Breeders “Off You”
Kate Bush “Night of the Swallow”
Nico “The Fairest of the Seasons”
what else?
oh wait what’s that depeche song with the beach sounds
someone like you
i know it’s so cheesy but it gets me
make me feel a lot, in that they bring back a lot of memories, temptation (off of Substance) by New Order
and, this one is sadly indicative of my age group, Hallelujah by Jeff Buckley, which I probably listened to in the triple digits one night back in the day.
; )
i know there are those songs that seize days
neil young:
only love can break your heart
out on the weekend
i can def see how new order would whatchamacallit
sound emotionally intense
they kind of have that drowned in emotions sound
RED HOUSE PAINTERS—KATY SONG
M.I.A.—Galang a lang
ALBUM TITLE!
Fairytale of New York
Cat’s In the Cradle
Dead guy’s cover of the Leonard Cohen tune.
That one Mountain Goats song. Oh, yeah, and that other one, too.
Chumbawamba—a bunch
Patti Smith—a few (We Three, some from Gone Again)
Crass—Sentiment
Sandy Denny makes me FEEL the most, though.
Joy Division’s entire “Unknown Pleasures” album.
^^^
otm
Also, the following:
Concierto de Aranjuez (adagio)—Miles Davis w/Gil Evans Orchestra
Pale Blue Eyes—Velvet Underground
Wind Cries Mary—Jimi Hendrix
Blood Red Bird—Smog
Nobody Knows the Trouble I’ve Seen—Sam Cooke
the entirety of Astral Weeks
The entirety of The Mountain Goats’ “Tallahassee”.
I’m ALWAYS crying at songs, and at the SAME POINT in songs. And always cos they’re beautiful, never cos they’re sad:
Angel Interceptor: Laugh all you will, but it’s all about the hushed little middle 8 that falls into a big happy joyful solo, and I end up blubbing in happiness.
Tiny Dancer: Start of the first chorus, every time.
Fairytale In new York: But honestly, if you want to see me balling my eyes out, this is the one. If it isn’t the chorus (“The boys from the NYPD choir are singing Gallway Bay” is made by angels) then it’s the end of the middle 8 that does me in.
me too! always cuz they’re beautiful, not usually cuz they’re sad
lol tiny dancer
that song really is beautiful actually
On that note, Daniel. Gets me every damn time.
PUSSIES
haha JOEKING
Tom Waits “Anywhere I Lay My Head” always kills me.
okay. every single time:
- Kate Bush- This Woman’s Work (FUCKING HELL THIS SONG IS SOOOO PAINFULLY GOOD)
- Neil Young- After the Gold Rush (something about his voice on this track)
- Talk Talk- Eden (no explanation needed)
once in a while (this is more teardrop house):
- ‘Dexter’
- ‘I Owe You’ (every version/remix)
these last two are more because they hit all the pleasure points using such sad sad chords that it becomes overwhelming, especially when played really loud.
This Woman’s Work otm
Disco Inferno—Second Language
Strangely, Real Love—or any Beatles song, really, esp the later Beatles stuff. For some reason, it invokes feelings of indescribable loss, which is strange because the Beatles are like 2.5–3X my age. But does it count if the song isn’t inherently sad to me but the “context” surrounding it makes me feel sad?
(i didnt mean chords xxxpost. i meant progressions. sorry)
Pet Shop Boys — Go West & Being Boring
Beautiful South — Prettiest Eyes
John Lennon — Beautiful Boy (Darling Boy)
context counts—you never know what the hell is gonna trigger something
Tracy Chapman Fast Car
“She’s the One,” James Brown
The happy-sadness of Abba’s “Chiquitita” all but overwhelmed me once whilst alone and lonely in a hotel room in Helsinki. Tiredness and stress and it all came out hearing that song on my portable radio.
Closest I ever came to crying around the middle of “Le Premier Bonhour de Jour” by Os Mutantes. I think it was the first time I heard it. It’s never happened again.
hehe
um, Belly “The Bees”
really gets me
at
“wrapped round my shoulder”
really taps a sense of love, and how love makes the world smaller, in a car.
yesss my boss has it on her iPod. here we go.
ugh getting emotional at work is dangerous though
“Banshee Beat” by those Animal Collective
guys
haha wtf just happened there?
