-->''Well ain't there one damn song that can make me break down and cry?''
-->-- DavidBowie, ''"Young Americans"''

These songs [[TearJerker will surely make you cry]]. If not? Well...there's not much else we can say to ya. Sometimes involves SoundtrackDissonance.

Note: ''any'' song can be a TearJerker if it gets associated with the wrong thing. We ideally want songs that are tearjerkers in themselves.
----
!!Examples
*Silver and Gold by Joe Strummer seems to be a cheery folk song about the singers plans for a happy future-- "I'm gonna take a trip around the world/I'm gonna kiss all the pretty girls/Do everything, silver and gold/But I've got to hurry up before I grow too old." Then you realize that it's the final song on a posthumous album and the waterworks start.
* [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ky2WKqmrnnI In Flanders Fields, the poppies blow...]]
* "Do You Realize" by the Flaming Lips: The most life-affirming song about death ever. The last chorus always makes this troper tear up with joy.
* If you don't cry during Blur's "Battery in your Leg" you are dead inside.
** Or during "Badhead", "This Is a Low" or "The Universal" for that matter.
* ''A La Claire Fontaine'', especially with it's use in the movie ''The Painted Veil''.
* A while back, in sixth grade, this troper heard the song 'The Christmas Shoes' by NewSong. It was a challenge program for the smart kids from different classes. So she heard it once with her classmates, then again with the whole gang. The second time, she was crying buckets and the teacher had to get her a tissue.
** A few years ago a local radio station played this song literally every half hour. The emotional response went from sadness, to ambivalence, to annoyance, to complete mockery of the song. This troper can no longer take that song seriously, and is now a robot.
*Harry Chapin's song "Mr. Tanner" is about a man who gives up everything to sing, which is what makes him feel whole, only to get poor reviews and his dreams crushed.
*Filter's "Miss Blue" is a song about loss and someone slowly dying. When this troper first heard this song, one of her best friends was dying slowly and it opened the floodgates.
** I'm not a huge Filter fan, but the orchestration of this song is just... man...
*Incubus has a ton of examples, their music is so passionate. One that stands out is "I Miss You" which is about long distance relationships and hit really close to home.
*Tom Petty's Mary Jane's Last Dance somehow gets This Troper Choked up.
* For a joyful, awesome version of this, it's the main theme to Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann, "Soiraro Days" when it plays in the final battle between Team Dai-Gurren and the Anti-Spirals. Especially during the part where Simon says the dreams of those who have died and will come after are his strength and his declaration his drill is the drill that pierces the heavens!
** Same with "Pierce the Heavens with your XXX".
* This Troper cannot listen to "Feathery Wings" by Voltaire nine times out of ten without crying.
* "The Doctor's Wife" by The Clockwork Quartet brought tears to This Troper's eyes.
**''And I swear!/I can see the gleam/of her eyes/amidst the new machines!/and at night/I can hear her whisper...''
* How about Moonlight Shadow by Mike Oldfield? Though the piano version by Groove coverage (Not the techno version) was the first time this troper heard that, and it brought her many tears.
* This Troper tears up everytime he listens to Opeth's "Isolation Years", mainly because it has a light beautiful melody (in stark contrast with the rest of the album) and has some extremely sad lyrics. Plus Akerfeldt's voice just continues to push it in.
** Off the same album, "Hours of Wealth" is a quiet, atmospheric barely-there piece with only keyboard, guitar and Akerfeldt's voice that has pretty much the same effect on this troper.
* [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kec_lymoyYg "Say My Name" by Within Temptation]] is about a relative with Alzheimer's. The lyrics combined with Sharon's vocals really does it...
** More significant ones by Within Temptation are ''All I Need'' and ''Our Farewell'' (''My child, see the sadness in your eyes...'')
