Lots, but the first one that pops into my mind is “Company” by Rickie Lee Jones. A very dear friend of mine died around the time I was listening to that album, and the music and performance are heartbreaking, but the lyrics rip me up (partial!) to this day:
*I’ll remember you too clearly
But I’ll survive another day
Conversations to share
When there’s no one there
I’ll imagine what you’d say
I’ll see you in another life now, baby
I’ll free you in my dreams
But when I reach across the galaxy
I will miss your company *
It’s one of the songs that my children picked for my wife’s (their mother’s) funeral last summer. July 11th will be one year. It was her grandmother’s favorite song.
Also, can someone help me figure out what other song breaks my heart…it was a fairly big hit, I think, sung by a male solo singer. It had pretty big orchestration on it, and it was a song inspired by or about his father, and the thrust of it was telling people you love them while they are alive to hear it.
The first song that occured to me was “Keep Me in Your Heart.” In fact, that whole album (The Wind) gets to me because he knew he was dying when he wrote/recorded it.
some other “favorite” sad songs:
We’ll Meet Again, Johnny Cash
Red Dirt Girl, Emmylou Harris
I Grieve, Peter Gabriel
Beautiful Wife, Natalie Merchant
That Song I always hear on the World Cafe around Christmas about the one-day Christmas truce when the British and German soldiers played soccer, Some country or folk singer whose first name may or may not be Joe.
Stoid - Some more info would help (like what decade it might be from). The only song that comes to my mind immediately is “The Living Years” by Mike and the Mechanics. I doubt that’s it, though.
Aside from my car dying*, I haven’t actually cried since I was eight. However, Puff the Magic Dragon always got to me back in my youth.
REM’s Losing my Religion** has managed the response of getting angry to cover any emotion I might really be feeling, though.
I’m a guy. Grandma dies? I’ll miss her cooking, but she had a good, full life. Best friend, who I’ve made a point of not talking to for two years due to a fight, “accidentally” blew his own head off with a shotgun?* Pussy couldn’t handle it. My car’s totaled? I blubber like a baby for the better part of an hour.
**first double starred item got plenty of radio play about when I heard about the second double starred item.
Tears in Heaven by Eric Clapton.
I can not sit through this song. It reminds me too much of what I have lost. When my grandma died a few years ago, I begged my family not to play that song, and they did any way. I got up and left half way through the memorial service.
My one small claim to (vicarious) fame: My dad’s second-best friend mixed that album. The song itself makes me cry, but the extra weight of knowing that someone who was a big part of my childhood was involved with making such beautiful music makes an extra-big lump in my chest. Great song pick!!
As for my nomination…well, I’m hard-pressed to find a song that doesn’t make me cry. So I’ll take it a little further and nominate one that has lyrics that are already cry-worthy, but with the addition of a musical saw, literally takes my breath away: In the Aeroplane Over the Sea by Neutral Milk Hotel. When I’d listen to it on my MP3 player at work, I’d actually have people coming up to me asking if I was okay, because I tend to make these choking noises. Really the most moving music I’ve ever heard
Chorus:
I’m goin’ home
My family’s waitin’ for me, goin’ home
I’m amazed that they still love me
They forgive me for the bitter seeds I’ve sown
Heaven knows I’ve been away too long
So now I’m going home.
Songs about home always make me cry. Not in a bad way though.
Also, I see someone mentioned Black by Pearl Jam already. I didn’t care much for the song the first few times I heard it but when I paid attention to the lyrics it became a favourite.
The pungent, poignant, plangent songs of Elvis Costello do it for me. Alison, Party Girl, and most especially The Favourite Hour - the song I’m having at my funeral:
[Note to mods: as these lyrics are published in full on EC’s own site, I don’t imagine there’s any problem in posting them in full here too]
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