Songs designed to make you cry......

Billie Holiday's recording of "Gloomy Sunday", and her rendition of "Strange Fruit" were said to inspire people to commit suicide. I believe they were recorded in the 1940s

LOL

Martika - Toy Soldiers

Strange fruit was about lynching of black people not suicide.

Iceefag I know exactly what it was about, read the words I wrote your reading comprehension is for shit Fuckn moron never shuts up

Back to Black- Amy Winehouse Yesterday- The Beatles When the Party's Over- Billie Eilish

Look Away - Chicago This was Chicago's last big hit that charted. It is about a guy who went through a break-up, but is still in love with the girl. https://youtu.be/2uKLTtVqQpE Adam's Song - Blink-182 This is a song about a teenager committing suicide. Very different from the rest of Blink-182's music. https://youtu.be/2MRdtXWcgIw Heavy - Linkin Park One of many Linkin Park songs about depression. Five months after the song came out, Chester Bennington killed himself. https://youtu.be/5dmQ3QWpy1Q

Harry Chapin - Cat’s in the Cradle - full of regret. For more personal reasons, “Waiting for a Girl Like You” by Foreigner. First girl I really fell for, who I dated a couple times, told me she went to the Foreigner concert with her ex boyfriend (not really ex to my chagrin). Obviously, she wasn’t that into me. Broke my heart and that song was constantly on the radio. I couldn’t even listen to it.

The Eric Clapton song Tears in Heaven (mentioned by the op) is very difficult to get through. The song by Mike and the Mechanics - The Living Years is a rough one for me as well.

3rd… Ode to Billie Joe - Bobby Gentry. Sad, great slice-of-life lyrics that take you to a place and time - and mysterious - what did they throw off the Talahachi Bridge? Their secret baby? The world may never know.

^ I thought Billie Jo McCalister jumped off the Tallahatchee Bridge

"Bridal Chorus" by Wagner causes many dudes to cry, not when it's played, but several years later.

Elephant by Jason Isbell Johnny Cash version of Hurt Don't want to hear either of these songs when I'm whiskey drunk. I might shed that one manly tear and look like that Native American when litter lands at his feet back in the 1970's.

Philistines Yes - Billie Joe jump off the bridge but the preacher said he had seen Billie Joe and a girl who “looked much like you” throwing something off the T’ Bridge, presumably some days before Billie Joe jumped

Just kidding with the Philistine comment, but you made me have Alexa play the song again and now I’m a little low.

Someone mentioned “Cats in the Cradle” Harry Chapin I find his version of “Taxi” to be one of the saddest stories of regret I’ve ever heard, and I also find “Auld Lang Syne” by Dan Fogleberg to be similarly wistful.

^ Great song Chapin’s “Cat’s” always gets me because my dad and I never really connected - but he was a good responsible man - and I feel like I’m a better dad to my adult children than when they were little kids. I didn’t know what I was doing a lot of the time back then.

This thread.

It's 2 reviews, thank you very much.

Honestly none whatsoever. Maybe I’m just odd but I never really give lyrics too much thought, Music for me it’s all about making you want to move and groove otherwise I just don’t care or ever cared.

@twentyfive good call on Gloomy Sunday. Heather Nova does a great cover of it too - I like both but prefer hers over Billie Holiday's. Besides Gloomy Sunday I'll throw in Landslide by Stevie Nicks.

^ by Fleetwood Mac

Pictures of You by The Cure

I get goosebumps and chills from some songs, but I do not cry (or throw up). I'm just not wired that way. Some pop songs that give me chills (and feel free to laugh, I get it): Eurythmics: Sweet Dreams Tears for Fears: Mad World Leonard Cohen: Hallelujah (not every rendition, just the one that appears on the Watchmen soundtrack) #1 song that gets me every time: Disturbed (cover): The Sound of Silence

I get it Muddy, I think a lot of people listen like you,but I love the lyrics- always have. I loved when the albums covers had lyrics back in the day (album covers - what a lost piece of artistic expression). To me anyone who doesn’t pay attention to the lyrics is missing out and listening superficially.

I have another Clapton song - “Wonderful Tonight” KISS - “Beth” But the sing that gets me every time even after all these years is “One Tin Soldier”. The song plays at the end of “Billy Jack” as the sheriff is taking Billy away in handcuffs

This song might make some people in this thread cry 👀 https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Ttzijna8mgQ

That would be perfect for the stripper hoe club

^ ughh - that video’s a boner killer

The Christmas Shoes by New Song plays every year in December. I admit, it gets me.