** [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d6QE4EJrIFc Somewhere]], also by Within Temptation. (''Wherever you are, I won't stop searching, Whatever it takes, Need to know'')
** Forgiven by Within Temptation is even worse. The person being addressed in the song committed suicide.
* [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LHyMIg6YE_w ''Sayonara'' by Yato Turia]]
* [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x0dMBqtGtOU ''Fragile'' by Sting]] doubly so when you realize that the song was slated for a concert performance in the 'States on the evening of the twelfth of September, 2001. They had to decide on the 11th whether to follow through with this song. They did, and it was '''haunting''' to say the bare least.
* ''We Are the Champions'', by {{Queen}}. Especially when you consider that this song gained new meaning when performed in concert just after Freddie Mercury had announced he'd been diagnosed with AIDS, and that said concert marked the tenth anniversary of the song's debut.
** Dear God, ''The Show Must Go On''. This troper even cried at the version in ''Moulin Rouge'', of all things, it's such a powerful song.
** Want a Queen tearjerker? Listen to [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Made_in_Heaven "Made in Heaven"]], Queen's last album, released 4 years ''after'' Mercury's death. Mercury recorded for the main vocals for many of the tracks during his final days. Numbers such as "Made in Heaven" and [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8vCYkTx_5us "Winter's Tale"]] (the last song Mercury wrote- reportedly two weeks before he died) are hard to listen through for this troper, and she's not even particularly a huge Queen fan.
* A lot of Anathema's songs can fit here, but [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IfGgKApO_6g "One last goodbye"]] must be the best one.
* ''Overburdened'', by {{Disturbed}}. Say what you will about the band's usual sound. When the string harmonies sound off in that song, the tears are prone to flow.
*Richard Marx's [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=45s3RrYHqt0 Angel's Lullabye]] [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K7yjX9oCWVU and The Other Side.]]
*[[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CKyBBYp5auw If Only Tears Could Bring You Back]] by Midnight Sons.
*[[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZFcTGAGL3s Brother, My Brother]] by Blessid Union of Souls.
* [[http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=WG48Ftsr3OI And The Band Played Waltzing Matilda]] by Eric Bogle. Especially the end.
** GA-BA-DU-CHU. I'M NOT EVEN F***ING AUSTRALIAN, AND I NEARLY CRIED.
** This troper will see your Eric Bogle and raise you The Pogues.
***Eric Bogle wrote the song; the Pogues recorded the most well-known version. Either way, it tends to lead to folks sadding all over the place.
** ''The Green Fields of France'', also by Eric Bogle, [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UyiLfSHSqds makes this troper cry every time.]]
** This troper freely admits breaking down over the version of that song done by, of all bands, the Dropkick Murphys.
*** You Are Not Alone. Especially because it's such a MoodWhiplash in comparison to the rest of their songs. It's absolutely ''heartbreaking''.
** The June Tabor version ends with ''Flowers of the Forest''; it has just been added to This Troper's college radio station's music library because she played it and one of the exec board heard it.
*[=DeVotchKa=]'s How It Ends. A 7-minute, accordion-lead indie balled with VERY emotional vocals, an extended cello solo, those haunting, vaguely Canadian pianos, and lyrics like "In your soul/They poked a million holes/You never let them show/Come on it's time to go." It's like... orphans boarding a train through Siberia... or something.
* Randy Edelman's "Dragon's Heartbeat" motif for ''Dragon The Bruce Lee Story.'' Though the tears cried are the "tears of ''hope''" variety.
*[[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4H0JDomv8ac "Arrival To Earth"]] from the TransformersFilmSeries.
* Martina [=McBride's=] "Concrete Angel." If it doesn't make you sob uncontrollably, you need to grow a heart.
** That song makes this troper both sad and angry at the same time, the anger stemming from the song's [[AbusiveParents subject matter]]. The thought of anyone doing that to their own children makes this troper's ''blood boil''.
*** This troper agrees so, so much.
*** This troper seconds that. Although extremely cynical and having almost no hope for the human race, he happens to have a very soft for little children (they ''are'', if all esle fails, our last hope of making things right in the future, all depending in how we raise them), and he hates stories of child abuse. What really got him, though, was seeing the music video, and how in the end, we see her funeral and how she goes to a happier place with the other children with similar fates.
