Apparently having a good cry to music makes you feel better. I think I agree.
What brings a tear to your eye? I don’t mean because it is so bad!
For me, it’s Morrissey’s ‘I Know Very Well How I got My Name’ but I have no idea why – it’s just that ‘You think you were my first love…’ line.
Also, ‘Goodnight, Travel Well’ by The Killers, as it reminds me of my mother passing away.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/apr/13/music-cry-tracks-tears-songs-weeping
There are two that never fail:
The Show Must Go On – Queen
The entirety of the Carousel Original Soundtrack
The following almost always work:
Mount The Air – The Unthanks
Sibelius’ 5th Symphony
Coat of Many Colours – Dolly Parton
Most Puccini Arias
So You’ll Aim Towards the Sky – Grandaddy
There are many more.
Once Mrs H and I found ourselves blubbing simultaneously to Two Little Boys when it came on the radio. Sadly we haven’t done that for a while.
Oh yes Coat is a good one. Lots of those super emotional country weepies get me. “Ruby don’t take your love to town”!
Including, of course, the BIG DADDY of all super emotional country weepies, “He Stopped Loving Her Today” by George Jones.
Exposure to even 10 seconds of that song is usually enough to reduce a grown adult to a blubbering wreck.
Carousel is one of mine too. I remember getting quite upset about the storyline of the movie when first watching it as a boy – a first realisation of mortality.
Another would be the Stephen Bishop song The Same Old Tears on a New Background sung by Art Garfunkel. A break-up memory from my teens.
Three that immediately spring to mind are:
John Prine – Hello In There
Patty Griffin – Making Pies
Stacey Earle – Silly You
How long have you got?
The first one that comes to mind is this beauty, that I was raving about, to @SteveT, on the ‘Who Do You Collect’ thread. From the voice of Alison Krauss and the pen of Michael McDonald.
“It’s finally come.
Is that ‘sorry’ on your breath?
Where were you when I was sittin’ back here
Missin’ you to death?
It don’t matter now.”
It never fails to floor me.
Alison Krauss for me too – this one.
These three get me every time and it could be the association of another year gone, more people that have passed, the melancholic nature of two of the songs, who knows…but without fail they get me.
Counting Crows – Long December
Smith & Burrows – When the Thames Froze There is a point in early/mid December when the OH asks for my Spotify Xmas playlist to be put on, usually whilst preparing a Sunday lunch and so cider/wine has been taken. We both end up in floods when this comes on
U2 – Walk On On the morning of my step Mother’s funeral this came on the radio when I was in the shower and I heard the lyrics
“You’re packing a suitcase for a place
None of us has been
A place that has to be believed
To be seen”
And I went big time,I still do….. She was the biggest influence in my life.
This.
Loudon Wainwright chronicled a very sad period in my life with ‘Your mother and I’ and ‘Five years old’
Joni’s Shades of scarlet conquering was the song that got to me when I first got my heart broken by a girl.
Living Years by Mike and the Mechanics also got me before my Dad died last year but I know if I heard it now I would completely lose it.
However Richard Thompson did it best with Linda – A heart needs a home. Say no more.
Your very mention of A Heart Needs A Home has me welling up.
This performance – I was watching when it aired in ’75 – was my first conscious exposure to Mr Thompson’s œuvre. I’ve never looked looked back, and have just had a good blart while listening again:
check out “when the children cry” by 80s poodle metal band WHITE LION.
you will cry….but maybe not for the right reason 🙁
Jesus blood is heart wrenching.
Brian Eno discusses this on Adam Buxton’s latest podcasts- it’s in two parts; I think the discussion is on the second part but I can’t remember, sorry.
Oooooh that sounds good. Love Jesus’ Blood, love Eno, love Adam Buxton – three ticks!
I’ve list track of Adam Buxton since the old Adam and Joe podcast stuff.
Both parts of the podcast are fascinating. Eno is a marvel.
Nothing. Snap out of it, you bunch of jessies.
This never fails to reduce me to mush:
Big fan of the Jaguar Skillz Adam & Joe remix too.
@ Friar.Hard hearted harbinger of haggis!
‘Little Green’, Joni Mitchell.
‘Child with a child pretending
Weary of lies you’re sending home
So you sign all the papers in the family name
You’re sad and you’re sorry but you’re not ashamed, little green
Have a happy ending.’
That’s about the daughter she gave up for adoption isn’t it?
‘River’ is the one that gets me.
It is.
Yes, ‘River’ too, especially around Christmas.
Billy Don’t Be A Hero (“I heard she threw the letter away.”)
