Songs you can't listen to in mixed company because they never fail to choke you up

I can't listen to Jason Isbell's "Elephant." I just can't. It's a wonderfully written and well performed song about a girlfriend who has terminal cancer, but it rips your heart out.

I have the same feeling when I listen to Lucinda Williams' "Overtime."

And "Guns of Umpqua," by Driveby Truckers. About a guy who loses his life defending kids in a school shooting ... told from the victim's perspective.

Got a good grabber or a weeper that isn't "He Stopped Lovin' Her Today?"

 

• My Girl - Temptations
• You're My Best Friend - Queen
• Just Between You And Me - April Wine

Those three every time, as they are instantly associated with the death of loved ones.

• Walk of Life - Dire Straits

That one, just because it's so bloody terrible.

 

Fire and Rain - James Taylor
So Far Away - Carole King
You Were On My Mind - We Five
Summer Song - Chad & Jeremy
Go Now - Moody Blues

Like the above poster said, these songs are sad for me because of family members/friends who have passed away. So Far Away still hits me hard to this day because I associate it with my parent's divorce many decades ago. I can still take Go Now and You Were On My Mind when they come on the radio but I don't seek them out when I'm alone unless I'm trying to revisit a certain memory. I can't listen to Fire and Rain or Summer Song at all. I love all these songs though.

I still cannot listen to any version of You Are My Sunshine without crying. I'm not sure why, even when I was a kid like 4-5 years old that would happen, and this is one song that gets sung pretty much everywhere (i.e. camp sing-alongs, school, church, etc) so it has been pretty hard to avoid.

 

This one gets me.



And this one. It makes me cry that he's gone.

Ray Charles - Cry

 

A more recent one ... from Leonard Cohen's final album in early 2017. Brilliant. The tears come freely every time I hear it.

 

I’d write it down but I can’t stop crying long enough from just thinking about it.

 

"Isn't It Time" - The Babys

 

1. Goodbye My Friend-Linda Ronstadt from the "Cry Like A Rainstorm, Howl Like the Wind"
2. She Remembered-Eric Carmen from 1984 self-titled album
3. Jeff Beck's guitar solo on the last section of People Get Ready
4. Guitar solo on the Tripping The Live Fantastic version of "Let It Be"
5. "Love Is The Answer" - Utopia (Live version on Redux '92 album...Roger Powell's piano execution on that does it every time)
6. Everytime You Go Away-Hall & Oates (live version from Live By Request DVD from 2002...and the remixed version on the Possession Obsession 12" single)
7. In A Dream-Badlands
8. Will The Circle Be Unbroken-Gregg Allman from "Laid Back")

 

"Many Too Many" by Genesis

A long time ago, I had a girlfriend and she broke up with me, when she was diagnosed with cancer. We never really reconnected, and the cancer eventually took her life.

Because of the way that went down, the line in that song that gets me is "the way you locked the door and threw away the key".
Also another line later in the song "how could I be so blind?"

 

"I`d rather go blind" - Etta James

 

My sympathies.

 

Binoculars - National Health (it's the music that does it, not the words).

 

Weird, i was listening to "then there were three" 2 days ago for the first time for years

 

Thanks. It's been about 25 years since the breakup, and a little over 20 years since the death, so it wasn't "yesterday", but it is still sad to think about.

One day about a year after our breakup, I heard the song, and when it got to that point in the song, I started crying tears that were dripping off my face. I can count the number of times that has happened in my life on one hand.

 

Dark Side of the Moon - pretty much all of it.

 

Good call for ‘In a Dream’.
Sang it to my wife on our wedding day, at the reception.
Still miss Ray Gillen.

 

I'll have to seek those out, thanks.

Edit to add: I'm on a three month trial of Google Play Music, and found and listened to Elephant. I've got tears in my eyes sitting here at the food court at Costco.

 

I Just Called to Say I Love You- Stevie Wonder. I remember sitting in the car listening to it with my Mum before going into a hockey practice. We sat there till it ended, I'm sure we were singing too. First time I heard it after she passed I had to leave the room. My wife came to find me, I was a mess.

 

I've often wondered if this is on any jukeboxes in Brooklyn. If it was, I'd go there, play it and weep into my Ballentine Beer.

 

Keep Me In Your Heart - Warren Zevon. Having seen the VH1 documentary about his final days, I can't hear this song, or nearly any on The Wind without getting choked up.

 

I'm embarrassed to say this-"Shannon"

 

Suzy Bogguss' take on the Ian and Silvia song Someday Soon.



The very first time I ever heard it was when she sang it at Knuckleheads Saloon. The purity of her voice, the longing in the lyrics...it just wrecks me.

 

I cry way too easily, so half the music I've ever enjoyed has made me verklempt at one time or another. Here's a list:

The original version of "Deeper Understanding" by Kate Bush
"Stay Close" by The Blue Nile
"Mercy Street" by Peter Gabriel
"Fair Warning" by Todd Rundgren
"Ride" by David Sylvian
"Hello Earth" by Kate Bush
"Wave" by David Sylvian
"Teenage Wildlife" by Bowie
"Islands" by King Crimson
"Evidence of Autumn" by Genesis
"Wild is the Wind" by Nina Simone
"Lover, You Should Have Come Over" by Jeff Buckley
"The Only Thing" by Sufjan Stevens
"I Believe in You" and "Wealth" by Talk Talk

Also: Any time Steve Hackett bends a note in a certain way, I get all leaky.

 

Don't be embarrassed, I can top it: Puff the Magic Dragon

 

There's no shame in either.