Songs That Make You Cry Just Because of How They're Sung

Jimmy Ruffin's What Becomes of the Brokenhearted always does it for me.

Here is Sineád solo. I've seen her do this with the band where voices join in as the song goes along but cannot find a version that I like.

Elvis's live performance of Unchained Melody in June, 1977 is also a tear jerker. (He died two months later.)

All of Lucy's songs from Mame.

Simply Red’s Holding Back the Years

Sly and the Family Stone - "Family Affair"

Don McLean's Vincent. He sings it straightforward, no vocal acrobatics. His tone is gentle and sad and reinforces the tragic subject of his song.

Any sad songs sung by Sinead O'Connor, especially this one.

This Tori song makes me cry terribly every time I hear it, but probably mainly for my personal reasons.

Tori wrote the song after her mother had a major stroke and was in the hospital unable to communicate except with blinking her eyes, and in the song, Tori goes to plead with "the reindeer king," a shaman, about trying to get her back.

The album came out in September of 2017. I listened to it every time I drove out to see my parents, and my heart broke for Tori because my greatest fear in life was losing my mother. And my mom wasn't well at all.

Still, I expected my mother to live into her 80s since her mother did and she was always in poor health. In December, my mom went into the hospital for the last time. Every day was either great news—she'll pull through—or else a life-threatening crisis. I was in denial and it didn't even occur to me that we might lose her. Days after Christmas, she was declared "actively dying," and a couple of days later, she was sent home with hospice care and she actively died in a hospital bed in the dining room for a week.

I will always associate this song with losing my mother, and it's about Tori begging not to lose hers. Her mother hung on until 2019, but she was bedbound and totally noncommunicative for two full years.

OMG! R2 also mentioned Sinead.

The video makes me cry too.

[quote] Songs That Make You Cry Just Because of How They're Sung

How else would a song make you cry? The sheet music?

This one gets me every time. It reminds me so much of how I felt during my 1st real heartbreak.Melodramatic I know,but I love it nonetheless.

Crying induced solely due to vocalization? No. I respond to instrumental elements first. I prefer this version of "Case Of You" to the original (as well as the arrangement of "Both Sides Now" included on this album). But I'm a melancholy person anyway, and am conforted by this sort of thing.

[quote] "conforted"

*comforted

R12 Lyrics. Instrumentation like swelling string arrangements. Music played in minor keys. There are all kinds of ways that songs can manipulate emotions besides voice.

It's not JUST the vocalization, the song is wonderful. HOWEVER.... the way Bowie sings this Nina Simone song, makes me cry... he is so raw, so spent, so hanging onto the words in this song...

I feel he meant it MORE than Nina did, if that's possible.

R14 This is the first version I ever heard. It's very melancholy and played on piano. I absolutely loved it. I was a bit taken aback by Joni's relatively bright sounding original version but now I love them both.

I Can't Make You Love Me - Bonnie Raitt

I Will Always Love You - Dolly Parton (original version)

Accidental Babies, Damien Rice

Anything from those Mamma Mia movies with that old blonde woman singing/screeching/being tortured. It’s like William Hung had a sex change into Ma Kettle

Schlongs that make you cry just because of how they're hung.

Feelings

You weepy, leaky bitches.

Garland, singing "Smile."

This haunting rendition of one of Chopin’s finest, yet simplest songs:

R9 - I’m sorry about your mom xo

R14 I agree. What a wonderful album. Achingly beautiful.

White Dress by Fairport Convention with the late great Sandy Denny on lead vocals. A music critic once described her voice as listening to the sound of distilled heartbreak. This song always brings tears to my eyes.

This rendition of the "Star Spangled Banner" makes me misty.

Birdy - Nobody Knows Me Like You Do

The lyrics to Thumbs by Lucy Dacus made me cry the first time I heard the song. Really stunning.

Also the song “Appointments” by Julian Baker - same thing. Lyrics made me cry.

This one.

This makes me cry just because of how it's enunciated.

It doesn’t make me cry, I can’t think of any song that does, but this song evokes a lot of emotions. I was in my late teens, struggling with being gay and AIDS was starting to kill us left and right.

Jimmy Somerville has such a beautiful ethereal voice, but when I see him all I can think of the banjo-playing boy in "Deliverance."

Agree with “Holding Back the Years”

Joni Michell sang Both Sides Now at an event, maybe 15 or 20 years ago- deeper voice- with the gravitas the song conjures. Cannot believe she wrote that song as a young woman. When she sings it as an older woman it’s devastating. Great artist singing one of great songs in her catalogue.

Another by Jimmy Somerville

The first time I cried was from hearing Where do Broken Hearts Go. As I got older, I became more emotional, tearing up from Connie Francis’s “Among My Souvenirs.” But the one that really gets me now is Both Sides Now, but the Judy Collins version.

Gorgeous

I Will - there is such an edge of sadness to this wistful song. And followed on the White Album by Julia, another sad one.

Can't we give ourselves one more chance?

Why can't we give love that one more chance?

Why can't we give love, give love, give love, give love

Give love, give love, give love, give love, give love?

'Cause love's such an old fashioned word

And love dares you to care for

The people on the edge of the night

And love (people on streets) dares you to change our way of

Caring about ourselves

This is our last dance

This is our last dance

This is ourselves under pressure

Under pressure

Pressure

Songbird

Now

One of my favorite singers, when he sings “tomorrow may never come” I lose it;

This:

Always

Downtown as performed by Mrs Miller

I have spent many moments in a dentist’s waiting room quietly tearing up to Jim Croce “Time In A Bottle”.

This song was featured on the first episode of This Is Us.

