Just watched an old Top of the Pops of Sinead O Conner singing Nothing compares. Brings a tear to my eye every time I hear it.
Forever Autumn by Justin Hayward does it too but for different reasons.
What one gets you blubbering like a baby?
rock and roll suicide. Bowie.
me and bobby mcg. janis joplin.
For reasons too long to explain here:
Spanish Sahara by Foals
Silent Lucidity - Queensrÿche
Hell and high water- Black Stone Cherry
Nimrod - Elgar
Because....reasons...
^ similarly unimportant reasons, but Ralph McTell's Streets of London.
Obviously I don't cry, I just leak a bit of excess man juice from the eyes.
No, wait..
New Model Army - Green & Grey. Rob Heaton, their drummer from 82-98, was a friend of mine. He wrote this song. He died in 2004 of pancreatic cancer, a particularly nasty form of cancer that has since taken my stepfather and my brother in law. Cancer sucks
boo hoo
Sebastian teller : La Ritournelle
I originally heard it back in the mid 2000's thanks to Gilles Peterson and his radio show, it has consistently been one of my top 5 tunes of all time 😀
Just because every element is so brilliant, Gimme Shelter. Every bit of guitar, the drums, then that backing voice.
That one with the chorus. Uplifting it is.
I can go with 'Gimme Shelter', but my choice is also Sinead O'Connor - 'Drink before the War' (from 'The Lion and the Cobra' - a wonderful album)
Leonard Cohen - Last Year's Man
Sends shivers up my spine
Nilson- Without you.
Come on Eileen-Dexy's
Remind me of my mum. She died when i was 6 in 1971, still blubb when i hear them. Her name was Eileen and she was so special.
You can interpret lyrics however you want and for that reason 'Fade to Black' by Metallica always reminded me of my nan and her cancer. Still does but less so now.
'Comfortably Numb' and 'Wish You Were Here' by Pink Floyd much more recently for very similar reasons but for my mum. Only just able to listen to them again and it depends how I'm feeling at the time 😥
Somafunk - I agree
Love is blindness - U2 (on Achtung Baby)
I can't listen to it often
Because I should have been more like Kate and then maybe he, and the band, would have survived longer...
Living Years Mike And The Mechanics and Cats In The Cradle Harry Chaplin both because you only appreciate your parents when they're gone .
Also Changes Ozzie and Kelly , came out at a time when our daughter was just finding her feet and wanting to spread her wings , she's getting married next month , it's going to be our dad and daughter dance , I'm welling up already !
For years Old Shepherd by Elvis made me a wreck as well !
Depends where you mean by "there", but Turning Japanese by the Vapors is apparently a song about getting "there" 😡
Fairytale of New York by the pogues, in particular these lines make me cry
I could have been someone
Well so could anyone
You took my dreams from me
When I first found you
Not sure why, the sad death of Kirsty McCall I guess.
Also Pale Blue Eyes by Lou Reed. Always makes me think how desperately sad I would be without the two very precious people who mean so much to me.
and this one, one of the sweetest, saddest songs about the father and son relationship and getting old I know.
Bit mainstream for STW, but I frickin' LOVE Mr Brightside by The Killers. Gets me on several different levels. Just a great tune, too.
Too mainstream?!
So far we've got
U2,Mike and the Mechanics,Coldplay,Kate Bush....it's MOR heaven.
Ah. For me, its:
I'm still sorry.
Blind Melon - No Rain. Takes me straight to my happy place.
Only two songs have ever done this
'Portrait of Jan with Moon and Stars'. By Bill Nelson. Weird, just put it on the platter for first time while bimbling about at home and it stop me in my tracks and put me on my arse blubbing. Convinced me of the weird power of music to tap into the psyche. Have listened a few times since and now it sounds to me like the ocean.
'River Man' - Nick Drake. Good grief it sounds sad.
*Edit - egads yes sometimes happy tunes from the past do it,but that's more about time and place. Something caught me out last week on the radio and I got a moist eye/lumpy throat. Don't remember the tune now though. Could be senility.
Everlong by the Foo Fighters. Used to do a cover of it in a band, we had it nailed and there's a section where the drummer just lifted it to another level. Then one day he killed himself, and every time I hear that song it all comes back. Never choose to listen to it any more, but if it comes on I'll stop what I'm doing and take the full hit to the feels.
