A song that chokes you up because it's beautiful?

Babylon Berlin "Du bist alles was ich will"

Who Let the Dogs Out?

Go Tell Aunt Rhody

Sinead O'Connor's version of the Skye Boat Song. I first heard it soon after my mother died. My mom loved Sinead, so it was especially disturbing - but, it's truly a beautiful song.

"She Used to be Mine" from Waitress, as a duet w/Sara Bareilles and our Rufus. Beautiful.

"Nightbird" by the late Eva Cassidy

Of course it’s Eurythmics

Belle Doette

There's something about David Gray's "Babylon" that makes me cry.

Seriously have no idea why, though.

"The Power of Love" Frankie Goes To Hollywood

"There Must be an Angel" by Eurythmics

r9 Same here!

r4 I posted that cover on DL hours before her death was announced. Spooky.

And yes, it's by far the best cover. A lifetime of torment clearly coming through the song.

My Neck, My Back

r13 "A lifetime of torment clearly coming through the song. "

Seems so accurate

"Solsbury Hill"

"Ghost," by Indigo Girls.

Tchaikovsky's Hymn of the Cherubim

Pat Metheny- Letter From Home

Carly Simon Our First Day Together

The first time ever I saw your face by Roberta Flack

So many…I’ll start with a classical piece.

Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 5 - Second Movement

This makes me tear up and sends chills down my spine.

This one always gets me. The text is from 'A Prayer' by Alfred Noyes.

Angels, where you soar

Up to God’s own light,

Take my own lost bird

On your hearts tonight;

And as grief once more

Mounts to heaven and sings,

Let my love be heard

Whispering in your wings.

The Last Song-Elton John

I’m trying to find a clip of Ewan McGregor in “Moulin Rouge” singing a cover of “Your Song”, but then I spotted a mole on his forehead and I don’t want to rile up our mole troll. I can’t unsee it and it ruins a beautiful song.

Mike + The Mechanics - The Living Years

r19 - my favorite from Pat Metheny is The Moon Song. I can listen to that over and over and over.

It's unbelievably beautiful to me.

"Spiritual" from the same album ("Beyond the Missouri Sky") is also quite beautiful as well. Reminds me of my mom who died about 3 years ago.

“merry Christmas, Darling” and “Superstar” - Karen Carpenter

R29, oh man great choices. My eyes are always filled with water by the end of Merry Christmas Darling. “I wish I were with you….”

Dalida is one of my favorite vocalists ever, and she has many beautiful, melancholy songs. This one is lesser known but I can’t listen without crying.

'Nessun dorma ' from the Puccini opera Turandot.

Ode to Billie Joe

Tacky, sentimental, but still...

"Verdi Cries" by Natalie Merchant.

MIchael Nyman's soundtrack to the film "Gattaca" is wonderful, and the end music called "The Departure" truly encapsulates the emotion of the film as well as the thought expressed by Vincent (Ethan Hawke) in the final scene, which always brings a tear to my eye:

[quote] "For someone who was never meant for this world, I must confess I'm suddenly having a hard time leaving it. Of course, they say every atom in our bodies was once part of a star. Maybe I'm not leaving... maybe I'm going home."

About 20 songs by David Sylvian. Forget about it, add Sakamoto and hi fi sound equipment. Major choke.

For a Dancer, Jackson Browne

Keep a fire burning in your eye

Pay attention to the open sky

You never know what will be coming down

I don't remember losing track of you

You were always dancing in and out of view

I must've thought you'd always be around

Always keeping things real by playing the clown

Now you're nowhere to be found

I don't know what happens when people die

Can't seem to grasp it as hard as I try

It's like a song I can hear playing right in my ear

But I can't sing, I can't help listening

And I can't help feeling stupid standing 'round

Crying is they ease you down

'Cause I know that you'd rather we were dancing

Dancing our sorrow away (right on dancing)

No matter what fate chooses to play (there's nothing you can do about it anyway)

Just do the steps that you've been shown

By everyone you've ever known

Until the dance becomes your very own

No matter how close to yours

Another's steps have grown

In the end, there is one dance you'll do alone

Keep a fire for the human race

Let your prayers go drifting into space

You never know what will be coming down

Perhaps a better world is drawing near

Just as easily it could all disappear

Along with whatever meaning you might have found

Don't let the uncertainty turn you around (the world keeps turning around and around)

Go on and make a joyful sound

Into a dancer you have grown

From a seed somebody else has thrown

Go on ahead and throw some seeds of your own

And somewhere between the time you arrive and the time you go

May lie a reason you were alive

But you'll never know

Arms of an Angel by Sarah Mclachlan. I feel like she is literally choking me when I hear it.