Matchstalk Men and Matchstalk Cats and Dogs (“The fever came and the good Lord mopped his brow.”)
Two Little Boys (“Did you think I would leave you dying when there’s room on my horse for two?”)
Tie A Yellow Ribbon (“Now the whole damned bus is cheering and I can’t believe I see a hundred yellow ribbons ’round the ole oak tree.”)
Ça Plane Pour Moi (“Poupée de cellophane, cheveux chinois, un sparadrap, une gueule de bois.”)
Gary you forgot ‘Seasons in the Sun’. 😉
Good call, Bri. “Think of me and I’ll be there.”
Sob.
I’ll add No One Quite Like Grandma by the St Winifred’s School Choir. And Grandad by Clive Dunn. And Mother Of Mine by the kid who won Opportunity Knocks.
Tbperfectlyh, I’m with Friar. I can’t seriously imagine my eyes mostening because of a song. I remember seeing Dustin Hoffman on Inside The Actors Studio and he was weeping at the slightest whiff of nostalgia. He told the students “As you get older you cry more easily – you’ll see”. Utter tosh and nonsense, I thought then and still think now. Speaking for himself and thinking it applies to everyone, the dang eejit.
Just in case anyone is thinking of making a Spotify playlist you may want to skip over Gary’s contributions.
I am agree. Too emotional.
You also forgot Hello, This Is Joanie.
I don’t know that, but from the title alone it sounds amazing.
Brace yourself then – Take it away Mr Evans:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VRfS10Ae46o
John Cameron’s music for Kes. Every. Single. Time. (That was nearly auto corrected to John Cameron’s music for Keswick, which probably isn’t so emotional)
Re: John Cameron’s music for Kes
Oh yes, that has the great Jamaican flautist Harold McNair on it, hasn’t it? Tremendous stuff. I was very pleased when Trunk Records finally put out a CD of it a few years ago.
http://www.trunkrecords.com/turntable/kes.shtml
I’m a bloke, I don’t cry
But if I did …
Cathal Smyth – Love Song No. 7
Henry Priestman – At The End Of The Day
and it may be a cliché, but the song and video together for Johnny Cash Hurt
Oh yeah, Hurt is a good one.
I just don’t know what to do with myself – Dusty Springfield – Heartbreaking & wonderful in equal measure.
Its only make believe – I don’t think I have ever heard a version of this that I didn’t love, but the Glen Campbell version always has me in floods.
As an aside, I love the version on the splendid new (?) John Cooper Clarke/ Hugh Cornwell album.
Unchained Melody – Righteous Brothers – an easy (& cheesy) choice but I unashamedly love it.
My late wife Karen loved The power of love by Jennifer Rush & that reduces me to tears as well.
Now please excuse me, I appear to have something in my eye…
The Cinema Paradiso soundtrack .
Tomorrow belongs to me – Cabaret.
Sunrise, Sunset – Fiddler on the roof.
Soho Square – Kirsty Macoll
Sous le ciel de Paris – Edith Piaf.
Damn, the lyrics of this get me everytime….
Many, many, but this one always gets me.
I often well up at the sheer wonderfulness of a song even though that song or its lyrics has no particular resonance with anything personal in my life. My wife often responds to me saying “hey listen to this its really good” with “you’re not going to cry are you?” Recent blubbers include “Everyones a VIP to someone” by the go-team and “Easter Theatre” by XTC. Which gives me an excuse to post this – as I do every year. Happy if slightly weepy Easter everyone.
Oh loads but “Walk like a man” by the Boss always sets me off. Anything about Dads and sons, basically. “My boy” by Elvis….pure shlock….waaaaaah 😢
Obvs
A dragon lives forever but not so little boys
Painted wings and giant rings make way for other toys
One grey night it happened, Jackie Paper came no more
And Puff that mighty dragon, he ceased his fearless roar
His head was bent in sorrow, green scales fell like rain,
Puff no longer went to play along the cherry lane
Without his life-long friend, Puff could not be brave,
So Puff that mighty dragon sadly slipped into his cave
Roddy Frame’s Surf album is the best depiction of heartbreak I’ve ever heard. Different tracks at different times ring so true – beautiful lyrics. “Take her face out of the start of the day for me, I’m half-crazed wondering if I should follow or let it go”. We’ve all lived through that in our younger days…
In another way entirely, since my father died 11 years ahoy, Cloudbusting by Kate Bush sets the waterworks going anytime I hear it…so many trigger words in the lyrics. It’s quite inconvenient if I’m driving at the time.
Talking of Kate, what about The Man With The Child In His Eyes, or This Woman’s Work?