Tears of happiness for the first three and a half minutes of this behbeh
"Poles Apart" from The Division Bell but it's probably my own fault for listening late at night. Also the other night, Heroes came on shuffle and the tears just started to roll.
On the beach - Neil Young
Blue - Cat Power (Joni Mitchell cover)
Always coming back to you - Scott Walker
Oh my sweet Carolina -Ryan Adams
Coxcomb Red - Songs: Ohia
Sweet Surrender - Tim Buckley
The sun highlights the lack in each - Bonnie Prince Billy
Blackwaterside - Bert Jansch or Anne Briggs (either version will do)
I dont want to go downtown - Gillian Welch
So this is goodbye - Stina Nordenstam
To love somebody -Flying Burrito Brothers
We dance - Pavement
Dolphins - Tim Buckley
Bruton Town & Barbary Ellen - Meg Baird, Helena Espvall & Sharron Kraus
Darlings - Susanne Sundfor
I scare myself - Dan Hicks
Say Goodbye - Beck
Do I wait - Ryan Afams
We are family - Sister Sledge
Calvary Cross - Bonnie Prince Billy & Tortoise (Richard & Linda Thompson cover)
Casimir Polanski Day - Sufjan Stevens
Spectral Alphabet - Jason Molina
Do What you gotta do - Roberta Flack
Farewell Sorrow - Alasdair Roberts
Memory Street - Margaret Glaspy
****, pretty much most of my music collection!
Albatross Fleetwood Mac, my Dad told me on his deathbed that he wanted it at his funeral, and well that's what he got.
Brings a weird mix of melancholy and pleasant memories of my old man
Sirens by Pearl Jam.
great musically as well as lyrically
The Call by Regina Spektor (ridiculously, just even thinking about the song while typing this got me all emotional, I'm so soft...)
And Edward is Deadward by Emmy the Great, it's so convincing and heartfelt that it's kind of hard to believe that Edward is actually alive 😆
Forever Autumn by Justin Hayward was played at my wifes funeral.
The lyrics are so spot-on.
Still cant listen to it 12 years on.
Any of the many, solo, acoustic, performances of 'Thunder Road' by Bruce Springsteeen.
richmars - MemberAny of the many, solo, acoustic, performances of 'Thunder Road' by Bruce Springsteeen.
Frank Turner does a really good, really miserable version of Thunder Road. I don't think Bruce's versions ever quite get pessimistic enough 😆 In Frank's version, he and Mary know they're doomed even before they listen to the Promise.
He's no Springsteen obviously.
Some more for Rorschasch
Untitled piece of solo guitar which is the last 60 seconds of this. Every. Single. Time.
Northwind - Member
The thing with a live Springsteen version is it often comes at the end, after 3-4 hours of full on, 100% rock with the whole band. Thunder Road is Bruce on his own, barely playing guitar, not much more than speaking the words, yet 40000 people will be silent and listening to every word.
Obviously I'm a fan so biased!
Lately by Mr Wonder
The theme from Dirty Dancing
Who Knows Where the Time Goes by Sandy Denny. The first time I heard it was when John Peel played it to open his show rather than his usual theme tune when she died. Have always associated it with death ever since.
Zombie by the cranberrys for lost love
Eva cassidy version of somewhere over the rainbow which my mom requested played at her funeral in December
Champagne Supernova- I don't know why.
Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau - particularly at live events.
The Rat by The Walkmen
The Source by Candi Statton
Waiting Room by Fugazi
Been Caught Stealing by Janes Addiction
All spring to mind. 🙂
Fast Car - Tracy Chapman
The Streets -Dry your eyes
Take me back to a time.
New World by Bjork. I saw 'Dancer in the Dark' and cried my eyes out. And not a quiet tear, there was real blubbing.
etc etc
This for me. Unsure why, but I would hum the tune to the wee lad when getting him to sleep when he was younger.
Edward Elgar, Nimrod.
Tom Robinson, Still lovin' you
Doves- There goes the fear.
was lucky enough to be at this concert it was a fantastic day
Karen Carpenter - The Carpenters ... the voice of an angel.
The best of the best.
Alice In Chains - Nutshell
Brad - Suffering
New Order - Leave Me Alone
My grandad Eddie was a massive Frank Sinatra fan, Eddie died the same weekend as Frank did so of course every radio station played My Way all the time and the association is permanent in my head now
Cyndi Lauper Time after time
Leeann Womack I hope you dance
Stereophonics Local boy in the photograph
Elgar Nimrod
Kate Bush & Peter Gabriel
There are many many more...