Long, Long Time by Linda Ronstadt.

"Long Time Ago"

" When She Loved Me"- Randy Newman

" Welcome Home "- Dolly Parton

" American Tune" Paul Simon

I love American Tune by Paul Simon.

Nothing any of you probably know but Casey's Last Ride by John Denver. Saddest fucking song you'll ever here.

Nine Inch Nails - "Closer"

Carly Simon is in great form here.

Rachmaninoff - Piano Concerto no. 2 in C Minor

Wild is the Wind by David Bowie. It's originally Johnny Mathis', but David makes it his own.

R47. Good pick. Five Years, Lady Stardust and Heroes can also make me sob when I’m in a certain mood.

It may sound weird, but Here You Come Again by Dolly.

There's a bit of a melancholy note in the chorus, which is part of it.

But also it takes me back to the AM radio in my father's car, and it just makes me tear up, because I can never go back there.

R49 your post made me tear up a little. I can hear the melancholy bit in the melody

R50 oh, thank you, that just made *me* tear up a little.

Sometimes Just The Sky by Mary Chapin Carpenter.

“Marcie” by Joni Mitchell from her underrated first album. The melody, the voice, the lyrics…. You feel like you’re in the Village in the 60s.

Oh, should have posted.

Another beautiful one by Sinéad O'Connor is her cover of Elton John's "No Sacrifice."

From Mulholland Drive

Brings back memories of my first love.

Some of you might snicker, but Barbra’s rendition of Somewhere makes me choke up. For some reason, I associate this song with the AIDS epidemic in the 80’s and all the people we lost, I don’t know why. It is my favorite rendition of this song. My Man also has the same effect one me. Flawless, beautiful, heart wrenching.

Always cry for this 1

r58 I won't snicker at all - it's beautiful, and reminds me of my mother.

Damn, R54/R55. How have I ever heard that?

Into the Mystic - Van Morrison.

Only You by Yazoo / Yaz

R58 the ending of Aretha's version has brought tears to my eyes before.

Awakening from the Dream of Existence by Blood Incantation

Definitely a sadder version of Somewhere with a bit of hope in between

You lost me at Duran Duran.

The Lighting Seeds "Pure" (1989).

Something about the almost light, perky music against the plaintive voice and lyrics.

The other Aretha song that just KILLS me is Angel.

It's beautiful yet sad - can never make it past "There's no misery.....like the misery I feel in me"

Her voice is a cry of pain.

Time after Time. Sue me!!

I'll get shit for this, but I love Brandy's "Almost Doesn't Count." She sings with such a sense of hopelessness, emotional exhaustion, and resignation in a song about a woman who finally realizes she's never going to get a guy to fully commit to her.

That last lyric - "So maybe I'll be here. Maybe I'll see you around. That's the way it goes. Almost doesn't count. "

"Say Something," by Christina Aguilera and A Great Big World.

Aguilera's voice is unusually restrained on this one, and the song, although simple, just hits you in the heart.

My Skin-Natalie Merchant

For the David Gray fans, it is "This Year's Love" for me. Love him and all his songs. There is something so raw in his voice that gets me every time. Also, Tears for Fears "Famous Last Words."

R71: Why should you get shit for sharing your likes and, if so, why should you care? You are as much a member of this forum as any of us.

"Do not obey (apologize) in advance," Timothy Snyder, "On Tyranny."

R75, your comment is very kind. I just felt slightly embarassed because I feel like it's such a cliched answer (Time after Time).

Seconding r39's Long, Long Time by Linda Ronstadt. It reminds me of the strained relationship with my father, with whom I could never get close to no matter how hard I tried. He died last year and there's so much I wish I had asked about him and his life.

Ugh I'm listening to it now and tearing up 🥲

Life is Sweet, by Natalie Merchant.

Madama Butterfly, Act 2: "Un bel dì vedremo", Maria Callas

Baker Baker by Tori Amos

Rufus Wainwright’s cover of Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah. One of a handful of songs my mom asked to have playing for her in the moments before she passed away. Rufus’ voice is more angelic, so I played his version for her. ❤️

Beauty Queen/Horses by Tori Amos

Suede, Sleeping Pills.

