Have you ever ben moved to tears by a piece of music? (1 Viewer)

[MickeS]

I forgot to mention this intentional tearjerker (and it works on me, at least ): "Grown men don't cry" by Tim McGraw.
/Mike

 

[Scott Littlefield]

Gotta agree with "Empty Garden (Hey, Hey Johnny)" by Elton John. Almost any Lennon song can bring me to tears when I think about the music that might have been written after December 8, 1980. I was fortunate enough to see Elton perform this live two years ago and it was obviously just as emotional for him as it was for us.

Also agree with "He Stopped Loving Her Today". This song means even more to me because there is someone in my past that I still haven't gotten over. I'm afraid that I'll still be loving her when my time comes.

And I want to add "Con Ti Partiro (Time To Say Goodbye)" by Andrea Bocelli and Sarah Brightman. The emotion that comes through their voices is almost overpowering to me. I don't know for certain what the non-English lyrics are, and I really don't want to know. The situation I've painted in my mind is incredibly moving to me and I'm afraid that the real lyrics might take that away from me.

 

[Pete Gia]

"Sorry About Your Father"-----Robert Cray "In Dreams"---Roy Orbison

 

[Steve Winkler]

Vince Gill's "Hey God". A song written in memory of and/or dedicated to PGA golfer Payne Stewart. I first heard it while watching Payne's funeral on tv, it moved me to tears. Still does every time I hear it, reminds me of all the good people who have been taken from us too soon. Now I'm not a religious man but this song just says it all.
Have a listen sometime.
Steve

 

[DeanWalsh]

Two songs by Alicia Keys:

Fallin' & Goodbye

 

[Christ Reynolds]

beatles - in my life

john lennon - look at me

pearl jam - release

CJ

 

[KeithH]

A few that come to mind for me:
"Fade to Black" by Metallica
"Runaway Train" by Soul Asylum
"A Man I'll Never Be" by Boston
Also, various songs by The Doors. I feel that Jim Morrison was dying slowly through the course of their albums. You can hear it in his lyrics. An example is "Moonlight Drive", which ends with the lyrics, "Baby goin' to drown tonight! Goin' down. Down. Down. Dowwwwnnnn...". Also from Strange Days, "When the Music's Over" is sad. :frowning:
Leif,
The minute I saw the subject of this thread, I thought of Suzanne Vega's "Luka". Good call.
Ace,
Also a good call with "Streets of Philadelphia" since it always makes me think of the movie.

 

[Clint B]

Gotta agree with the end of the Firebird Suite by Stravinsky. Hearing that in tandem with the wonderful story portrayed in Fantasia 2000 always does it for me.

As far as Wind Beneath My Wings is concerned, listen to the original by country singer Gary Morris. It's 100 times better than Bette Midler's version.

 

[Pamela]

Dire Straits - Brothers in Arms

Good one, John. That song gives me goose bumps. It was especially poignant after 9/11.

Recently I had my first real crying experience with music. Several weeks after the devastating loss of a loved one, I went to a Patty Griffin show. One of her songs, "Goodbye," deals with coming to terms with the loss if someone near and dear. Because of the circumstances, I haven't been able to listen to that song for over a year. I would always skip over it. Well, at the show she played it. And I couldn't turn it off, and I couldn't skip over it. It just resonated through my head. And I lost it. The tears started rolling down my face. Thank goodness it was dark in there!

Occured to me the other day

You've been gone now a couple years

Well I guess it takes a while

For someone to really disappear

And I remember where I was

When the word came about you

It was a day much like today

The sky was wide and bright and blue

And I wonder where you are

And if the pain ends when you die

And I wonder if there was

A better way to say goodbye

Today my heart is big and sore

Trying to push right through my skin

Won't see you any more

I guess that's finally sinking in

Cause you can't make somebody see

With the simple words you say

All the beauty from within

Sometimes they just look away

 

[Michael St. Clair]

You know, I'm not sure.

There is a lot of music that has had a lasting emotional effect on me.

I know there have been many times listening to music where tears welled up in my eyes. But I'm not sure if they ever rolled down my cheeks.

Except after Frank Zappa died. Every time I heard an FZ song for months I wept openly. Obviously that's a little different.

I never cry, but yesterday, when I heard the news, I sat down on my bed and cried like a little baby.

- John Lee Hooker, on the death of Stevie Ray Vaughn

 

[Dome Vongvises]

"Life Without You" by Stevie Ray Vaughn

- Everytime I hear this song, I think of all the friends I've made over the years that I haven't heard from in years and how they might as well be dead to me.

"Tears in Heaven" by Eric Clapton

- Call me a sap, but I can't help but think of the personal tragedy this guy went through.

"Lonely Stranger" by Eric Clapton

- perfectly describes me. I have a shitload of friends, but I can only say one or two of them are close to me. Needless to say, they're fading from my life too.

"Layla" by Eric Clapton

- Man this guy's depressing. Let's say the subject matter of unrequited love applied to me

"Tangled up in Blue" by Bob Dylan

- Don't have a girlfriend, but I somehow find this song about loss/divorce depressing.

"Life By the Drop" by Stevie Ray Vaughn

- I hope to reunited with old friends someday.....

"Country Roads, Take Me Home" by John Denver

- I'm not from West Virginia at all, but I'll be damn if I didn't think of this song when I was living in Thailand, wanting to come back to Kentucky, the place I really called home.

"Love, Me" by Colin Raye

- I don't know. There's something about an old man thinking about his younger days gets to me.

"Cross My Heart" by George Strait

- Wish I had that kind of love to give to a girl.