2nd Pictures of You - The Cure 1000x Broods

Awww the big crybaby is trying to get others to cry with him so he is not the lone cry baby

The Living years… Mike and the Mechanics. waiting for a girl like you… Foreigner. My heart will go on… Celine Dion. (from Titanic)

Gone Away - The Offspring. One of the most painful songs about losing someone close to you I've ever heard. "And I feel like heaven's so far away. And it feels like the world has grown cold now that you've gone away..."

Sam Stone - John Prine Whiskey Lullaby - Brad Paisley and Alison Krauss Travelin' Soldier - I think Dixie Chick did it justice. I can't write left handed - Bill Withers Songs about the losses in war get to me the most. Cash's version of Hurt

A Lap Dance Is So Much Better When The Stripper Is Crying. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4uqbJE5nnt8

Dire Straits - Brothers in Arms

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ubaYvMLBqpU

Kudo's to 25 for mentioning Billy Holiday's "Strange Fruit" . I would not have thought to mention that myself. It is bleak. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-DGY9HvChXk SJG

A Whiter Shade of Pale. Not sure what the words are about, but the music feels like the best of Bach: an equal mix of yearning and serenity. That combo makes me weep.

Keep Me in Your Heart for a While: Warren Zevon A lot of Leonard Cohen.

Zombie: The Cranberries

Social Distortion - Ball and Chain https://youtu.be/_NWjehpGSO0 Blue October - Hate Me https://youtu.be/UIU7Eabredw Inherently sad songs, but also reminded me of the desperation and the pain I caused my family in the worst days of bipolar depression.

Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas: James Taylor

https://youtu.be/fHR1CZ9x61E Drake passionfruit https://youtu.be/uQFVqltOXRg Cesar Daniel get you https://youtu.be/WNeLUngb-Xg Linkin Park in the end remix

https://youtu.be/_4gUVl5pjps 21 savage ball w/o you https://youtu.be/XXYlFuWEuKI The weeknd save your tears https://youtu.be/qod03PVTLqk Elton John cold heart remix

https://youtu.be/4IOIIgfiQlU Cypress hill illusions https://youtu.be/xtIr8k4eC7o Kendrick lamar sing about me

https://youtu.be/-lo5np2zHD0 21 savage rip luv https://youtu.be/xfdG6vwIGGU Anuel aa culpables https://youtu.be/9jI-z9QN6g8 No garcia te bote remix

“Streets of Heaven” by Sherrié Austin is a serious tear-jerker. Even after hearing it many times, my eyes often get watery when it pops up on my playlist. Thankfully I don’t have any such experience in my own life. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a1MokvqvO-I However, I closely relate two songs to emotional times in my own life. First: “Two Out of Three Ain’t Bad” by Meatloaf. My high school GF broke up with me, more or less giving me the reasons outlined in the song. And that morning I had to drive away from her college to my college as the snow turned to cold rain. As I started to drive, that song played on the radio. Sometimes art imitates life too closely, even decades later per the final verse. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k5hWWe-ts2s Second: “Just Give Me A Reason” by P!nk was popular as my relationship with my first OTC fav was disintegrating. I had fallen very hard for her. She relapsed into addiction and rationally Iknew I had to get out. But emotionally I kept trying to hold on. If a couple of things had gone differently, I might have gone Full Gawker. It seemed like that song played on the radio every time we were together durning those last couple of months. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OpQFFLBMEPI

Johnny Cash - Hurt

So many really great sad songs, many about relationships that either never were or went wrong. My honorable mentions: The River, the quintessential Springsteen New Jersey Dirge, and I mean that in the most complimentary way possible. The Harmonica, piano, and outgo are especially painful. What a Fool Believes, The Doobie Brothers (Michael McDonald) - an imagined relationship Most anything by Emmy Lou Harris, the woman could evoke tears with Happy Birthday Angel by Sarah Maclachlan, I always thought she was underrated in a lot of ways The aforementioned Keep Me in Your Heat by Warren Zevon, particularly give his circumstances at the time (terminally ill) The Who's The Song is Over -- Townsend's guitar My top 3, OK 4 1. Cats in the Cradle by Harry Chapin Every father's sea of pathos. Part of the sadness is Harry's way too early passing, 2. Everybody Hurts by REM 3. Boulder to Birmingham by Emmy Lou Harris. 4. Brothers in Arms by Dire Straits. The guitar by itself is haunting.

and Dylan's "It's not Dark yet, but its getting there." Looking back at a life of regret.

Ain't no sunshine when she's gone.

Have to chime in again with one I just heard on the radio, Wish You Were Here by Pink Floyd, esp. if you think about someone you love who is dead or who you've been separated from.

Killing Joke - Jana Warren Zevon - Don't Let Us Get Sick and his cover of Knockin' On Heaven's Door, because when he recorded it, he was.