** Martina [=McBride=] has a few songs that do that. This troper remembers being about eleven years old and sobbing by the end of the music video to "Independence Day".
***Hey, don't forget God's Will! Her song about a kind-hearted disabled boy who may or may not live brings tears to this hard-hearted troper.
*"Shattered" by Trading Yesterday has the ability to make this troper break down in tears everytime she hears it.
**"Love Song Requiem" does the same for this troper.
***"One Day" does it for this troper.
* Selena's tragic murder brought melancholic undertones to her most famous song, "Dreaming of You." The fact that she died before the song was released makes the song all the more poignant.
* Abandoned Pools (the band from Clone High) have "Renegade" of one album of theirs or another.
* Unkle's got quite a few, but especially "Burn My Shadow" and "[[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z3ClCwcCvdQ Rabbit In Your Headlights]]."
* Rob Dougan's "Furious Angels" and "Left Me For Dead"
* "Talking Shit About a Pretty Sunset" by Modest Mouse. The suicide references, weary acoustics, and [[CrowningMomentofAwesome achingly beautiful guitar/cello jam]] combine to make something even more raw and emotional then their "I'm utterly pissed at capitalism, romance, and the general public" noisefests.
** Speaking of Modest Mouse, while "Ocean Breathes Salty" isn't a particularily sad song, this troper finds the music video strangely depressing [[spoiler:(a little kid finds an injured bird, which is actually the lead singer in a costume, and takes care of it until it dies.)]]
** In keeping with "Talking Shit...", this troper finds "Bankrupt on Selling" to be one of the most depressingly cynical songs Modest Mouse has ever written, which is hard to do when you're a band that's widely known for being cynical.
** They seem to be pretty damn good at making music videos in this vein, too. The song "Little Motel" is fairly despressing on its own, but the music video ramps it up to eleven, with a mother watching her son die in a hospital, then carrying his body out to her car, driving him to a diner, a gas station, then putting him to bed at a motel, all played in reverse. Describing it in words makes it sounds creepy as hell, but this is the first time this troper has ever cried watching a music video. In fact, [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zqQTODR3kR8 just watch it.]]
* Offspring's "Million Miles Away"
** Don't forget "Gone Away".
**This troper had never listened very hard to "Gone Away" in the couple of times she had heard it. Then she went to an Offspring concert. Dexter Holland (lead singer) comes out and sits in front of a piano. After playing around for awhile, even playing the trademark Snoopy tune, he launches into a solo of "Gone Away." It was a thousand times more emotional with just the piano and his voice. This troper was in tears, and music never does that.
*** And it gets even more tear-jerking if you know [[CreatorBreakdown the circumstances it was written]]...
** Also "Kristy, Are You Doing Okay?" and "Fix You," although admittedly they sound nothing like any song that they've ever done (and that's not a compliment at all).
***For nearly 5 months following getting the CD...this troper had to skip over Fix You whenever it would play on his iPod to avoid bawling in the middle of class/on the way home.
* The Servant's Body
* "In Heaven," from ''{{Eraserhead}}''...
** Speaking of David Lynch, don't forget "Llorando" (a spanish cover of Crying) from MulhollandDrive. Jesus Christ on a pogo stick.
* Star Sailor's "Tie Up My Hands"
** Also "Way To Fall", particularly since it plays right after the soul-crushing ending of MetalGearSolid 3.
* The Magnetic Fields has quite a few of these types of songs, but especially All My Little Words.
** Why I Cry is a depressing little number.
** Or 100,000 Fireflies. Or the _entirety_ of "The Wayward Bus".
* Both editions of Lunar's The Unknown
* The Smith's Unhappy Birthday
-->(And you say no\\
you don't have to feel this way\\
And I sing no\\
I'm gonna kill my...dog\\
may the line sag\\
may the line sag heavy and deep tonight)
** This troper finds "Unhappy Birthday" to be more humorous than anything else. However, "I Know It's Over" and "Asleep" are Grade-A tearjerkers.