I’m going to answer this seriously.
Orbital—Out There Somewhere (Part Two) (last 4:50 of) is, by far, the winner. And it’s instrumental! Who needs words to jerk your tears when you’ve got the most beautiful music man has yet created...
The Teardrop Explodes—And The Fighting Takes Over/The Great Dominions. Don’t believe what the tracklist tells you. This is one (absolutely brilliant) 8 1/2 minute song, and boy is it desolate.
Squeeze—Goodbye Girl is another heartbreaker.
Talk Talk—Wealth is obv, as is Mercury Rev—Frittering, as is The Flaming Lips—Suddenly Everything Has Changed, as is Yes—And You And I
The Beta Band—Space Beatle has a totally weepy moment when the sprightly, hopeful, gentle chorus suddenly breaks down amidst broken machine joises and the slow, melancholy verse fades back in
Mogwai—Kids Will be Skeletons and Ride—Howard Hughes wrap up the list (for now).
Banshee Beat only makes me wistful for times when everything was good with my friends and my life. also, though, it’s only the live version that leo recorded that gets me.
“Katy Song” OTM. Every single line of that song I be like damn. Also “Michael” & “Have You Forgotten?”. Fuck, Mark Kozelek could sing “Happy Birthday” and it’d be the fucking saddest birthday of my life.
The Little Drummer Boy live album is really fucking good.
Still can’t decide whether or not I like the Xiu Xiu cover of “Fast Car”. The verses are great, very restrained and tired-sounding, and then as it enters the chorus and the droning sound comes in it all seems very promising... but it just goes nowhere. I wanted melodrama! I wanted rubato, I wanted dynamics! I wanted “city lights lay out before us, andyourarmfeltnicewrappedroundmyshoulder” in one confused burst of accelerating syllables, tripping over itself, stumbling into walls, collapsing to the ground bloody and afraid. I wanted “IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII-YEEEEE-IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII” to be transformed into the ragged shriek of a motherless animal, not the trembling whimper of a dying one. I was disappointed.
its hard to reinvent tracy’s passion there. it’s a lot.
um i just found out that nico didn’t write “fairest of the seasons” or “these days”
No, Lou Reed wrote These Days for Nico, which makes it even more heartbreaking in my book.
well that’s pretty astonishing that he did
sad that she didn’t tho
with that voice, it seems like she should be the full package, not just a note plucker
Shellac—Prayer to God.
Just kidding. That’d be scary.
bands I do not get at all:
1. Xiu Xiu
nb I would listen to Xiu Xiu if they sounded like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UyOOYn3A_6I
jackson browne wrote ‘these days’
Whoops, so he did. Shit.
Who Does She Hope to Be—Sonny Sharrock
Brand New Love—Sebadoh
Blue Moon—Big Star
Maggot Brain—Funkadelic
Goldberg Variations (Aria)—J.S. Bach
Canon & Gigue in D—Johannes Pachelbel (always a bridesmaid...)
Busby Berkeley Dreams—The Magnetic Fields
Julia—The Beatles
Game of Pricks—Guided By Voices
Bill Drummond Said—Julian Cope
Bunny Gamer—Xiu Xiu
Goodnight Irene—Leadbelly
Enid—Barenaked Ladies
I don’t know....I never cry in public. What’s that song about a massive gang rape?
third vote for Katy Song
other tearjerkers in my collection:
Tom Waits: San Diego Serenade
Nico: Afraid (also her cover of My Funny Valentine does it for me as well)
Kitchens Of Distinction: Mad As Snow
Springfields: Are We Gonna Be Alright
Carpenters: Goodbye to Love
- Unrest: “June.” But really, any song where someone’s father dies, goes missing, or is reunited with a long-estranged child is going to get me. Perhaps recent fatherhood has something to do with that.
