Trully question. I cannot be the only one who cries when listens music. I was the privellege to see my favourite artists live, but since last year, all lives I assisted on YouTube by Fred again… , I cry . Has been my favourite musician since last year. Almost all songs, for me, are amazing and give me a bunch of emotions.
Live musicians give me goosebumps more easily than my HiFi headphones
Streetlight Manifesto gives me goosebumps, especially With Any Sort of Certainty and The Littlest Things.
If You Wanna Start Again by The Trews makes me cry, especially watching the video, because it brings back bad feelings from a horrible breakup I had back in December.
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Certain anime opening and ending themes
A bunch of Sia’s music really sparks something in my soul and gets me emotional.
I’d include her time with Zero 7 if you aren’t.
He’s hardly modern, having died nearly 30 years ago, but Kevin Gilbert’s Song for a Dead Friend still brings tears to my eyes every time.
I open this to mention Fred again, but you already did.
Not the newest songs but Eric Bogle’s “And the band played waltzing Matilda” and “No Man’s Land” are very powerfully emotional songs. I also do enjoy Mike and the Mechanics “The living years” and some songs by the German singer/songwriter Reinhard Mey like “Viertel vor sieben” and “Zeugnistag” among others but all of them share that the lyrics are what matters.
The song that ends Call Me By Your Name, as Elio sits staring into the fire always tugs at my heart strings. It’s “Visions of Gideon” by Sufjan Stevens. But “Leaves From The Vine” from Avatar: The Last Airbender always rips out my heart, hearing the anguish of a man who lost his only son to a war he regrets ever fighting in.
Joe Hisaishi. It just hits different.
So true, especially when paired with Miyazaki. They’re the Japanese Williams and Lucas - a real filmmaking match made in heaven.
Green Bird by SEATBELTS/Gabriela Robin is a fantastic example of music that’s a bit inherently moody but nearly everyone familiar with it has a strong emotional tie…
Julia…
I think your question is a difficult one - the common answers are likely to be tied to shared media moments as a multimedia experience creates a much stronger memory than sound alone.
Did the radio happen to be playing “Little Green Bag” as you pulled into the parking lot of the church for your father’s funeral? Well then “Little Green Bag” might make you break out in tears. When my partner’s mother was passing away she was listening to Dancing Queen on loop by request… my partner has difficulty listening to Abba now.
So we’ve got three ways (maybe) songs can get emotional - they can be inherently emotional, they can have a curated multimedia experience or they could have a personal multimedia experience. The last factor is absolutely where you’ll find the strongest emotional ties - the middle factor inherently produces softer associations but ones that are more likely to be shared experiences (and dip into personal experiences… i.e. I was watching Cowboy Bebop when my girlfriend was growing more distant and I associate it really strongly with loneliness)… as for inherently moody music, I’d argue that’s just a more vague form of a curated experience. We have cultural associations with instruments and chords and those “written to invoke X emotion” songs are playing into those associations.
Anyways, I did want to clarify that it’s still super interesting to see other people’s emotional associations. That dive wasn’t meant to lessen the question or be dismissive in anyway - I just find the why extremely interesting.
Radiohead - How to Disappear Completely
Radiohead - Exit Music (For a Film)
Led Zeppelin - Rain Song
Pink Floyd - Great Gig in the Sky
The Rolling Stones - Gimme Shelter
Pearl Jam - Black (especially the MTV Unplugged version)
Nirvana - Where Did You Sleep Last Night (MTV Unplugged)
This isn’t every song I could put forth, but it’s a good short list off the top of my head. They’re breathtaking, emotional art when actively listened to with good headphones or speaker setup with volume up and no distractions. Even if you know these songs already, I encourage you to have a focused, active listening session. I think other than Rain Song which is probably like 7 or 8 minutes, all of these songs are only like 4 or 5 minutes long. We should all be able to take 5 minutes out of our day to enjoy some good art. If that 5 minutes is really precious, then I specifically recommend How to Disappear Completely because I interpret it to be about dissociating from anxieties and expectations and responsibilities for just a moment of peace, almost wishing for failure because what success you’ve found is contributing to the lack of time and peace that you so crave, and feeling guilty for that when you know that people would give anything to have what you have. That song didn’t mean anything to me until I put it on in the shower (I love my waterproof Bluetooth speaker) after a rough stretch of work, and it slammed into me harder than any song ever has. It was the exact right time and place for me to be listening, and it allowed me to let go of much more than I even knew I was holding onto. It was like an emotional enema, flushing things out that I didn’t even know were there. It wasn’t fun, but it was what I needed, and it might be what somebody else reading through these is looking for… Have a good cry!
How to Disappear Completely is so good
Stairway to heaven; comfortably numb
Agreed. I had a similar moment with Stairway in the shower. The Dies Irae in the last bit of the guitar solo really moved me. I have no idea how I never noticed that. I’m kinda scared to revisit Comfortably Numb with that level of attention. It will probably also be a powerful one, and I already think it’s incredible.
John Prine and Bonnie Raitt: Angel From Montgomery.
I would add James McMurtry "Ruby and Carlos" , "lights of Cheyenne "or "Hurricane Party"
