Tear Jerker / Muse

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• On good days, listening to "Blackout" gives you the chills. On worse days, the tears run rivers.
• "Sing for Absolution" is equal parts this and Nightmare Fuel. There's something so hauntingly eerie, yet so delicate and tender about the vocal delivery and instrumentation, and the last lines certainly cement this:
  "Our wrongs remain unrectified / And our souls won't be exhumed..."
• Hell, Absolution as a whole can be considered this, especially if you listen to the last five or six songs in order.
• Listening to the b-side "Glorious" can make you cry tears of soul-swelling joy and exuberance. Words cannot describe.
• Exogenesis, especially part 3, with Matt Bellamy pleading, "Just let us start it over again. And we'll be good, this time we'll get it right."
  • And this line: "It's our last chance... to forgive ourselves."
• "Soldier's Poem" is a complete wrecker.
• "Love Is Forever". Which makes sense, seeing as he wrote the song shortly after a bad breakup. Not, contrary to popular belief, for its associated movie, though it is very easy to jump to that conclusion.
• "Falling Away With You".
• "Hoodoo". "And I've had recurring nightmares that I was loved for who I am / and missed the opportunity to be a better man."
  • This may also count as a Wham Line (Wham Verse?), since this comes at the end of a partially-incoherent hard-rock breakdown and violins. VERY effective.
• "Starlight"'s "Hold you in my arms..." line can set some people on tears. It's just quite intense how it's said.
• The song "Escape" from their first album. On the surface, it may seem like a rather typically angsty song, especially from the mouth of a grown man. And then you hear the meaning behind it: Bellamy wrote it about his parent's divorce from the point of view of his 13 year-old self. Now listen to those lyrics again and imagine them coming from a confused, 13 year old Matt. It's not exactly an uncommon or traumatising topic and he wasn't particularly little, but having your family fall apart around you can be a pretty confusing and frustrating experience for someone that age.
• The ending of "Citizen Erased" is quite sad... ironically the gentle fade out to the song is followed by distortion, static and then... right into MICRO CUTS.
• For the band: the night of their Glastonbury 2004 set, which Matt often describes as the best concert of their career, Dom's father died of a heart attack on-site right after the last song on the setlist, "Stockholm Syndrome". This does get better however, as Dom's family and bandmates helped him through his grief and he was able to finish the tour and even make his peace with the song.
  • The song itself can be one, as it deals with an abusive relationship. Both halves of the couple love each other but can't admit this, so they both continue to invariably hurt each other and twist the knife deeper.
• "The 2nd Law: Isolated System".
  • From the same album, "Explorers." "There's nothing left for you or for me."
  • "Save Me" and "Liquid State", all being about Christopher's alcoholism, one being a sweet, but tearjerking one, but the last one being a complete Sanity Slippage when someone can't control themselves from their addiction and despite knowing how much it hurts them, they keep giving into it.
• "Hyper Chondriac Music". An upbeat, angry art-punk song turns into a quiet, resigned acoustic ballad that will make you weep rivers.
• Screenager, especially the chorus. The sense of alienation and loneliness is so strong it's almost stifling.
• "Dead Inside", being the epitome of Despair Event Horizon and deciding to go forth to "become a drone" in order to no longer feel.
  • Specifically, it's about unrequited love for someone who is narcissistic or abusive, and as a result, becoming like them, too.
• "Drones" where the protagonist of the album laments the death of his family. The ending of "The Globalist" also counts, where the protagonist realises how much he has destroyed.
• "Aftermath" can tug at the heartstrings pretty badly.
• "Resistance" - it's so triumphant, and yet so heartbreaking.
• "Verona" combines heartwrenching Reality Subtext^note COVID-19 patients dying alone in quarantine with none other than the original Starcrossed Lovers, creating possibly their most beautiful love song in years.
  I won't leave you in the dark
  because I need you so...

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