FYI that version of Patsy Cline’s “Always” is the 1980 Remix version, which gave it a more contemporary country sound. I prefer it to the original.

While it doesn't make me cry, it gives me all sorts of feels...

Beautiful

Landslide by Fleetwood Mac. My dad loved the Rumours album and I heard this song on the radio time and time again after he died. I always thing of him and I always cry.

Can it be something that was sung so poorly it made me cry, at least until I could get the recording off?

Teddy Swims I can't make you Love me

I've heard people try to cover this song. Nobody sings it like Paul Simon.

I like Rocky Mountain High too- also Country Road- prefer Denver without the chorus.

Beverly Knight’s voice in this.

Mostly anything sung by Roger Waters. He gets alot of shit for not having as beautiful sounding voice as David Gilmour but there is so much gravotas and feeling in hos voice, particularly in this song

Angel Baby - Rosie & The Originals

Ready For Love - India Arie

Love Never Dies - Belinda Carlisle

Through A Child's Eyes - Bananarama

That’s a good one r59

If I Could Fly - Boy George

This performance of “Home”

R 62 Wow!!

Telephone Wire from Fun Home destroys me every time the way Beth Malone’s voice and singing becomes more and more desperate with each building verse, straining and getting thinner almost on the verge of hysteria as she realizes time is moving to quickly and she really hasn’t any ability to slow it down, stop it or change anything from the past. If Our Town was ever done as a musical this is exactly what the song Emily would sing visiting the past would need to sound like.

I was suicidal for years in high school & always wondered

if this song was really about that taboo subject...

Everything manipulatively sad makes me bawl. Those commercials about animals in peril or impoverished/medically needy children and their whispery, mournful numbers make me so sad. Right now "What A Wonderful World" is the go to tearjerker. If I don't have control of the remote, I have to dash from the room in tears.

Thrilled to see so many appreciating the Joni songs - many artists do orchestral versions of songs and they come off mawkish, but when Joni did that type of project it really was a fresh interpretation, and in particular, Both Sides Now and A Case of You are devastating. The first notes of the orchestral Case of You rip me to shreds.

Also thrilled to see an EBTG song AND a Ben Watt song here.

I cry even at happy songs and the list would go to 600 if I started to list them but I will say the two older songs that have made me cry are both by the Style Council.

"It's A Very Deep Sea" is about not letting go of the past and reexamining the "rotting wood" and the way it was originally sung makes me cry. The four members of Style Council reunite at the end of the documentary from a few years back and sing it and I bawled.

I also sobbed through this the first few times I heard it. No, the 63 year old man and 60 year old man do not have smooth, perfect voices, but that is rather part of the charms of the story the song is telling.

Under The Milky Way - The Church

White Dwarf = a-ha

R73 you reminded of this version. It’s how I’ve felt the last couple of years. 😞

Come Back To Me - Janet Jackson

Quiet Desperation - Marilyn Martin

With you I’m whole

Without you I’m cold

It's The Lover (Not The Love) - Tiffany

Where Love Goes - House Of Schock

A Pat Benatar cover about child abuse...

"Heroes" by David Bowie will make me tear up every time - his passion when singing about lovers who could have been separated by the Berlin Wall makes me miss the people I've lost.

Silence Speaks (A Thousand Words) - Debbie Gibson

The end of a marriage

THE END OF LOVE - JANE WIEDLIN

Shadowland - kd lang

Circle...

Now...

R88: you reminded me of this song with your Debbie Gibson post.

Lovesong - Candice Glover

When Are You Coming Back? - Lisa Stansfield

Joey - Concrete Blonde

When Kelly Clarkson won American Idol and sang “A Moment Like This.”

Well first song going off the premise of the actual question, “Lorelei” has made me tear up by its mood. There’s something pretty and yet sad about it. I definitely listen to it when I’m sad and it makes me emotional.

And second, to join everyone else, “Song to the Siren” makes me cry from the lyrics and vocals.

Amen Dunes does a version that’s incredible too.

I always imagine a dying sailor lost a sea seeing a mermaid in his last moments. Always been a beautiful image to me.

Enya's Only Time

Distant Dreamer - Duffy

River Man by Nick Drake.

For my 80s friend Christy R.I.P. =

October = a-ha

Manhattan Skyline = a-ha

Here's a hour's worth of Gilbert O'Sullivan's best heartbreak song.

a-ha Troll: Are you saying that most a-ha songs make you cry?

No R111 but they do have a 2 to 1 sad song ratio on all of their albums.

My friend of over a decade Christy loved them, wanted to marry one of them & couldn't get enough of the band until her death in her 20s.

I've listened to the band since her unexpected passing in a way "to spend time with her".

It's all I have now of her.

I'm sorry about your friend Christy. Their songs have a lot of personal meaning for you. I get it.

Did she want to marry Morten? I get that. He was [italic]foine[/italic].

R106 an amazing haunting and very different cover of that song:

Brandi Carlile - The Joke

Another great interpretation of her hit "Constant Cravings", tastefully overflowing with sadness.

Another Songbird.

Don’t hate me, but I love Mr. Styles & this song. and I cry.

Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas is the most melancholy of holiday songs. This is the original version, from Meet Me in St. Louis.

Always thought this one had a Karen Carpenter-esque melancholy. Wish she had covered it, just to see what she would have done with it.

This song somehow makes me feel better and worse at the same time.

Thanks r114 always been a fan of Lizz Wright and her distinctive voice.

