What songs make you sad/cry?

I do agree with the OP. 'Zombie' sounds like a great song . I'm also touched by Hello by Adele. It reminds me of my sad love when I was in Colledge

I feel like these songs are pretty damn sad:

Nirvana-All Apologies

Toad The Wet Sprocket-Chile

REM-Night swimming

REM-Monty Got A Raw Deal

Bush-Glycerine

Company Flow-Last Good Sleep

Radiohead -Street Spirit(Fade Sprit)

Red Hot Chili Peppers-Under The Bridge

Stone Temple Pilots-Creep

Kendrick Lamar-Sing About Me, I'm Dying Of Thrist

Alice In Chains-Nutshell

Deftones-Entombed

Currently, "Naomi" by Neutral Milk Hotel and "Say Yes" by Elliott Smith are my go-to cry songs.

A lot of Sufjan Stevens also applies.

I don't have a lot, but these are my current two picks:

Lou Reed - The Kids. The overall feeling of the song is enough to make you feel sad, as well as the lyrics of Caroline's kids being taken away by social services, but what really clinches it for me is when the recording of actual kids crying starts playing.

Yes - Close to the Edge. It's not really a sad song, but the third movement in the song (III. I Get Up, I Get Down) can occasionally move me to tears, especially when the organ kicks in.

This one always gets to me for some reason:

I think it's the way that it's kind of positive and melancholy at the same time. But more than that, I think it's because the song hits me on a personal level.

July 1993, when I was 6, we took a long road trip up to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan to visit some of mom's friends in Escanaba, then all the way through Wisconsin down to Beloit to visit my grandfather. It was the only time I had ever seen him, because he had cut off all ties to the family. Mom had to hire a detective just to find him. Joining me and mom on the trip were my two youngest cousins, and my then 8-month-old sister.

Anyway, I remember a lot about the trip: I remember eating at the Hardee's in Manistique; I remember counting every water tower I saw and getting mad because I had lost count somewhere after 100; I remember being the only one in the car who could properly get all the words to "Blame It on Your Heart" by Patty Loveless right.

But what I remember most was that grandpa died of a heart attack when I was there.

I looked it up, and this song came out a month after all this happened. I don't know if I consciously linked the song to those memories at the time, but I still can't listen to it without thinking of the Wisconsin trip and all the other impromptu trips just like it that we used to take when I was young.

If it's anywhere, you'll find it... on the road...

Some songs that make me sad/cry are:

• "Celluloid Heroes" The Kinks
• "Scarborough Fair/Canticle" Simon & Garfunkel
• "Everybody Hurts" R.E.M.
• "Sora" from "Escaflowne"
• "Wichita Lineman" Glen Campbell
• "The Crow & the Butterfly" Shinedown
• "She Talks to Angels" The Black Crowes
• "Hurt" Nine Inch Nails/Johnny Cash
• "Where'd You Go" Fort Minor feat. Holly Brook & Jonah Matranga

Hello Planet by sasakure.UK. Kind of an unusual choice, but here's the basic gist of the song:

A robot wakes up during the apocalypse to notice her master is gone. She obliviously walks through tons of ruin, carrying a potted plant that just won't sprout. After a journey, she comes across her master's grave, finally realizing where he went. Dying, she cries and a tear lands into the potted plant, making it sprout. It takes her to heaven where she reunites with her master.

Sad stories about robots kill me, so whenever those last three notes hit, it turns me into a crying mess.

How Can You Mend a Broken Heart? and I Started a Joke, both by the Bee Gees.... Those songs are really depressing but they don't make me cry.

Chetty's Lullaby - Chet Baker

Island Song - Ashley Eriksson

Please Just Stay Dead - Nicole Dollanganger

Forrest Gump - Frank Ocean

After the Flood - Talk Talk

Chega de Saudade - Joao Gilberto

I Don't Believe in the Sun - The Magnetic Fields

I've Been a Mess - American Music Club

Volià - Francoise Hardy

And, although this makes everyone cry, this

Agree with the OP, Zombie makes me sad and angry at the same time.

I also agree about the Scarborough Fair/Canticle one.