"Chances Are" the Martina McBride and Bob Seger version

- An understated song about love and destiny.

 

[Rob Gillespie]

I think this whole thing of music hitting the right emotional spot falls into two categories. There's the music/lyrics which are just so sad and then there are the moments where the composer gets everything just so right, so perfectly perfect that you cannot help but be moved by the sheer brilliance of the work.

There are several moments during Howard Shore's score for The Fellowship Of The Ring which get me every time. The opening few bars of Concerning Hobbits, with that gorgeous cascading melody - sung by a flute that seems to extoll everything good about the world - is just one of them. During The Bridge Of Khazad-dum, just after Gandalf's fall with the Balrog
, there's that moment when everything goes quiet, followed by the mournful cry of that solitary singer. Couple that with what's happening on screen and it makes for one of the most powerful moments I've ever experienced in a film. Masterful.

And then of course, there's The Breaking Of The Fellowship, which is filled to the brim with some of the most perfect film music ever recorded. Shore just get everything so damn right in this piece that words don't do it justice. It's a monument to how wonderfully moving and indispensible film music can be.

 

[KeithH]

Eric Clapton's "Tears in Heaven" was a good call by John Kilduff. I saw John include it. Perhaps other did, but I didn't go back and read through all the posts.

 

[David R. Hendrickson]

because they're sad:
Beatles - In My Life listened to this for days after a bad break up.
Mike Oldfield - Ommadawn, side 2, the pipes from 7:00 - 10:00
Dire Straits - Romeo and Juliet
Benny Mardones - Into The Night
Gerry Rafferty - Whatever's Written In Your Heart
Boston - More Than A Feeling
Eagles - quite a few. :frowning:
Elton John - Skyline Pigeon and Seasons ( from his Friends soundtrack ) :
for our world, the circle turns again
through-out the year, we've seen the seasons change
it's meant a lot, to me to start anew
oh the winter's cold, but i'm so warm with you
out there, there's not a sound to be heard
and the seasons seem to sleep upon their words
as the waters freeze up with the summer's end
oh it's funny how young lovers start as friends
yes it's funny how young lovers start as friends
sniff. guess you had to be there...
because it's perfect:
Star Wars - Throne Room Theme at the end of the movie i will just CRANK the volume on this. John Williams is God. here is proof.
and the all-time kicker:
Amazing Grace on bagpipes. gets me every time... :frowning:

 

[MatthewA]

I've never really been moved to tears by very many things in entertainment, but the entire scene of "Baby Mine" in Dumbo has always gotten to me.

 

[Doug Craig]

I agree with the Elton John 'Seasons' pick - I must have listened to that soundtrack a hundred times way back when...

There is an Enya piece that has a huge pipe organ sound that also comes to mind...

But I'll add my personal pick - Barber's Adagio for Strings, op. 11. If ever there was a build to a climactic moment in a musical piece, this one has it. It has stood for different things for me, at different times in my life. I still find myself welling up when I hear it.

It was used in "Platoon," when they left behind the Willem DaFoe character - and I found myself angry because there was narration on top of it...

 

[Ken_McAlinden]

Something about the "Pas de Deux" from The Nutcracker almost always makes me sad. Strangely though, this only seems to be the case outside the context of the actual ballet.

Regards,

 

[Paul McElligott]

Bruce Springsteen did a song for the Sean Penn film The Crossing Guard called "Missing," and it's very raw emotional look at a person who's suddenly lost someone very important.

"Last night, I dreamed the sky went black.

You were drifting down; you couldn't get back."

plus:

"Tell me, baby, where did you go?

You were here just a moment ago."

Listening to that song right after 9/11 could just tear your heart out.

 

[Gary_E]

FREE AS A BIRD
Not for it's melody or it's lyric but for the sad sound (poor demo tape quality) of Lennon's voice. I hear the finality of him in that recording and it gets me every time.
-Gary

 

[Mark_Waldrep]

Music is unique among the arts. It can and does regularly overwhelm me, in fact, bring me to tears. Most of the listings on this thread link this emotional respond to lyrics or extra musical associations...but I would like to have readers consider the power of "absolute" music, instrumental music that is composed without any "programmatic" associations. For me, music of this type connects most deeply with my intellect and emotions.

At the recent HE 2002 show, I played music recorded, mixed and mastered at 96 kHz/24 bits from the AIX Records catalog. Everything sounded wonderful on the $150,000 system that we had assembled in the Murray Hill Suite B. Because it was the longest excerpt that I had to demonstrate, I didn't play the Berceuse and Final from Stravinsky's Firebird Suite more than 10 over the three days...but listening to it's pacing, it's slow build, beautiful melodies and intense crescendo over 7 minutes or so never failed to overwhelm me. Honestly, it took several moments after the piece had ended for me to regain my composure and address the assembled group again. This is music that resonates with me.

Other examples:

Barber: Adagio for Strings

Bach: Italian Concerto or The Art of Fugue

(Bach is special...this overwhelms on an intellectual and emotional level)

Beethoven 7th (second movement) and 9th Symphony (choral)

Chopin Ballade No. 1 in gm

Stravinsky Firebird and Rite of Spring

Ravel - Pavane for a Dead Princess

Mozart - Symphony 41 "Jupiter" finale

I realize I've listed all classical works here...there are many in the commercial music world that do it too, Joni Mitchell's Blue is one that comes to mind....

Just thought I'd offer up my two cents worth. The above mentioned works recorded in high-resolution and mixed in immersive 5.1 surround mixes...create the greatest emotional response for me. That's what I'm trying to do with my label...