staade, with the mormon tabernacle choir singing shubert’s “ave maria”
I have a recording of it done by the Chieftains, with a guest appearance from Roger Daltrey on lead vocal. Wonderful stuff. (Indeed, your posts have made me feel compelled to put it on now…)
I’m the sort of person who’ll cry at practically anything if it hits me in just the right mood, I have to admit…
“Heart of Gold” by the Kinks would make me cry when my wife was pregnant with our daugher.
I don’t know why.
The song “Bright Eyes,” sung by Art Garfunkel, which was featured in Watership Down, always makes me cry.
Lyrics are here.
I have to agree with several of the choices here.
Sarah MacLachlan singing “When She Loved Me” gets to me every time, especially if I am caught unawares. My mother is not in the best of health. She is a parkinson’s patient and this song just reminds me of how she was before being struck down by this disease.
“True Colors” by Cyndi Lauper
“Over My Head” by Aztec Camera
“Why” by Annie Lennox (was a big blubbery mess when I saw her perform this song this past summer)
Those are the ones just off the top of my head.
BY MY SIDE from Godspell, where the women disciples are pledging to follow Jesus through all hardship anywhere (and you know the women will keep that promise, unlike the men)- and then during the instrumental lull, the narration by Judas Iscariot.
After All These Years by silverchair. This really shocked me the first time I heard it. I knew I’d heard it before at some early point in my not so happy childhood. I finaly worked out that the whole thing is pinched from a CD my perents used to play.
Perfect Family by Diana Ah Naid sometimes gets me (again old memories).
Better Than Chocolate by Sarah McLachlan gets me because it is played at the end of the movie Better Than Chocolate and it has a happy end.
Anything that’s been use as an end scene song in a romantic comedy. I hate Romantic comedies! They are to happy. They remind me of things I don’t want to remember.
If I’m already upset (tends to only happen if someone/thing dies) then trying to practice (singing) will make me cry.
Look here, I’m an English chap and the only way you will get me to cry is to tell me I’ve developed a life threatening allergy to curry. But this song gets close. The Floyd song that gets closest would be Wish You Were Here.
Although not a song (as such, at all), the slow movement of Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto always puts a lump in my throat.
After the announcement of Karl Haas’s recent death, the local radio station played the Pathetique, which gets to me anyway. Hearing it, I realized how much Karl had given me over the years, and I cried for the man, right there in my car.
There are a few hundred songs that make me cry, but When She Loved Me…
I only heard it the one time I saw Toy Story II, and I have studiously avoided that song and movie ever since, because that song just broke my heart. I’m talking huge, gasping sobs in the movie theater!
I will agree with shoeless and say Johnny Cash’s version of Bridge over Troubled Water.
I’ll add Release by Pearl Jam and Black by PJ.
Hold On By Tom Waites can get to me too.
I agree completely, however, the song must be sung by Shane McGowan to have any effect on me.
I’m surprised no one mentioned it, maybe it’s just me but Yesterday by the Beatles always makes me feel very sad.