This alternative rock band has a few tear-triggering songs.
- Pretty much the whole of Automatic for the People.
- There's "Everybody Hurts". Specially the video.
- And "Nightswimming".
- "Find the River" was so emotional that it (along with many of the other tracks on Automatic) sparked rumors that Michael Stipe was dying of AIDS (note that this was less than a year after Freddie Mercury's high-profile death from the same disease, the approaching date of which actually was the main subject matter of Queen's album Innuendo).
- And "Sweetness Follows".
- And "Monty Got a Raw Deal," which is about actor Montgomery Clift, whose career was ruined because it was discovered that he was bisexual.
- And "Try Not To Breathe." It's about a man who subjects himself to a Mercy Kill rather than endure more suffering. This live version
is gut-wrenching as well, with a desperate-looking Michael Stipe rocking back and forth over and over as he sings.- It gets worse when you realize that his good friend Kurt Cobain, who shot himself after his drug addictions and agonizing spinal pain became too much, died listening to this album...
- "Drive" is about aging and losing touch.
- "Man on the Moon", which is about Andy Kaufman, can result in Tears of Joy.
- Green has some sad songs:
- "The Wrong Child", a severely heartstring-tugging mandolin piece about a child disfigured by burns.
- "Orange Crush" is, according to Michael Stipe, the story of a high school football star who decides to go serve in Vietnam. The recurring line "I've had my fun but now it's time to serve" can be taken two ways: either he's acknowledging that he needs to serve as a way to pay off the carefree life he's led up to this point…or he's resigned himself to the fact that it's now his turn to experience combat…
- "World Leader Pretend" is about struggling with a self-imposed loneliness/isolation.This is my mistake, let me make it good.
I raised the wall,
And I will be the one to knock it down.
- Out of Time gives us "Half a World Away", "Losing My Religion" and "Country Feedback".
- "Losing My Religion" will hit anyone who's ever loved someone who didn't love them back. The melancholy mandolin riff contributes to the song's sad tone.
- "Country Feedback" is so heartwrenching to Stipe himself that he often faces away from the audience when performing it live. Here it is, one of Stipe's greatest performances -- ever.
- "I'm Not Over You", a small song stuck at the end of "Diminished" on Up seems so tortured. Stipe plays the guitar and sings a few lines about a failed relationship. Something in his voice and that half-hearted guitar-playing...
- Possibly the Reality Subtext that this was their first album without Bill Berry as an active member.
- "Falls to Climb", the final song from the same album, is a straightforward and bittersweet song about accepting the blame for something or other, because... well, why not? For some listeners it encapsulated the underlying melancholy of Up, being the first album that Bill Berry didn't contribute to and, in retrospect, the beginning of the last chapter of the band's career.
- "Let Me In", which is dedicated to Kurt Cobain, is very sad. It can be even worse seeing it live, because the guitar for the song is the actual one Cobain used to own. Heartbreaking.
- There are no drums in the song until halfway through, and even then it's just a quiet tambourine shaking in the background. But the guitar part is huge and distorted and louder than everything else. Throughout most of the track, the numb-sounding Michael Stipe is utterly overpowered by the waves of feedback, creating a disconcerting and emotional effect.
- "I had a mind to try to stop you" is particularly heartbreaking when you know that Stipe tried to start a side project with Cobain mainly as an excuse to get Cobain away from drugs.
- "Wendell Gee"
- "Perfect Circle", a melancholy, piano-driven song on Murmur, was inspired by a moment Peter Buck had when they were endlessly touring in their early years, and he found himself exhausted and worn out, watching some college kids playing touch football at twilight, and feeling so inexplicably sad that he started crying. He asked Bill Berry to write some music that suited that mood, and "Perfect Circle" was the result.
- An early song of theirs: "So. Central Rain."
- "E-Bow The Letter", which is dedicated to River Phoenix, most certainly counts. Especially the live version featuring Thom Yorke.
- "Welcome to the Occupation" is an extremely dark song. War Is Hell indeed!
- "Daysleeper" describes a person working the night shift, dealing with the insomnia and loneliness of such work.I cried the other nightI can't even say whyFluorescent flat caffeine lightsIt's furious balancing
- "Imitation of Life" is about how Celebrity Is Overrated.
- "(Don't Go Back To) Rockville" in general, and the line "At night I drink myself to sleep and pretend I don't care that you're not here with me" in particular. Especially when you consider that the song was written by Mike Mills as a plea to his real-life girlfriend not to move away.
- “Cuyahoga” is the rare environmental song that can bring you to tears, at least if you know what it’s about (the Cuyahoga River in Cleveland at one point was so polluted it caught fire). The chorus is from the viewpoint of the indigenous people of the area: “This is where we walked/This is where we swam/Take a picture here/Take a souvenir.”
- Even with its Lyrical Dissonance, the bitter lyrics and the mournful chord progressions make "Bad Day" appropriately sombre. It perfectly captures the feeling of being worn out from the stress of the day and wanting nothing more than to just get away from all the hoopla and find some peace of mind. The narrator isn't just upset, he's done.
- "We All Go Back to Where We Belong" and "Hallelujah", the last R.E.M. songs ever (the former being their last single as well).