This is a song from her posthumous Love Lives Forever album (an album she didn't complete but he friends in the industry helped finish); and just knowing the circumstances of her premature death and the family she left behind makes her pleading in the song all the more poignant. Her climax/whistle in the end was almost symbolic of a cry, pleading with God to give her more time. I truly shed a tear listening to it the first time.

Annie Lennox - Why

Doesn't make me cry--because I'm kinda dead inside--BUT it gives me the goosebumps.

Eurythmics,- Don't Ask Me Why

Again, no crying. But the goosebumps.

Also? The Eurythmics is an EXTREMELY underrated band.

The Spinners - Love Don't Love Nobody

Oh Shenandoah. There are a lot of moving renditions out there -- it's a choral favorite -- but I like Tennessee Ernie Ford's solo version best.

anything by billie eilish

Did anyone mention The Rose by Bette Midler? Or is that too Mary! -ish?

If we’re talking Mary/frauish, you can’t beat Celine in the mid 90s on Oprah singing a song dedicated to her dead niece. Beautiful song though and her voice is amazing as it always was back then.

Or if you want to be sad in French

In this video, the power and emotion in Keala Settle's singing get me every time. I cannot watch this without getting choked up.

[quote] Her climax/whistle in the end was almost symbolic of a cry, pleading with God to give her more time. I truly shed a tear listening to it the first time.

Also on the single Memory Lane....at the end she sings "save me" - I can't even listen to it.

Love me some Minnie.

This one tears a hole in my soul when I need a good cry.

Yes r135. I grew up hearing Memory Lane on the radio but not knowing the context of her situation. It's a lovely song but I never cried to it. Give Me Time, though, hearing for the first time, it touched me.

R136 Lizz is sublime. Another beautiful tune.

[R125] and [R137], even today more than 40 years later, listening to Minnie's "Return To Forever" still makes me cry. Released two months before her death and recorded after she told she was terminal. She was only 31 years old when she succumbed.

Wish You Were Here - Pink Floyd

Wow r138 that was a beautifully arranged and sung song

[quote]Dongs That Make You Cry Just Because of How They're Hung

A better thread that manages a better kind of sap than that pouring through this one.

I want to create the thread suggested in r141 LOL

I have no idea why this song makes me cry. I never even heard it until five years ago. (Yes, I'm a philistine.)

Flawless. Effortless. Still gives me chills.

IMO, Paul Simon should have gotten a Nobel before Dylan.

This song is better when it's stripped down like they did in this concert.

Speaking of Art Garfunkel...

Jimmy Cliff - This version of Many Rivers to Cross. Heartbreaking

R143 It makes me cry too.

The version from Barbara Cook's Kennedy Center Honors makes me bawl, loudly. But the cast recording does, too. It's understandable - a song about doing our best through our lives.

This gets me every time

YEBBA singing My Mind. It is chilling to watch such raw emotion.

R149 pretty much all Amy Winehouse’s discography makes me melancholy now knowing how her life played out, but especially the stuff that was released posthumously. What a big loss for the world.

Mazzie Star — Fade into You

Fleetwood Mac — Never Going Back Again

Wild horses

Not sad, but nostalgic for the 80s and a different time

Cyndi Lauper - The World is Stone

Especially toward the end when she sings "I can't find, I can't find, I can't find my way home."

Unfortunately it was released during the time when Cyndi's American record company was busy pretending she didn't exist

I Know It's Over

R60. I can’t believe you mentioned Roger Waters. And I can’t believe this concert (below) was on YouTube when I just Googled it. I was AT THIS show! What are the chances of a random show at Brendan Byrne Arena (I still call it that) from 1984 being available in full? I wanted to tell you that I had seen RW quite a few times, with & without Pink Floyd & I have seen David Gilmour solo a few times as well. I enjoyed this show of Roger Waters that I have linked the BEST out of all of them. Yes, even over Pink Floyd in the 80s. And don’t get me wrong, those Pink Floyd shows I saw give me goosebumps just thinking about. And David Gilmour is just amazing, his solo work is outstanding. But, I prefer Roger Waters live over both PF & DG. Something about his performing, playing, singing & songwriting just cut to my very soul. The Pros and Cons of Hitchhiking is a brilliant album. Just brilliant. I could never understand why Roger’s solo albums weren’t massively successful. I hope the sound quality of this video isn’t too awful, but the whole stage set-up was so cool, you have to see it. And then listen to the album elsewhere. I’ve got it on cassette :) (It pains me to see EC’s name here. Ugh. But he was there and I can’t change history.)

I can’t hear this without the tears flooding down. I saw the Broadway musical 5 times. I saw the preview before opening night April, 2010 & then every few months went with my daughters. I loved it! And they loved it! Every time we saw it, there were new cast members or they had switched into different roles. it was AWESOME. Tony Vincent was maniacal as St. Jimmy!!! Davey Havok came into that role & gave it a great shot, but Billie Joe Armstrong blew them both away. John Gallagher Jr. was mesmerizing in the lead role, as was Rebecca Naomi Jones as Whatsername. Stark Sands was fabulous and so handsome :) He had. a very difficult role, challenging physically, but he was perfect. Joshua Henry commanded the stage when he appeared as Favorite Son, his voice is BIG. Jeanna deWaal was also perfectly cast as Heather. It is quite fascinating now 12 years on to see how all of the cast’s. careers have grown. We met RNJ and JGJ then, & they were both VERY KIND. Very humble & seemed to be shocked at all the love they were getting. Anyway of course , I loved the album way before the play….but I thought it would be more fun to share a link from the musical vs. the album.

Death In June - Fall Apart It doesn't make me cry, but it is a hauntingly beautiful and heartbreaking song.

