Songs That Made You Cry The First Time You Heard Them

[shagatha crustie]

Joni Mitchell - Hejira

https://youtu.be/5AfPR_B8s-A

Oh man, yeah. It's when it returns to that really heavy minor after wandering away for a while.

Listen, strains of Benny Goodman
Comin' through the snow and the pine wood trees...

[Jockice]

Not a song, but an entire album. Clock DVA's debut Thirst. I bought it aged 15 on I think my first trip outside since an operation that had kept me indoors for several weeks. I was crying because I thought it was so bad, although there was probably a bit of emotion mixed in there because the op (on my ankles. I was plastered up for a while) hadn't been a great success. I persevered with it though and love it now. Unlike my ankles, which might as well have been made of actual shit.

[sutin]

https://youtu.be/44iIeeXS-xw

This cover of The Softies' The Best Days made me cry. At the time Nixon was a duo of Roger Gunnarsson and Anna Isaksson, a young couple from Sweden. Tragically Isaksson died from cancer extremely young (just before the first Nixon album came out) and Roger continued to make Nixon records alone, with many of the later solo songs written about her. Anyway, they sound so sweet and in love singing duet on this beautiful song, it really gets to me.

[SteveDave]

I concur.  The video is especially emotive.
This also brought a tear to my eye.  The bit about being "late December when I walked to the end "
It sounds like suicidal intent but just redeems himself and drags back from the abyss.

Cathal Smyth: the wrens burial

https://youtu.be/Ia1w8Qm4bFQ

That whole album is one I can't listen to in certain moods. "Are The Children Happy?" is a killer.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r8dCidRf7Mc

[samadriel]

"Why I Don't Believe in God" by Everclear recently hit me right in the heart; is about the eight year old Art Alexakis dealing with his mother's nervous breakdown, which reminded me immensely of my dad's regular paranoid episodes and trips to the psych ward when I was a kid. My dad's mental illness ruined me seemingly in the same way Art's mum's wrecked him. Not fun.

[pigamus]

Twit 2 mentioned Patty Griffin - for me it was Heavenly Day - goodness fuck but that woman can sing. And it's about a fucking dog!

[Twit 2]

Oh man, yeah. It's when it returns to that really heavy minor after wandering away for a while.

Listen, strains of Benny Goodman
Comin' through the snow and the pine wood trees...

That song is deceptively powerful, isn't it? The melancholy and wistfulness hits me like a sledgehammer. And the words are surely some of the deepest, most reflective, existential, poignant  and poetic lyrics ever written. It's genuinely breathtaking.

[SpiderChrist]

George Jones - He Stopped Loving Her Today.

A mate of mine put it on a Spotify playlist for me. There I was, cooking Sunday dinner, crying like a baby. Still struggle to listen to it (see also: A Good Year For The Roses)

[SpiderChrist]

That whole album is one I can't listen to in certain moods. "Are The Children Happy?" is a killer.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r8dCidRf7Mc

Fucking hell. That's so beautiful and heartbreaking. The line "When your Dad took bad" just floored me.

[JaDanketies]

The song That's Me Trying from William Shatner's second album has the potential to move you and reminds me of some of the posts itt

Same album also has a bit about Shatner discovering his wife drowned in the swimming pool, What Have You Done

Definitely recommend the Has Been album for anyone who hasn't listened to it before, and who has ears

[xxxx xxx x xxx]

Never listen to the Tom Waits one

It's beautiful for the first hour or so, until Tom's horrible growling comes in and takes over.  I'm not exactly his biggest fan though.

[PaulTMA]

Television Personalities - Everything She Touches Turns To Gold

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GcJ7wSvx0Gg&ab_channel=sbritt

Not sure I need to hear it for a second time, to be honest.  Been a while since I heard it so can only recall the specifics...

[Ballad of Ballard Berkley]

Do have a lazy repost from a year ago....

'Just Make It Stop' by Low. On the face of it a simple, pretty melody from their most commercial and musically conservative album 'The Invisible Way', produced by Ian Wilco out of Wilco and seemingly sonically designed to appeal to Uncut and Q readers. I love Low but that's one of their few albums I don't really care for, it's a bit too 'Later...with Jools Holland' for me, a bit of water treading in-between the go for broke lush anthemics of 'C'mon' and the necessary process of distortion and mutation that led to the album that for now stands as their bold and gripping masterpiece, 'Double Negative'.

I don't really care for 'The Invisible Way' too much apart from 'Just Make It Stop', which lyrically sums up and calls out the dickhead that's been squatting in my psyche since about age 14. You know the one, the one that's continually needling me and casting doubt on everything I do, say and think and then laughing and gleefully saying 'I told you so' when everything I want to happen doesn't happen or if it does then it inevitably fucks right up. That cunt. He's the 'it' that Mimi is singing about so beautifully.

Quote

    If I could just make it stop
    I could tell the whole world
    To get out of the way
    If I could just make it stop


Oh, the things you could have seen, the person you could have been, non capisco, if you could have just made it stop. Self disgust is self obsession, honey, etc.

I burst into tears when I first heard this album track, nestled amidst a load of disappointing Mojo friendly mediocrity. Oh fuckin hell where did that come from? They've nailed it. They get me and all the other thwarted fuckers like me. Buried in the middle of one of their worst albums.

Thank you for posting that. Beautifully articulated. I feel exactly the same way about that song. Just teared up listening to it again.

I'd hug you all if I could (I know how creepy that sounds).

