Songs that make people cry?

[fazool]

Originally Posted by llew

Chris Stapleton's "Maggie's Song". A dog song will get me every time!

Our daughter made this video after a really sad day

[Patric P]

Elephant by Jason Isbell

Since You’ve Gone to Heaven by Brandy Clark (playing at a farmers market, the tomato seller next to me said she had to sit in her truck and cry for a minute after I played it)

And for old dog songs, Maggie’s Song gets beat by “Just a Dog” Mo Pitney, and “Raising Humans” by Michael White. Watched him play it at the Bluebird and cried like a baby.

Just last week I played “Traveling Soldier”, and a Vietnam vet aged guy at the front table had tears. And tipped me well.

Can’t play a whole show of tear jerkers, but you can slip one in to see who is really listening.

[alien]

Originally Posted by LiveMusic

You said it well, Glenn. If a songwriter can write just one song that good in his/her entire career, it's quite something.

Yep. Leader Of The Band for me. Ever since my Dad passed away in 2004, I usually can't get through the line..."And Papa I don't think I said I love you near enough."

[Kbonger]

My late wife's fav when she was in school gets me every time. Chad and Jeremy Summer Song.

[Stillatthemill]

Kitty Wells - how far is heaven, Dolly Parton and Porter Wagoner - Jeanie’s afraid of the dark, The Brown’s (and others) - Mommy please stay home me with me. Last weekend I did by request Will the circle be unbroken and a woman started crying and thanked me for doing it. A guy asked for You are my sunshine. Sang a verse with me, started crying and left the bar. Usually it is a song they connect to.”

[dirkronk]

Originally Posted by Kbonger

My late wife's fav when she was in school gets me every time. Chad and Jeremy Summer Song.

Yep. That'll do it. So will the title song of the album it was on, Distant Shores.* Still have that old LP, though it's a wonder that it has any grooves left.

I'm pretty sure that Chad & Jeremy's harmonies were patented water-work starters. Or at the very least, they could make you feel nostalgic for stuff you never even knew in the first place. Rare talent, that.

Dirk

* Ooops. Mea culpa. Just checked...Distant Shores doesn't have Summer Song on the album songlist after all. Guess it's time for me to up my dosage of ginkgo biloba...

[Headless Folkie]

...but this is the single song that reliably and genuinely lumps my throat every time.

Should have mandatory Christmas playlist status just for the purpose of keeping our petty holiday problems in perspective...

Rudy, performed by the Be Good Tanyas,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jv64TNgsVKk

[Kbonger]

Originally Posted by dirkronk

Yep. That'll do it. So will the title song of the album it was on, Distant Shores.* Still have that old LP, though it's a wonder that it has any grooves left.

I'm pretty sure that Chad & Jeremy's harmonies were patented water-work starters. Or at the very least, they could make you feel nostalgic for stuff you never even knew in the first place. Rare talent, that.

Dirk

* Ooops. Mea culpa. Just checked...Distant Shores doesn't have Summer Song on the album songlist after all. Guess it's time for me to up my dosage of ginkgo biloba...

She started wearing glasses in High School and one of the guys on the album cover wore glasses so she could relate to that.

[Matthjs]

John Prine’s last song, I “Remember Everything” is a tough one for me.

[Mycroft]

"Hold On" by Sarah Mclachlan. She plays guitar on the "Fumbling Towards Ecstasy" version, but I prefer this one:



"The Randall Knife" Guy Clark.

[Mycroft]

Originally Posted by EZK123

Someone already said Sam Stone, so I'll go with one that always gets to me because I've known too many Lillians in my life (both male and female).

Emmylou Harris - Red Dirt Girl

Hear hear...

[ewalling]

This may seem like an odd choice, and it's not a case of 'gets me every time' or anything like that. However, I remember nearly being undone by this song one afternoon back in England in my parents' house when I was around twenty-five. I'd left home years back to live and work overseas and was back for the holidays. Dad, my brother and I were in the living room, someone flipped the TV channel, and suddenly there it was.

I was taken completely unawares. I hadn't seen Mary Poppins since Mum and Dad had taken my brother and me to see it at the cinema when I was about five. Out of the blue, all those years later, I found the song and the scene quite overwhelming. It's a beautiful song, for a start, about the forgotten and mistreated members of society, and Julie Andrews looks so wonderful and sings it with such a restrained but powerful pathos. There's nothing fake or over-sentimentalized about it. We believe her. I had also dabbled a little in the alternative realities of hippie lore and science fiction consciousness by this age, and the swirling of the white cartoon birds round the towers of St Paul's seemed to work as a powerful and moving metaphor for the spirit rising up and up and up, even in blindness, old age, and poverty. It's kind of 'trippy,' too, as though Mary Poppins is experiencing a very real vision. Bundled with all that, the song also brought memories of childhood and innocence, already long gone by twenty-five.

Well, as I said, it took me unawares - my brother, too, I think - and quite frankly I felt dangerously close to a blub! I say 'dangerously' because young English men in the mid 1980s did not cry in front of their parents, at least not in the circles in which I moved. But it took a genuine effort of will and self-control to keep it all together, I can tell you.

[Pine Cone]

Thanks to everyone who has posted so far. I’m looking for new songs to learn and perform and this thread has given me several to consider.

“Red Dirt Girl” is a great song that I was not aware of. I found a Brandi Carlile version which I like better than the Emmy Lou versions.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tJCC9RB-45c

[fwellers]

Hard for me to believe nobody has said this classic from the 60's yet.
"Honey" by Bobby Goldsboro.

[LiveMusic]

Originally Posted by Pine Cone

Thanks to everyone who has posted so far. I’m looking for new songs to learn and perform and this thread has given me several to consider.

“Red Dirt Girl” is a great song that I was not aware of. I found a Brandi Carlile version which I like better than the Emmy Lou versions.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tJCC9RB-45c

And I'd like to thank you for posting your find because I agree that it is better than the original to me! I am an Emmylou fan but I could not understand her words clearly and I didn't at all like the empty (of words) section before the last line of the verses, it seemed odd... Brandi 'cleaned that up.' She did great on this. I see that Emmylou wrote it, and it's a great lyric.