- The Chills: “The Great Escape” and almost all of Submarine Bells
- Yo La Tengo, “Autumn Sweater”
- The Beatles, “For No One”
- Belle & Sebastian, “Lazy Line Painter Jane”
- Fugazi, “The Argument”
Yeah, Belle & Sebastian are great for the feeling/crying axis of emotional experience. I nominate “We Rule the School”.
yeah but i don’t know that i’ve found enough drama in what i’ve heard of b & s to make me feel that much
the amplitude of the b & s emotional sine curve is a bit low for me.
For me, it’s the *sound* of “LLPJ” that really does it more than the lyrics or whatever. It sounds like the whole band is playing live in a big, echoey cathedral. And the transition from verse to chorus gives me chills.
Faith No More “Everything’s Ruined”
One time I was driving in the country, possibly high, listening to Ween’s “Cold Blows The Wind” and pulled up to a stoplight thinking ‘wow, this is heavy’ when I looked in the rearview mirror and saw the woman in the car behind me was WEEPING. Then “Pink Eye On My Leg” came on and I laughed one loud laugh, and she looked up at me as though she thought I was laughing at her. Good times.
Miles Davis “In A Silent Way”, “He Loved Him Madly”, “Files De Kilmanjaro”
aww that’s such a poignant story
“she’s the one” ramones
“fan club” unicorns
“number one” queers
“barbie girl” aqua
“helter smelter” fifteen
For a couple of years – maybe 1999 to 2002 or something like that—I couldn’t listen to Belle & Sebastian because it reminded me too much of laying on my bed in college playing whatever record of theirs came out just before Arab Strap over and over again and drowning in self-pity because I was a loser unlucky in love and just generally worthless, etc. I sold that record before graduation and have never spent more than a second considering repurchasing, even though it was pretty great. God, what was that called? It had “Seeing Other People” on it. No music has ever driven me all the way to tears, but I have no doubt that if I heard this right now it’d push me over the edge.
“Suddenly Everything Has Changed” and “Cat’s in the Cradle” OTM, and a few others on this thread.
I think I posted this somewhere on old ILM, but The Slim Shady LP jerks my strings when I hear it because at one point it was one of the few things that was keeping me alive, literally – the quick wit and the black humor and the out-and-out nihilism were both a distraction from reality and a great help in making me realize that, really, my problems could have been much, much worse.
What else?
- Toad the Wet Sprocket “Walk on the Ocean” – the last few lyrics especially hit me hard.
- too many Elton John songs to name, the man owns this thread.
- The Amps’ Pacer in its entirety.
- Suzanne Vega’s “In Liverpool”
- Liz Phair’s “Freak of Nature”
- Smashing Pumpkins “Here’s to the Atom Bomb” (Machina II version)
- Nirvana covering “The Man Who Sold The World,” oh my God.
- Selected songs on Yankee Hotel Foxtrot
- Pearl Jam “Elderly Woman, etc.” – yes, as a youth it was fun to goof on this, but it grows more poignant with every passing year.
Alexander O’Neal, “Sunshine.”
oh MR. CUMMINGS!
THE AMPS PACER, you are a God for bringing that up. pls respond so i know you’re not a freak of nature one hit poster.
ANd IN LIVERPOOL is breathtaking—i love that whole album actually.
gosh you just got me really excited.
There are some parts of songs that I otherwise don’t really like anymore that still get me, ie the (instrumental) closing 4 (er, 8?) bars of RHCP “Under the Bridge”.
more:
- The Langley Schools Music Project. “Desperado” is the obvious tearjerker, but “Calling Occupants” is the one that really hits me hard. That “we are your friends” closing sounds like an epitaph recited by a chorus of elementary-school-aged ghosts.
- The Beach Boys: “In My Room” and “‘Til I Die“
- Vince Gueraldi: ”Christmastime Is Here“ and about half of the _Charlie Brown Christmas_ soundtrack
- _Automatic For The People_ used to do it for me, but I think I’ve ruined that effect through overexposure
Talvin Singh/John Martyn “Sunshines Better”
Especially via headphones while walking on beach.
Moneybrother - Blow Him Back Into My Arms
Watch the whole thing.
what’s that beach boys song where brian wilson’s talking about how much he misses his friend, is thinking of calling him/her, and gives directions to his home? that one hits me right here.