This gives me the chills, especially when you realize the song is all about doing "the difficult brown." She must be thinking about her brief marriage to Ernest Borgnine as she sings it.

Dusty Springfield's version of Goin' Back

Judy collins has done several different recordings of this song but this one is the most emotionally powerful to me.

How to Disappear completely makes me cry.

An equally effective cover of How to Disappear Completely.

U2 - Bad (Live Aid 1985)

I mean...I get the U2. I truly do. However, I will NEVER not think they are one of the greatest bands we've had. So many bone-chilling songs.

^^Ugh. I get the U2 hate. ^^

We're never gonna get an edit function are we?

This song kills me.

Bon Iver is such a talented songwriter.

"And at once, I knew I was not magnificent"

For those of us emo kids who came of age around 2000...

The bitterness of chorus always gets to me on Pink’s “Who Knew,” especially when I reflect on unexpectedly losing someone I loved in the past:

If someone said three years from now You'd be long gone I'd stand up and punch them out 'Cause they're all wrong I know better, 'cause you said forever And ever, who knew?

R170 I really think this song is her masterpiece, born of pain, anger loss and grief and so perfectly capturing that feeling, especially when you are young, that things will never change, not seeing how in reality it can become the exact opposite in a flash. Heartbreaking. In the video I particularly like the image in the dunk tank and it’s perfect alignment with the crescendo.

So many songs by R.E.M. get me teary-eyes. This one I have 2 stories about. My Dad died last year & this song reminds me of him. Happy memories of a wonderful father and all-around hood guy. He kiked Steve McQueen & Martin Sheen so I smile at that part. My girls & I went to my Mom’s for Christmas & listened to the album from where this song originates & this song ends the record. It came on just as we hit the exit to my Mom & Dad’s house and I got all choked up. In 2004, the day after the presidential election in the US when Bush defeated Kerry, I saw R.E.M. at Madison Square Garden. They closed the show with this absolute gem. My friend & I were in nosebleed heaven. I heard the first strands of this song and got up to dance, and then saw that everybody else in the section was going to dance behind the top row of seats in the free space there —— so i joined them. It was a little dance party to end the night. I always think of that when I hear this & THAT chokes me up too. It was one of those moments in my life where I thought “I’m so happy right now,” just a beautiful thing, so pure & unplanned.

R172 OK that was me and oh-dear oh-dear. My father was not a hood guy, he was a good guy who did not kike, but liked, Michael Sheen & Steve McQueen. And R.E.M. gets me teary-eyed. Oh dear!

r154's post reminds me of the Sundays song that makes me cry - it's just the perfect tinge of hopefulness mixed with nostalgia, memory and the loss of something that has slipped into the past (especially that chorus...phew).

The fact that it is the final song on what appears to be the last music we'll ever hear from the Sundays adds a layer of emotion for me. Several times I've sobbed after hearing this song.

The purity of Judie's voice always blows me away. "But I need you tonight...."

"Time" sung live on Letterman's first episode after 9/11/2001.

R176 SOB!

SOBBBBBBBB!

MARY!

MAAAARYYYY!!!!

There's something magical about the contrast between Airrion Love's tenor and Russell Thompkin's falsetto.

Eva Cassidy's "Over the Rainbow"... its an emotional song to begin with , but my god this singer (now forgotten mostly by everyone) totally takes it to another world.... fabulous rendition.

"someday", "solitaire", "now" by the carpenters

don't let the sun catch you crying" by gerry and the pacemakers..

nature boy" by nat king cole

wildfire" by michael martin murphey

just a few among many more...

Nina Simone providing a live tour de force in front of a soulless and unresponsive European audience.

Fucking goosebumps.

Even though I was nine when this came out and didn’t even know what feelings were this resonated with me and I cry every time (Mary in training, I know!)

[quote]How else would a song make you cry? The sheet music?

Instrumental music can also evoke emotions, you small-minded git.

Kate Bush, This Woman's Work. Her most moving song.

The Cranberries, Not Sorry

Judy Garland singing "Smile" on the Ed Sullivan Show 1963

Another Sinead one - her cover of I Believe In You

k.d. Lang's "Crying"--- I think it's better than her duet of the same song with Roy.

Ray Charles---"You Don't Know Me"

Suede, Sleeping Pills

I love Phil Collins’ vocals because they sound sincere, and he does not try to go over the top or be overly dramatic. To me that gives it more power, because the lyrics take on more meaning, and I feel like he really means it. As a counter-example, imagine a Bono or Adam Levine singing this. They would probably ruin it.

Beautiful

R193, that reminds me...

I Never Dreamed You'd Leave in Summer - Stevie

This House Is Empty Now by Dutch singer Trijntje Oosterhuis

Whitney - I Love The Lord

Her voice isn't perfect here and it adds to the emotion

I will probably get a lot of grief on this but I stand by it because it was an outcome no one expected.

R184.. i concur with "crescent noon" by the carpenters... beyond melancholy beautiful...

Judy Garland singing "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" on her CBS television show in 1963 following the assassination of John F. Kennedy.

Peter Gabriel, In Your Eyes

Falling by Harry Styles

Riverman by Nick Drake. Man, I wish he’d stayed with us.

Time by Alan Parsons Project

"Un peu plus haut, un peu plus loin" ("A Little Higher, a Little Farther") from the time Ginette Reno enters at about 2:10 until the end. Even if you don't understand a word she sings, I really hope you'll feel what she means.

R172 when my father died (I was 19) I was in my room shell shocked. Just stunned into a very quiet place. My family was out in the living room but I just couldn't face them. My sister came into my room and sat on the edge of my bed. We sat there for either twenty seconds or twenty minutes. Not sure.