Ooooo, This Woman’s Work is a guarantor of wailing. I remember my hearing it on the soundtrack to a Demi Moore film. She ultimately gave birth to that song, OK, a little literal, but, as a new dad then myself it was awesomely emotive.
(Just watched it and it worked!!!!)
Elizabeth McGovern but yeah, wow, that was a real moment: John Hughes perfect gearshift from fish-out-water comedy to imminent tragedy. An underrated film if you ask me.
Loads but here’s the top 2:
Runrig (but I prefer the purity of the studio version)
Townes
OK, one for sorrow…..
Waterboys
Woodpile by Frightened Rabbit. It strikes too close to home.
Vincent Black Lightning because I’m a sentimental slob.
Magic Kid by Hayes Carll because I love and miss my kid.
And occasionally L’enfant from L’opera sauvage.
VBL is a good one plus I was in floods at an RT gig when he did “Beeswing”.
“Alone Again (Naturally)” gets me every time. No explanation needed it’s just those bloody brutally sad lyrics.
“Nothing Rhymed” specifically the Justin Currie version does it too
“Holding Back The Years” was the first song I heard on the radio the day my dad died
There are others…….
Nobbut I’m serious. Do you guys actually *cry* when you listen to these songs?
I can’t remember the last time I full-on cried, as in sobs and floods of tears.
There are many, many things that cause me to become moist-eyed and even a few that will produce an inner sob and a bit of a flush. None lately that result in blubbing.
I get chills and goosebumps and huge feelings of elation from music. I don’t think a piece of music has ever made me produce tears, even at the level of “slightly moist eyes”.
Films and books do, very occasionally. Not songs.
Its a connection thing. All my choices are deeply personal bringing memories of times of loss or sadness. Is it the actual song that brings a tear to the eye or the memories of a particular time and place I’m not sure. probably a combination.
I understand the connection thing Dave.
When I hear the favourite song of the woman I adored & was married to for almost 19 years before she died in my arms just after her 39th birthday, (and just 18 days after being diagnosed with cancer) It still brings me out in floods of tears, despite it happening almost 16 years ago & my being happily married.
Floods of tears? – Oh yes.
Not actually cry, but well up, feel choaked…mind you that happens to me all the time.
Cry? For sure. Inconsolably.
Catch a grip of yourself, man.
But don’t film yourself doing it.
Giff zem ein nice kold shower.
David Gates – Everything I Own.
This – but only the Vince Mendoza-orchestrated version.
This – particularly where it breaks down at the four minute mark.
And as others have said “Alone Again Naturally” – the line “I remember I cried when my father died…” Oof!
BSN! Yes!
Christmas carols, especially singing along to them. I started joining in to “O Come All Ye Faithful” (or it could have been Hark the Herald) in the Kings Cambridge Carol broadcast near the end, and found myself unable to continue for the tears,
Sibelius’ Finlandia Hymn, particularly when set to the words of Be Still My Soul. Beth Nielsen Chapman’s version.
Lastly ‘Son of Hickory Holler’s Tramp’ by O.C Smith when it gets to the lines
‘Last summer Momma passed away
And left the ones who loved her
Each and every one is
More than grateful for their birth
And each Sunday she receives
A big bouquet of fourteen roses
With a card that reads
The Greatest Mom on Earth’
But here’s Beth:
I know what you mean. Children singing carols is a trigger for me. On a related note, forgive them the prolonged intro:
I went to Twang Jr’s school carol concert – all in their uniforms, singing like angels – when the descant came in on “Oh come all ye faithful”, tears rolled down my cheeks. I sang that descant in the choir when I was his age (12) – I think that’s what set me off.
I can’t listen to Automatic For The People because it soundtracked my journey back and to to the hospital in the build up to my dad’s death.
I have always thought Sandy Denny’s Where Does The Time would be a tear jerker at a funeral but have never experienced it. Yet.
However, number one on the tear list is Sam Cooke’s A Change Is Gonna Come.
One year at Cropredy ‘Flowers of the Forest’ was played on the bagpipes. Sandy had it played at her funeral, I was in tears.
I cry every day, more than once: when I read, when I watch TV/films/YouTube clips, when I listen to songs, and sometimes just by thinking something random that triggers an emotional response…I’m a mess – I’ve always been very emotional but it’s definitely gotten worse with age.
I’d say music is actually the least tear-inducing of the three, but that’s only because I usually do something else while I listen – read for exemple – and then that distracts me from the emotions of the song (if I read something sad at the time that will of course make me cry twice as hard…) But it’s tough when I go to gigs…very embarrassing to stand there with tears streaming down my face to a not particularly sad song that for some odd reason just triggers that response in me (and nobody else). These days I solve it by always carrying a camera, and as soon as I feel the eyes going, I start taking photos, because that distracts me from the emotions and save me from making a fool of myself (it also gives me lots of great photos of favourite artists, most of the time).