Clair de Lune, by Debussy.

R81 kd lang's version is even more beautiful and haunting.

I’m weeping now, just listening to the opening notes.

On Saturday Afternoons in 1963

R82- Tori has many moving songs. But I find your pick highly interesting!

This song always makes me tremble with emotion

OK I'm an eldergay. A lot of these are great songs, but I have one that doesn't choke me up, but I have long held that it has one of the most beautiful lyrics ever written, and that's the old Jazz standard, Stardust, by Hoagy Carmichael.

r87 - thanks for reminding me of that song. I was given this album when I was around 11 or 12 and memorized/sang/loved every song on the album.

R88, I was actually going to use those same words for your choice! Beauty Queen/Horses has always felt to me like a song about a sexually abused prom queen who runs away (as if Tori imagined what would happen to Laura Palmer if she managed to run away to a different town, away from Twin Peaks).

Danny Boy

This song and performance are gorgeous.

(I’m not the person who’s posted any of the Eurythmics links above!)

"Unchained Melody," sung here by "Follies" star and DL icon Dorothy Collins.

Ravel’s Barque sur L'Ocean

Six Day War by CL Bagshot. When we were deployed we listened to this nonstop. I hate that the masses have discovered it and it's now a tictock thing.

Cat Stevens’ Morning Has Broken.

Jo Stafford singing “Shenandoah.” Crazy, but it gets me every time.

Jo Stafford singing “Shenandoah.” Crazy, but it gets me every time.

^^^ My first double post — I always wondered how that happened. ^^^

r81 I've always liked his version the best.

St Louis Blues by Bessie Smith

"Hurt" - Johnny Cash, covering the Nine Inch Nails song and making it better. I've read that the band doesn't even consider the song as theirs anymore.

And whoever created the video made it even better.

Evenin

I'm Not Lisa

"The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald" by Gordon Lightfoot. Haunting music with incredible lyrics.

"Does anybody know where the love of God goes when the waves turn the minutes to hours."

You Are There by Kylie Minogue. A few years after my husband died, I heard this and started crying again like he had just passed away.

Whoops. Let me try that again.

Conan Gray. “Yours”

"He Went to Paris" - Jimmy Buffett

"Some of it's magic, some of it's tragic, but I had a good life all the way."

I love Edmund Fitzgerald's voice.

This Time It's Goodbye from Perry Blake. I first heard it in the incredibly sad movie "Presque rien" (Come Undone) about two teenaged boys who fall in love. If you want to depress yourself, watch the movie - or at least listen to this song.

R1

I looooved that series. That one scene with the cross dresser (woman presenting as a man) in the nightclub was so hot. Som Weimar.

Bridge Over Troubled Water makes me cry and get chills when they sing, “sail on silver girl, sail on by…your time has come to shine…all your dreams are on their way…” it’s gorgeous and I sang it to my mom as she died.

The End by The Beatles because the message is one I try to live by and they sound like angels.

“You’re beautiful, you’re beautiful it’s true….” 😩

I know some of her songs are so beloved they've become cliches but the orchestra in the beginning makes me tear up, and by the end of the song I'm a sobbing mess.

Too many name but the one that 1st popped in my head is a David Bowie/Angelo Badalamenti colab, a cover of "A Foggy day in London Town". It's weirdly, surprisingly touching. Bowie's vocals are marvelous but Badalamenti's orchestration, especially towards the end ,always has the gift of leaving me feeling melancholy and longing for something I will never quite know.

"Rio Babel" by the iconic Argentine musician Gustavo Cerati

He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother

I've always loved the song, but it's especially poignant for me since I lost my oldest brother last year.

I’m so sorry, r119. Is he the first sibling you’ve lost?

"Into My Arms" by Nick Cave

"Never Seen the Sea" by Gavin Clark. If I ever were to take my own life, this song would be playing in the background. For extra sadness, Clark died in 2015 at the age of 46 from breathing complications related to his alcoholism.

Vide Cor Meum ...See My Heart

I'll have it played at funeral. Want them to cry their hearts out.

1980s Italian pop classic "Ti Sento" by Matia Bazar. Goosebumps every time.