At some point, she put on a CD. it was REM's Nightswimming.

That was it for me. I just lost it. So did she. It was exactly the song we both needed to hear.

So, yes to REM being emotional buggers!

This House by Alison Moyet from her Hoodoo album. Her vocals ache.

The album version is amazing, here is a link to a tremendous live version.

The lyrics of this song always move me to tears.

Nothing more plaintively sad than Gwen Dickey in full flow...

As soft and gentle as a butterfly's wings...

"Mais si tu...."

R171 Pink is really underrated. "Just like a Pill" "Don't Let me Get Me." The whole goddamn "Greatest Hits...so Far" record can be played non-stop. Then there's the more recent stuff like "Try."

Not to mention HER VOICE.

I mean...it ain't Joni Mitchell--thank GOD-- BUT it's just deep enough. She'd be my hero if I was a teenage girl.

R211, it's weird how Pink never really got the credit of Britney, Beyonce, or Christina in the first wave of post 2000 pop.

Nor did she get credit in the second wave (Gaga, Rihanna, Katy Perry, Adele, Taylor).

But she deserves to be mentioned with all those gals for sure.

Forever Yellow Skies-The Cranberries

Jane Olivor's "Just Because It's Over"

....sorry, I posted the first words of the song as the title .... DAMMIT!

Rose Royce - I'm Going Down

The Long and Winding Road

This version is short and simple before Phil Spector added his Wall of Sound. This is filmed in Apple studio and Paul is playing a preview of the song and hasn't completely finished it. It adds more sadness to it because Paul was trying his best to keep the band together but they will break up the next year.

Elton John's "The Greatest Discovery" gets me every time.

One by U2

Gene Pitney - Only love can break a heart

I've never heard a man's voice since with so much vocal cry, the style of singing makes the listener feel emotional like someone crying. He had great vocals and range.

This was the last song Louis Armstrong recorded.

R221 when they that at the end of the latest Bond film it gave me chills. Movie themes by John Barry are amazing.

Here

Anything by Bruno Mars.

Red Rain - Peter Gabriel

This was voted best Kpop song of 2021 by Billboard— Lovesong by TXT. The Japanese music video is heartbreaking: one’s youth interrupted by war, relevant if North Korea is your neighbor.

Superstar by The Carpenters

Whitney from Waiting to Exhale soundtrack. Why does it hurt so bad?

The Smiths "Please, Please, Please, Let Me Get What I Want."

Pleading sadness, not self pity.

Carlene Carter's "Unbreakable Heart". Sorry, I am old and tech-challenged. Don't know how to post.

Judy Garland " I Can't Give You Anything But Love"

A Song for You - Donny Hathaway

He recorded this live in 1972. It’s sung with so much emotion and heartache. it breaks your heart knowing he suffered from mental illness and committed suicide 6 years later

He was murdered r232

R232 Your post reminded me of one of my all time favorites. There is no recording of it, but I saw a clip on YouTube several years ago and it just wrecked me.

Donnie's daughter Lalah is in the clip. She's had a career of her own and hasn't recorded his stuff, but at some point, she appeared on the Apollo TV show and sang this song.

It is gorgeous and devastating - and she N A I L S every second.

I can usually get through without tears until the middle, when she hits that long run and holds the note, and then I fall out.

Watch with tissues nearby.

Both Sides Now - Joni Mitchell

Pennyroyal Tea - Nirvana

Yellow Brick Road - Elton John

Love is a Losing Game - Amy Winehouse

R233, supply a link. It’s still a mystery but he had been diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and was talking erratically before he threw himself off the balcony.

[quote] He began behaving irrationally, seeming to be paranoid and delusional. According to Mtume, Hathaway said that white people were trying to kill him and had connected his brain to a machine for the purpose of stealing his music and his sound.[10] Given Hathaway's behavior, Mercury said that he decided the recording session could not continue, so he aborted it and all of the musicians went home.[10] Hours later, Hathaway was found dead on the pavement below the window of his 15th-floor room in New York City's Essex House hotel.[1] It was reported that he had jumped from his balcony.[20]

I TOTALLY CONCUR R209 and R227

How could you hussy's forget about me?

Burt Bacharach was/is prolific in his songwriting and a lot of them were sad songs about heartbreak- Walk on by, Alfie, One Less Bell to Answer, etc. I can’t believe he’s in his 90s now.

Another Bacharach song: Make it Easy on Yourself - The Walker Brothers

Linda Ronstadt, Blue Bayou

This song from a newer artist, August Alsina- Song Cry.

The lyrics are heartbreaking and devastating. He wrote this after his older brother’s death who was fatally shot.

This one ticks the box for both being a song to make you cry in itself but then also from how great/sad/beautiful the vocals are. Lee Ann Womack is so underrated.

cathy dennis "moments of love"....

Silent Night...

This one goes with R245.

"All those dead bodies up and down the street on a family holiday."

"Almost all of them are so POOR & so WHITE. "

GAY LOVE - BING CROSBY

In The Year 2525...

“Poetry Man” - Phobe Snow

Where The Boys Are - The Czars

“So Far Away” - Carole King

Superstar - Bette Midler

Me & little Andy...

It's the end of the world

This was horribly overplayed, like Time After Time by Cyndi Lauper, but now I can appreciate both as really good songs.

Now I sit with different faces in rented rooms and foreign places All the people I was kissing some are here and some are missing in the nineteen-nineties…

I

R252, I happened to be listening to that song yesterday. Not a song that makes you cry but does make you feel apprehensive and fearful This guy made a video with clips from Metropolis which added a dark and creepy flavor to the song.