Too many songs to mention, except “Amazing Grace” which reminds me of my friend’s funeral, when the sight of her little son in his dad’s arms, walking into the church hall behind a bagpiper playing AG, had us all in floods.
For me it’s ‘Purple Rain’; it always was, way before last year, and particularly in his live performances. Also cried at the encore of Sometimes It Snows In April’ the last time I saw him in 2014…that song carries an overwhelming weight of emotion for me now.
And speaking of Kate Bush, witnessing her sublime performance of ‘The Morning Fog’ on the day of my beloved auntie’s funeral left me in floods.
What a great array of songs,am I allowed to mention I hope you dance by Lee Ann Womack?Would someone mind putting up a link for the beautiful Street Lights by Josh Rouse,from his excellent Best Of from a few years back….great artist with brilliant back catalogue….
Peter G’s Father Son.
Can’t listen to it, can’t even think about it… and my Dad’s alive and well btw!
What about the amazing version of Stairway to Heaven performed by Heart with Jason Bonham,including a gospel choir coming in half way through,to reduce Robert Plant to a tear or two and Jimmy Page being suitably impressed.? Can someone post this clip please…?
This one?
That’s it…I wouldn’t be their biggest fan but this clip takes an over familiar song to a new,powerful, level…I wonder what the band are thinking.?
Billy Bragg – Tank Park Salute. I have to skip to next tack when that comes on.
More Bragg. The Man in the Iron Mask for me. The irony is that the girl who introduced me to this track did exactly what happens in the song.
“Shakes fist”
“Curse you Sarah!”
It’s only been 31 years, not that I’m counting.
More Bragg..when I saw him play the Roundhouse in the mid 1990s he started his show by playing the first side of his debut album Life’s a Riot etc….it was a real buzz as it was a novelty for an artist to play whole albums…anyone else recall that gig? I hope my memory hasn’t failed me!
Love Tank Park Salute. Beautiful record.
Meant to second Tank Park Salute..what a great cd…and did I miss something or is Bowie s Lazarus missing..too painful to watch the video,song is amazing enough…
Oddly, Lazarus gives me a boost. He’s shaking a fist at death itself. Wow! That kind of thing.
It’s Blackstar rather than Lazarus for me, that moment where it morphs from the ominous opening into that glorious, swooning counterpoint is like sunlight breaking through stormclouds…just devastastingly fragile and beautiful.
Love Don’t Try This… for some reason that line about Robin Hood and his merry men in Moving the Goalposts really gets to me. Loss of childhood innocence? Don’t know, don’t want to know.
I’ve got the 1994 Cooking Vinyl reissue, pressed on two fat 45rpm discs… very ahead of the curve for a roots label!
While we’re on Mr Barg there are actually a couple of ones on William Bloke that do “this” to me because of where me noggin was located at the time, 14th of February being the main one.
That’s maybe why I couldn’t stop playing it ,the only track in years that had that effect on me,last one probably the live version of Charlie Brown by Coldplay…struck a chord somewhere,are we allowed to like Coldplay here?…!
Bright Eyes. I can’t get through ten seconds without welling up. Pathetic, eh?
No, it’s a great song in its own right, and perfect in context.
Conor Oberst’s voice is certainly an acquired taste.
Ha!
That video they did for it was a bit of a blimming spoiler fest, wannit?
Well not really, in the context of the book having been out for six years by that time.😉
Everybody reads the book before seeing the film? Is you trippin’?
Maybe not, but if the story’s out there, it’s hardly a spoiler. I think the concept of ‘spoilers’ if something is already established, or after a release or broadcast, is a load of arse, tbh 😉
I’m not prone to tears, and generally not a massive fan of albums based on sparse acoustic guitars, but the whole of the new album (“A Crow Looked At Me”) by Phil Elverum (recording as Mount Eerie) is so crushingly sad that I can barely listen to it.
The whole thing is basically him documenting the trauma of losing his wife to a cancer diagnosed when their daughter was just four months old. It’s a raw and uncompromising howl of desperation and loss, largely recorded in the same room where she died.
He sings of the feeling watching her pass away, torments himself for not remembering if she liked foxgloves or Canada geese, and collapses when a backpack she’d ordered for their daughter to take to school arrives, all the while knowing she’d not be around to see that even though she “clawed at the cliff you were sliding down, being swallowed into a silence”.
I can now add contribution by Josh Rouse…