A perhaps little known one is Hammers and strings (A Lullaby) by Jack's Mannequin, especially the second verse.

Also, for some reason, I keep ending up crying over Itsumo Nando Demo^note Always, any time/Always with you (from Spirited Away), Kimi wo nosete^note Carrying you (from Castle in the Sky), Sagitta Luminis^note Arrow of light; this time they are happy tears (from Puella Magi Madoka Magica), and A New Hope Reborn (from Hetaoni.) As well as countless pieces of soundtracks that I can't even start to list.

Edited by akanesarumara on May 25th 2019 at 10:52:38 AM

Tears of An Angel by RyanDan.

My Heart's Thanksgiving by Himig Heswita. (This one is more of happy tears.)

So I was listening to Ten by Pearl Jam and had forgotten that "Oceans" still kind of hits me with this bittersweet feeling. Lyrically it's just a love song with an ongoing ocean metaphor but there's something about the way it's sung/arranged... But more specific to me, I associate it with an ex. In fact before we met in person we were talking on the phone and sending voicemail to each other, and one of her messages was her singing "Oceans" to me - I heard her sing it before I ever heard Eddie Vedder do it.

Nine Inch Nails - Right Where It Belongs: I can't explain why it is, it's just a song that lyrically gives me a feeling of both existential dread and sadness. It might actually be the first song in a long time that has really made me sad enough to almost drive me to tears.

1979 by the Smashing Pumpkins makes me tear up sometimes and I can't pinpoint why. Maybe I just regret wasting my younger years.

I am tempted to say that "$1000 Wedding" by Gram Parsons & Emmylou Harris is objectively the saddest song ever written/performed. Of course I can't back that up, but maybe one day science will bear me out.

I revisited one today that I’ve dedicated to my wife...the song itself is powerful and touching enough on its own, but combined with the video, it seriously chokes me up.

Stone Sour - Hesitate

Halsey - Sorry

Cold - The One That Got Away, A Different Kind Of Pain and Gone Away

Nick Cave - Distant Sky

Dry Cell - So Long Ago.

Edited by JonathanWattsAuthor on Oct 21st 2019 at 8:23:41 AM

Nothing destroys me emotionally quite like Fred Jones Pt 2.

Ghostin by Ariana Grande. It's about grieving for her long term boyfriend Mac Miller who had a pretty prolific drug problem. He passed away from an accidental overdose not too long after they had parted ways due to the relationship having become fairly unhealthy. At he time she wrote the song she was with her then fiance Pete Davidson, and the song deals a lot with how being in such a state of grief and the complicated feelings of her past relationship effects her current one. This right here tares me up every time:

Oh, I wish he were here instead

Don't want that living in your head

He just comes to visit me when I'm dreaming every now and then

She's never performed the song live and had originally wanted to leave it off of the album because of the songs nature.

Edited by Zanthype on May 19th 2020 at 6:21:09 AM

x3 also Cigarette by Ben Folds Five, which is sort of "Fred Jones Part 1". Or it's where the name originated - Ben actually took a sentence from a human interest news article and set it to melody.

For a folk song, John Mc Dermott's rendition of 'No Man's Land' by Eric Bogle strikes me in a way it makes you learn about the dark side of world wars, and the sacrifices soldiers make in order to achieve peace (provided if there's still a little hope in everyone).

For a Japanese song, Yuuyu P's Deep Sea Girl tears me up every time. Perhaps it's the lyrics which uses sea imagery as a metaphor for depression. The first time I heard that song (as a music box version) it actually made me cry. It's like that song kicked me in the heart, then proceeded to throw me in the ocean.

Something about Piano Man makes me really sad. Also Stolen Dance by Milky Chance, Buddy by Willie Nelson and Dirty Paws by Of Monsters And Men.

"when the party's over" by Billie Eilish.

• “In Repair” by Our Lady Peace hits me on such a raw emotional level from the singing and lyrics that it always makes me shook up. It’s easily one of their best songs.

• Fiona Apple’s cover of “Across The Universe” is more melancholic, but has a beautiful uneasiness that isn’t found in the scratchy original.

• Besides that, a good chunk of the slower Velvet Underground songs, especially on the self-titled.