Lonesome Town - Ricky Nelson

This thread needs more lesbians =

Richard Harris - MacArthur Park

A newer artist: Never Not by Lauv The lyrics are like a sad poem.

Dirty Diana...

Selena Gomez' sad song to Justin Bieber.

Tuesday Afternoon - Moody Blues

There is a ship sob sob...

Goodbye To Love - The Carpenters

Such a beautiful version.

I read in Sandy Allen's biography (a.k.a. The World's Tallest Woman) that this was her favorite song.

I had never heard of the song or the band before that.

Lucky Man by Emerson, Lake and Palmer

Everything about this tune makes me misty eyed...

Bread is a guilty pleasure, R278. Their music is comfortable place I crawl into when the world is too ugly.

Eleanor Rigby by The Beatles

Lucky Soul - My Darling, Anything

I love love love this UK band!!!

Being Boring - wonderful choice

Angel Standing By - Jewel

Questions in a World of Blue - Julee Cruise

Waterloo Sunset the Kinks

Roy..I Drove All night

People - Barbra Streisand

This masterpiece.

Moving Pictures - What About Me (1982)

I really like DL's music threads. I always find some great songs.

now and forever by richard marx...

Luka - Suzanne Vega

Toy Soldiers - Martika

Broken Wings - Mr. Mister

1 of the sadder male songs of the 90s =

Hands To Heaven - Breathe

This song depressed the hell out of me growing up. It was everywhere!

If You Leave - OMD

Gilbert O'Sullivan Alone Again, Naturally

R.I.P. Lari White

The Crying Game naturally!

Terry Jacks, "Seasons in the Sun"

Paper Heart - Jane Wiedlin

GM singing Culture Club =

The Distance - Jamie Walters

So In Love - kd lang

Here Comes The Flood - Peter Gabriel

The Rose - Bette Midler

Still holds up as a tearjerker.

Concha Buika touches my soul every time I see her performance of Volverás. She's basically telling a lover who left her "You'll be back... and I'll take you"

Dinah Shore singing "The Last Time I Saw Paris."

Dionne #1 =

Dionne #2 =

The Way You Look Tonight - Chad & Jeremy

"There must be an angel with a smile on her face when she thought up that I should be with you... But it's time to face the truth. I will never be with you.' Yep, dead young friend I loved a lot. God, that song still gets to me.

We're All Alone...

San Francisco =

Long Long Time - Linda Ronstadt

The End...

A real tear "jerker."

Nancy's the best =

I never knew she had released a single =

No Other Love - Jo Stafford

That one makes me cry too, R325

This song is pure regretful melancholy.

Peter Gabriel and Sinead O'Connor

I saw the signs of my undoing/ they had been there from the start

and

My grip is surely slipping, I think I've lost my hold/Yes I think I've lost my hold/ I cannot get insurance anymore/ they don't take credit, only gold

Five Years = David Bowie

Space Oddity by David Bowie actually sung in space by astronaut Chris Hadfield. He may not be the greatest singer but it's the sight of Earth from actual space that is mind-blowing and stunning. Makes you realize how precious and fragile our planet is.

Benny Mardones - Into the Night

Christ, I never realized the singer had methhead energy.

It makes me cry that this beautiful majestic voice is in the past.

Rose Royce. They closed the club I worked in with this song ..Now to me it ended a era and time we will never see again.

Oh I forgot about that one..thanks. I have tears in my eyes. it reminds me of my youth and now I feel old and tired r341

Tin Man - America

Lonely People - America

Sad song of regret

99 Miles To LA - Art Garfunkel

One of their saddest songs =

Starlight - Jai Wolf

The Midnight Cowboy Theme...

This =

Free - George Michael

AMERICA- "Daisy Jane"

George Michael- Jesus to a child

Rose Royce- Wishing on a star

Gerry and the Pacemakers- Don't let the sun catch you crying

Cathy Dennis- Moments of Love

Michael Martin Murphey- Wildfire

Lorrie Morgan's "I Guess You Had To Be There" get me. She caught the bastard! LOL

Glen Campbell- "by the time i get to phoenix"

Glen Campbell - Wichita Lineman

This song makes Carrie Bradshaw cry.

Killing Me Softly - Roberta Flack

For me, 2016 was when music died. RIP Prince and David Bowie

Bowie - Life on Mars

I remember I bought this album on cassette when it first came out. It never seemed to get much traction. Beautiful song.

C'mon. Many of these songs don't make you cry from the vocals. Yes the subject matter may be sad, but do the vocals REALLY make you cry. Do better, bitches!

R362 -

I LOVE Mistake Number Three!!!

It definitely should have been a bigger hit!

Yves =

Going Home Again =

Sam =

Caroline =

Darkening Of The Light =

Mazzy Star should own this thread =

I love the song "Outro" by French band M83. It's appeared in a bunch of movies and TV shows. I first heard it as the theme to the show "Versailles", then on the series finale of "Mr Robot". I learned that it's featured in the Lars von Trier cult movie "Melancholia". I imagine this is what heaven sounds like and it's so stirring.

I was listening to this when 9-11 happened. It can still make me cry.

Her song "My Heart Goes Out To You " reminded me of all of the victims...

"Through The Seam"

"Goodbye Just Go"

Her only song that makes me wanna cry...

A great song that should've been a single...

This is a happy song but whenever I hear it now I remember my childhood and innocence loooooooong gone

This song is dark, dreary & has plenty of despair in the vocals...

The title says it all...

"Dante's Prayer" by Loreena McKennitt. I performed it at my father's funeral.

