Toss up between Letter to Hermione by David Bowie and It's Over by Roy Orbison.

Song for Athene by John Tavener.

I'm shoulder to shoulder with Hobbes on this one. Crying because of a song? I just can't imagine it.

I've just listened to Dolly Parton's "Coat Of Many Colors". Gets me every single time.

Hm. There are the ones that are weepy because of memories - the aforementioned Ode to my Family for example, or You Are The Everything. And then there are the ones that are just so so sad by themselves - Wichita Lineman or People Get Ready eg.

Furtho wrote:
I'm shoulder to shoulder with Hobbes on this one. Crying because of a song? I just can't imagine it.
Some people are just 'wired up' differently, I guess.

Personally, just a sequence of 3 or 4 notes can start to 'press my weepy buttons'. (Although timbre and other textural things come into play, of course.)

Some people like dogs; some people like cats. Same kind of thing.

In 1991, St Pauli lost a play-off match against Stuttgarter Kickers and went down to the second division. At the end of the match, they played It's All Over Now, Baby Blue over the public address system, which led to quite a few spectators suddenly having "something in their eye".

To this day, a mate of mine (no, really) who attended the game still can't hear the song without getting all misty-eyed and trembly-lipped. Unfortunately for him, one of the pubs he used to frequent had It's All Over Now, Baby Blue on the jukebox.

He stopped going there after some of the more sadistic regulars got wind of it. It got to the point that, whenever he entered the place, they started scratching around for small change so that they could press F26, sit back, fold their arms and wait for the floodgates to open.

Now if the thread was titled "Songs That Make You WANNA Weep" there'd be another vote for Tom Waits "Martha". Also one's for Nina Simone "Little Girl Blue", The Blue Nile "God Bless You Kid", The Rolling Stones "Let It Loose", Nina Simone "What I Want From You", Hall & Oates "She's Gone", Iggy Pop "Sell Your Love", Tom Verlaine "Last Night", Willard Grant Conspiracy "Massachusets", Gram Parsons "$1000 Dollar Wedding", Ben Folds "Landed", Bruce Springsteen "Racing In The Street", The Beach Boys "I Just Wasnt Made For These Times"....how long have you got by the way?.

The theme song from The Littlest Hobo .

"Moon River" when it involves Audrey Hepburn and a soaking cat.

The song that Michael Caine's Scrooge (in flashback) sings in the middle of A Muppet Christmas Carol . Oh, shit, I'm welling up just typing that.

Oh, and the piano music that used to play out The Incredible Hulk TV series.

"In My Life" by the Beatles, if it's not been mentioned already.

I was on the tube the other day when Suede's The 2 Of Us came on, and as it reached that incredible "Alone but not lonely" crescendo I had to breathe deeply and compose myself.

Likewise I find it impossible to sing along to A Design For Life or Common People without choking up. It's funny because while I love those songs they don't have any great personal resonance, that sense of "fucking hell, were you there, watching?", the way There Is A Light That Never Goes Out or Enjoy The Silence do. I sometimes find those songs difficult listening as they both take me back with terrifying intensity to certain moments in my life. But they don't make me cry.

What makes me weep about all three of the weepies I mention is the sense of ragged defiance. The indomitable spirit of those for whom a referee would have stopped the bout some time earlier. But who you know are somehow prevailing, even if only on their own terms.

It's a paradox, as that is something of a cliché and I'm liable likely to go into a red-haze rage when I see it in its Disneyfied form. But I'm a sucker for that shit when it's done well.

Baby Can I Hold You by Tracy Chapman always tends to get the bottom lip quivering. Boyzone's version also makes me want to cry, but for completely different reasons, like the fact that they padded it out with overproduced autotuned harmonies and that Ronan fucking Keating sang the entire fucking tune through his fucking nose.

Oh! "Moon River" & "In My Life" as well.

Talking of Tom Waits...

"Peace and quiet; open air"

evilC - I went on a cruise to Norway with my wife last week and at one stage we were sailing through the fjords and I was listening to Biosphere on my iPod. It was quite a moving experience, that juxtaposition of visual and aural beauty.

I mention this in relation to the theme of the thread and also as an opportunity to say thanks for recommending this wonderful music on here some time ago.

[/b]Rogin the Armchair Fan wrote:[/b]

The theme song from The Littlest Hobo .



Funny you should say that, since I was talking about that program to historywoman a few weeks ago. She doesn't remember it, being a little bit too young at the time, so I jumped onto YouTube and showed it to her. And then I had to wipe away a piece of grit from my eye... Saturday mornings just aren't the same anymore.

Some other examples: Anything by Jim Reeves - particularly the song about his 'dawg' - Old Tige

Oh Mein Papa by Eddie Calvert. Reminds me of my dad and how he would only show his emotions when he 'got the 45s out' on his Dansette.

And, for some strange reason - Echo and The Bunnymen's
Seven Seas. So beautiful it makes me want to cry. Why I don't know...

So I was in the sad movie thread, when I remembered Watership Down, and Bright Eyes by Art Garfunkel. Just looking at the video makes me well up, and the song just sends me over the edge.

I need a hug.

I'm afraid this version of Bright Eyes is the definitive one for me, so tears of a different sort.

When I was about 12 or 13, my dad bought himself a trumpet. He hadn't played one for about twenty years or so before, I don't think, but for the next few months he would disappear off for an hour every evening to go and practice. He gave it up again in the end, but I am still prone to drifting off somewhere when I hear "A Kiss To Build A Dream" on by Louis Armstrong, because that's what I remember him playing the most.