It's the lyrics that get me
This song means an awful lot to me now that I'm a bit older!
This song really resonates with me even though I don't like pale ale
About today by the National. There's a live version which I love.
Song my Taid (Welsh grandad) used to sing while doing the dishes:
Bit obvious - Song to the Siren
lastly - Bonnie Jean with Karen Matheson & James Grant (and a host of others)
There are a bunch of songs that have a real emotional effect on me, but some go deeper than others, partly because of the artist's own story, and one of those is Sandy Denny, one of our finest singer/songwriters who died far too young. Her song, 'Who Knows Where The Time Goes', written when she was only fourteen, shows a remarkable talent, but she was plagued with issues of insecurity and had problems with drink, and she sadly died from a brain haemorrhage after falling down stairs a couple of days previously.
She left around twenty unfinished songs, which were given to Thea Gilmore and her husband to complete, and the project produced an album of ten complete songs, one of which, 'Frozen Time', can and does, reduce me to an emotional wreck if I hear it at the wrong moment.
Sadly no video or lyrics are available online, but this is a bit of a review from the Beeb:
But what comes across from the words is a deep sense of melancholy: Sandy was battling a career meltdown, a drink problem and her only daughter had been taken from her. From the lyrics alone, you sense isolation, pain, distress; but also apparent is vulnerability, and that of course, was one of the reasons Sandy was such a great songwriter. Sandy’s love of the sea ran through her music, and Sailor is one of the outstanding tracks here. London rocks along, while Glistening Bay is effortlessly a great song by a great singer. But it is the immeasurably poignant Georgia which brings the album to a close, a lullaby to a daughter from a mother she would never know.
Spotify may be your friend, here.
Another is by Emmylou Harris, 'Prayer In Open 'D', another song about loss, and the hope of redemption, I want this played at my funeral.
There's a valley of sorrow in my soul
Where every night I hear the thunder roll
Like the sound of a distant gun
Over all the damage I have done
And the shadows filling up this land
Are the ones I built with my own hand
There is no comfort from the cold
Of this valley of sorrow in my soul
There's a river of darkness in my blood
And through every vein I feel the flood
I can find no bridge for me to cross
No way to bring back what is lost
Into the night it soon will sweep
Down where all my grievances I keep
But it won't wash away the years
Or one single hard and bitter tear
And the rock of ages I have known
Is a weariness down in the bone
I use to ride it like a rolling stone
Now just carry it alone
There's a highway risin' from my dreams
Deep in the heart I know it gleams
For I have seen it stretching wide
Clear across to the other side
Beyond the river and the flood
And the valley where for so long I've stood
With the rock of ages in my bones
Someday I know it will lead me home
Read more: Emmylou Harris - Prayer In Open D Lyrics | MetroLyrics
For the good times - Johnny Cash version
Something Changed - Pulp.
It gets awfully dusty with either of these for me....
sufjan steven: casimir pulaski day
talk talk: it's getting late in the evening
kate bush: this womens work
Was sat in a crowded transfer bus going to the airport on business having had my dog put down 3 days before. Radio 2 on the bus starts playing 'this women's work'............major choking moment.
This works
(incredible acoustic gig. Union Chapel lit by candles. Magical. Probably had to be there for full effect (I was). If your hairs don't stand up each time she sings the word "anchor", you're using different stuff to me for a nervous system. Which is probably a good idea.)
This one's much more personal, as Nanci explains in the video, she wrote it after watching the Wim Wenders film 'Wings Of Desire', and when I first heard the song it immediately struck home because if the genders are reversed it applied to me after I stupidly broke up with someone I loved and cared for deeply, over what turned out to be nothing very important, and when I saw Nanci perform it live it took on greater significance because she wrote it at almost exactly the same time I was breaking up with Michelle. 🙁
And this. Obviously.
Too much for a Sunday night. I'm out...
(Damn it. where's a 'tears' smiley when you need one? 😳 )
I think Burgon's is the best setting of the Nunc Dimittis I know.
Looks a fan has gone to the effor of making a four minute animation to go with 'Nine Cats' by Porcupine Tree. I actually think it's rather good!