Beautiful

Cucurrucucù Paloma sung by Caetono Veloso

I don't understand the lyrics but it makes me cry every time. If I looked up the English translation of the lyrics, it would probably take away some of the magic of the song.

Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah" as sung by Rufus Wainwright ("Shrek" soundtrack?)

Babs : With One More Look At You

Bettye Lavette - Love Reign

The Eldergay Theme

The beauty of the song. It is the combination of the music and the singing.

I recently finished this diva tribute album & of the 10 songs on it

I think this was the one she connected to the most =

The runner up =

.........

It was discovering this big album of hers

that led me to the diva one =

Rain - Concrete Blonde

Mexican Moon - Concrete Blonde

I struggled to find a song of Hall & Oates that fit the bill

but this one probably came the closest =

Better than the original

Petula clark "(i'll be loving you) eternally"

cathy dennis "moments of love"..

Aimee Mann's "Wise Up" from the film "Magnolia."

Thread closed.

....

[quote] C'mon. Many of these songs don't make you cry from the vocals. Yes the subject matter may be sad, but do the vocals REALLY make you cry. Do better, bitches!

"May The Music Never End"

From Shirley's last studio recording. She was too ill to accompany herself on piano -- which she'd done her entire career. She knew this was likely her final recording session.

....

"Victims" by Culture Club STILL makes me cry because hearing it forces me to think of my beautiful 19 year old friend (and crush) who died of AIDS complications in1984. The abject sorrow and shame associated with AIDS at the time, the horrible way it killed and the inhumane absence of compassion for its victims. I was only 15 and too young to have endured that trauma -- and to have to hide it from everyone because people were (are?) so ignorant, hateful and judgmental.

*I'm holding back tears as I type this...*

Thread Closed.

You Are Everything =

I'll Be Around =

I'm Still In Love With You =

R414 funny, I feel the same way about a song of the same name by a different group, Five A.M. It’s a bit of an overblown and emo take, but I like it for how heartfelt and dramatic it is. Sometimes you need that.

The video is kind of trashy and chaotic and too on-the-nose, but honestly Rumer Willis & Edward Furlong perform well in it.

Many cuts by the Canadian genius Matthew Good can reduce to me to tears, but in particular ‘Cold Water’ (from the 2015 album CHAOTIC NEUTRAL) has before now pushed me to helpless and bitter weeping. Don’t know what it is about it; the sense of melancholy and loss is just overwhelming.

In honor of Neil Young who had his music pulled from Spotify because they support misinformation.

Ohio - a beautiful powerful protest song, can represent any movement against oppression like our fight against GQP's voter suppression.

Getaway Car =

Heartbreak Time =

When Gord Downie (RIP) shouts in anguish, with his growling yet vulnerable tremor, “what if this song does NOTHING?” on the song ‘The Depressions Suite’, I go to bits.

Still miss him so much. One of the last true poets in popular music.

Sideshow ~ Blue Magic

Anne Murray-Snowbird

Harry Nilsson has the best voice ever (maybe after Marvin Gaye)

This song does it for me every time. Knowing the singer's story, that he died shortly after this, makes it even more poignant.

I think I first heard it on ER, or some such show, during a tragic death scene, & the song makes me tear up each time.

"I'm in Here (Piano Vocal Version)" by Sia.

First heard it in Gossip Girl (season 4) during a Chuck and Blair scene. Even though I despised that couple and the scene, the song they used I always found beautiful.

"Opus One" by Madison Park reinforced my vegetarianism over a decade ago. Both the song and video still choke me up.

I can't make you love me by bonnie raitt

"someday" and "bless the beasts and the children" by The Carpenters, the voice, and the lyrics...

"Now," Karen Carpenter's last recording. So much longing for the love she would never find.

lovely, lovely thread

R429... yes, yes, How I could forget "NOW"....

I could never understand the popularity of Billie Holiday until I heard her sing my theme song, "Good Morning Heartache" and of course the "Drive" by the Cars.

The Righteous Brothers; He Ain't Heavy he's My Brother. Alice in Chains; Nutshell. Stevie Nicks; Landslide. Sam Cooke; A change is gonna come.

Linda Thompson singing Dimming of the Day

America The Beautiful sung by Ray Charles. He starts the song with the second verse and it gives me chills.

Paint Love Blue...

The 2007 English version of her 2007 French cover =

The French version of R441 has more emotion =

Always love Otis Redding for that bluesy feeling.

With music written by the composer of the " Parasite" soundtrack, the lyrics are beautiful and heart-wrenching. It's obviously very personal to this singer, who wrote the lyrics. Gays and straights can identify.

He has a point. Too bad he'll end up lifeless floating down the Ganges for saying so.

Lena Zavaroni, singing "Going Nowhere," by Neil Sedaka. She makes it her own with this performance. It's as though she's singing about her past, present, and tragic end.

A painful childhood,,,,,,, this song was played on the radio all the time. Still makes me sad

LENNY WILLIAMS - BECAUSE I LOVE YOU

Otis Redding - Thats How Strong My Love Is

Laura Branigan - "When"

This song was originally recorded by Laura Branigan prior to the release of her first album in 1982. It appears as a bonus track on Self Control - Deluxe Edition.

The lyrics, music and Laura's vocal phrasings make me weep every time I hear it. It mostly reminds me of a painful breakup I went through in 2020. I post this track and speak about it but I cannot listen to it today. It takes me there instantly.

The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald by Gordon Lightfoot

This song, and the beautiful video, always touch my heart.