[sutin]

Television Personalities - Everything She Touches Turns To Gold

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GcJ7wSvx0Gg&ab_channel=sbritt

Not sure I need to hear it for a second time, to be honest.  Been a while since I heard it so can only recall the specifics...

There's a lot of Dan Treacy's songs that could be in this thread but yes, that's a tearjerker alright.

[Ballad of Ballard Berkley]

The song That's Me Trying from William Shatner's second album has the potential to move you and reminds me of some of the posts itt

Same album also has a bit about Shatner discovering his wife drowned in the swimming pool, What Have You Done

Definitely recommend the Has Been album for anyone who hasn't listened to it before, and who has ears

Damn right. Such a beautiful album.

[Ballad of Ballard Berkley]

Don't Talk (Put Your Head On My Shoulder) (Anne Sofie Von Otter)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KgLZ8bboTLo

Oh my.

[Crabwalk]

'Just Make It Stop' by Low.

When I saw the thread title, Low immediately sprang to mind as one of theirs is the only song I have a clear memory of prompting tears the first time I heard it. And similarly to non capisco's story, it's also from an album that I don't otherwise care for at all.

I'd taken Trust out of Camberwell library in 2004 and was giving it a casual listen in my flat and nothing much had grabbed me about the record. I'd been meaning to investigate Low for years as they were often lumped in with my beloved American Music Club as 'slowcore' bands, but the record didn't seem to have any of the melancholic majesty of AMC.

But then the twinking, reverb-drenched heavenly drone of the first 45 seconds of 'Tonight' began. The gorgeous dissonance made me fully focus on the record for the first time. And then, crystal clear, Mimi Parker's voice crashed into my heart:

Trying to keep time
Closer than we like
Memories still lie
Tonight....

I wasn't really soaking up the lyrics and I still only have a vague sense of the underlying sensuality of the song. But the heavenly melody and the way it's so intimately sung and played, with the ghostly guitar line overlaid (pedal steel?), felt so emotionally overpowering I just started crying out of nowhere. It was just a response to sheer beauty, I think. I still have a physical reaction every time I hear it.

Couldn't give a fuck about the rest of the album.

I'm pretty sure I cried at Townes Van Zandt's 'Tower Song' either the first or second time I heard it too, but I don't have a clear memory of that moment. Fucking hell, that's a devastating break-up song, though.

So close and yet so far away
And all the things I'd hoped to say
Will have to go unsaid today
Perhaps until tomorrow
Your fear has built a wall between
Our lives and all what lovin' means
Will have to go unfelt it seems
And that leaves only sorrow

You built your tower strong and tall
Can't you see it's got to fall some day

You close your eyes and speak to me
Of faith and love and destiny
As distant as eternity,
Truth and understanding
The wind blows cold outside your door
It whispers words I've tried before
But you don't hear me anymore
Your pride's just too demanding

The end is coming soon, it's plain
A warm bed just ain't worth the pain
And I will go and you'll remain
With the bitterness we tasted
A mother's breast, a newborn child
A poet's tear, and drunken smile
Can't help thinkin' all the while
Their meaning won't be wasted

[Ballad of Ballard Berkley]

Elvis singing If I Can Dream.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u-pP_dCenJA

It doesn't really require much context, I suppose, the performance speaks for itself. A universal, timeless plea for compassion. But he's
specifically singing this in the wake of Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy's assassinations.

I mean, good lord. What a voice.

"Thank you, good night."

[Kankurette]

You're all going to laugh at me, but...Cast No Shadow by Oasis.

[Pink Gregory]

https://youtu.be/CRwc_1sILkQ

End of the Rainbow by Richard and Linda Thompson.  Both melancholy and sinister. 

[Brundle-Fly]

Hymn - Ultramarine feat.David McAlmont

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BVA7_Yzqd6E

[Brundle-Fly]

Schneider TM & Kptmichigan, The Light 3000

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vodnI38cNI0

[Brundle-Fly]

Chassol - Russian Kidz ( La Ré Fa La)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BK96vHF6Suo

[Brundle-Fly]

I don't even have kids but this kills me

Slow Down - Crayola Lecturn

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rkz44RWoSU4

[jobotic]

Chassol - Russian Kidz ( La Ré Fa La)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BK96vHF6Suo

Yeah it's beautiful. Wouldn't make me well up without the video though.

[Brundle-Fly]

A mate's song about his friend's suicide. Over twenty years ago and continues to destroy me.

Put The Bird To Sleep - Oddfellows Casino

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jUnuI8iJy2E

[Brundle-Fly]

Yeah it's beautiful. Wouldn't make me well up without the video though.

True. It's the raw purity of total innocence.

[Malcy]

Yebba - My Mind

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RXwE1G7_U9M

Was really drunk one night and watching a few Sofar Sounds performances and just randomly clicked on it and her voice and the emotion in it just hit me like a ton of bricks. Still does.

[Brundle-Fly]

Yebba - My Mind

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RXwE1G7_U9M

Was really drunk one night and watching a few Sofar Sounds performances and just randomly clicked on it and her voice and the emotion in it just hit me like a ton of bricks. Still does.

I just can't connect to that 21st Century emoting. Wish I could.

And yet? Christ almighty!? This was in 2014!?!

https://www.cookdandbombd.co.uk/forums/index.php?topic=41303.0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GK4lD3Uf8_o

[Brundle-Fly]

On a roll tonight...

At Last, I Am Free - Robert Wyatt

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6xQx4G11pRo

Pink + White - Frank Ocean

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SXHpcYneDeM

Mushrooms & Roses - Janelle Monáe.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jLSEYYazmKc