Shirley Horn - Here's To Life

Song arranged by Johnny Mandel, who also wrote the film score of 'The Sandpiper' (Elizabeth Taylor/Richard Burton). The love theme for that film, "The Shadow of Your Smile", won a "Pre-Slap" Oscar for Best Original Song in 1965.

R450 That song was just posted at R434 about 16 hours ago.

Have you even looked at some of the other posts lately?

Stand By Me

The Academy Award nominee Dos Oruguitas from the Encanto movie, sung by Sebastián Yatra:

Fuck you r454 fuck you!!!

R457 It was just a GI Jane joke, chill out.

Childhood memory of my mom listening to that song over and over and over, R452. I still can't hear it without feeling nostalgic and sad - my parents had 4 small children at the time and were having marriage problems that they must have managed to work out because they never did divorce. I still remember my mother's sad/wistful demeanor that summer, with that song as the soundtrack.

"For All We Know" as sung by Donny Hathaway. Poignant, soulful and magnificent. It brings me to tears every time.

Wow, lots of old bitches posting on here.

Hey spark plug. Eh, I mean butt plug. May you have the fate as to become old. It's not for pussies.

Carpenters. Any song by them. Karen's low notes were where the money was.

I still love the original mix of Carl Bean's 'I Was Born This Way'. But the lyrics and Carl's impassioned delivery hit too close to home. I have to mentally detach myself when listening to it or I'll start sobbing.

R461 So you have to be old to appreciate good music?

The Prayer - Andrea Bocelli and Céline Dion

R463 as a HUGE carpenter's fan and karen's voice, i actually do NOT Like this updated royal harmonic orchestra rendition.. too much going on and why fool around with the perfection of the original recording?..

Words by The Bee Gees.

You Have Been Loved

I listened to this and wept.

Elvin and Celine's "If I Can Dream" duet.

"don't let the sun catch you crying" by gerry and the pacemakers...

"nature boy" by nat king cole....

Cats in the Cradle.

Time goes so fast. I’ll be 40 in three months. Can’t believe it.

Eddie Money's top contribution =

The runner up =

Celine Dion - Call the Man

A Lifetime - Jody Watley

"Father of Mine" by Everclear.

It's the lyrics, man. The lyrics.

And just to twist that daddy issues knife further...

"Daughters" by John Mayer

I tried to find the solo upload for "This Time" by The Burns Sisters Band but several YTers have just uploaded the entire album.

Here is the song at 15:30 =

I’m only interested in songs that give me CHILLS

Don't Dream It's Over, Crowded House.

Don't Think Twice (It's Alright), Susan Tedeschi & Derek Trucks Bands.

ELO / Jeff Lynne, Telephone Line.

I was in high school when I watched this performance. I was fan before it. After? The biggest fan. I realized all the hype was real and he was truly a gifted performer. Once in a generation.

Not a great voice? Sure. But one that could pulsate pain and emotion with every single syllable.

Somewhere Out There from An American Tail. The mouse version gets to me more than the Linda Ronstadt James Ingram version, but both are sad.

The First Time I Ever Saw Your Face - Roberta Flack.

Wounded Bird =

This cover of "Wild Horses"

Wishes =

The Crying Game =

Everybody Hurts - Tina Arena

Paper Heart - Jane Wiedlin

OP, are we twins separated at birth? Because that songs just gets me, too.

Every.

Single.

Time.

However, the Diana Krall version is the one that gets me because of the way it’s vocalized.

I can’t even listen to it at this moment, because I get so emotional over it.

I Love You Anyway - The Burns Sisters

This song always reminds me of 2 different lost loves...

Blue eyes...

Me By The Sea - Edie Brickell

The Distance - Jamie Walters

God Only Knows by the Beach Boys. It is very evocative of summer days and listening to their music with friends who I no longer see or are no longer here. It has to be the Beach Boys version so therefore it is specifically down to who is singing.

Lovely thread, OP. Not sure how I missed it previously.

Goodbye - The Sundays

Lost opportunity and lack of self-esteem. Many gays can relate.

"Drive" by the Cars

Any movie or tv with a soundtrack from Max Richter (The Leftovers, My Brilliant Friend). I don't know what the name of this composition is called but it makes me cry.

For a post-hardcore moment—the humming, lilting, sweet and earnest lullaby vocal line, juxtaposed with the steady forward March of defiant, epic, power-fuzz and shimmering cymbals of ‘Hey (Little One)’ by Hooray For Earth always gets me smiling through tears.

It’s the kind of song that may strike you as creepy or unsettling on first listen (in the hands of another post- band, it could potentially sound twisted), just because of how odd the arrangement is, but then with subsequent listens you’ll find it lifts your spirits and give you an unexpected shot of hope and a feeling of warmth & support.

There’s many songs I’ve cried over or felt buoyed by emotionally, but I’ve never felt about a song like I do about ‘Hey’. It’s very weird and destabilising, but in a good way.

R509 my life was never the same after someone told me ‘God Only Knows’ is meant to be a depressing song about a codependent😞

Re: 'God Only Knows.' Happened to see the end of a documentary about 'Pet Sounds' yesterday. When it got to the UK Lennon and McCartney heard an early playing. After one listen to 'GOK' they said it was a perfect song. Something in my eyes as the sublime work played affirmed they were right.

Without You-Nilsson Vincent-Don McLean If You Leave Me Now-Chicago If You Leave-OMD Laudate Dominion (in Latin)-Mozart

Only this singer's version affects me.

Gary Morris-Les Miz

I like this version of Gary Morris' singing.

Celine's "Hymne a L'Amour" in honour of the victims of the 2015 attack in Paris. (I still want that dress.)