** One title. "There is a light that never goes out". I was translating the lyrics into Spanish and sobbing as I did.
** Nothing gets the depression rolling in like "Everyday is Like Sunday" for this troper.
**I've listened to ''I Know It's Over'', ''Still Ill'' and ''[[LyricalDissonance Reel Around the Fountain]]'' literally hundreds of times, and yet they never fail to make me cry my eyes out (the latter one, though, also makes me smile, partly because I can identify with the situation).
* The Cure's "Lovesong"
** Pretty much all of the songs on ''Disintegration'' qualify.
*** Except "[[NightmareFuel Lullaby]]".
** The ironically titled "Boys Don't Cry" as well.
* Sick Puppy's "Howard's Tale" is a very nice example
* Anything by Apocalyptica.
** In particular, ''Hope''.
** And let's not forget ''Farewell''.
*** Keep in mind that both of the above have ''no lyrics''.
* "Me and My World" by Disbelief. That guy is so emotional! You're like "wow! You're not very happy are you, Mr. Singer?"
* "''Comptine d'un autre ete''" has such a sad melody, I heard a modified version of it in a commerical and was so moved, I had to hunt it down across the internets!
** You think the song's bad, [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Z2ljWwIaHs try this video]].
** Pretty much every melody in ''{{Amelie}}'' is both this and CrowningMusicOfAwesome.
* John Lennon's "Working Class Hero" is a very disheartening little song indeed!
** Yes, but if you don't shed a tear listening to ''Imagine'', you are obviously inhuman.
*** This troper is an out and proud inhuman, then.
* "Father & Son" by Cat Stevens. "How can I try to explain? / When I do, he turns away again [...] Look at me, I am old, but I'm happy."
* "The Rose". Take your pick: Bette Midler or Westlife. (although, let's be honest, the first one...)
** Plenty of artists have covered it. This troper prefers Bianca Ryan; the feminimity of Bette Midler, with the higher key of Westlife.
* Velvet Acid Christ's "Slut" is so sadly desperate.
** This troper thinks it's much more like a predatory woman who wants to consume some arrogant cock-sure bastard like a lion on a gazette but thats just my take.
* This troper would like to nominate Megadeth's song "A Tout Le Monde". The narrator telling all of his friends "I love you all, but I have to go"? *sniffle*...
* The David Gray song "[[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T6Cg8CjRR6s The Other Side]]" is so devastatingly depressing and beautiful that people during his live concerts have been known to start crying when he plays it. The fact that Gray himself seems close to breaking down at points while singing it just increases the effect. In fact, ''most'' of Gray's songs are known to do this.
**Then you learn that the song is about David mourning for the death of his father, whom he was very close to, and each and every song off of ''A New Day at Midnight'' takes on a new level of poignancy.
**Then there's "As I'm Leaving". When This troper heard them bust it out at the MedleyExit of a TV show she said out loud "Oh Goddammit [TV Show], you're going to make me cry, aren't you?" And yes, it did.
* Paul Van Dyk also had a song called [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U4mYeu20Bu0 The Other Side]], with Wayne Jackson singing. It was written in the wake of South East Asia Tsunami, in recognition of the loved ones of the people there lost in the water. This troper can't help but cry his eyes out at the song, it is just so...powerful.
* The Scissor Sisters wrote YET ANOTHER SONG called [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BCVQsqgRSkc The Other Side]] that's quite sad. This Troper suspects it was at least partly influenced by the sudden death of the lead singer's close friend, who he'd also written the song "Mary" about. [[UnfunnyAneurysmMoment But that is just speculation.]]
** Whilst we're discussing Scissor Sisters, It Can't Come Quickly Enough makes this troper inexplicably sad for no apparent reason. She puts it down to Jake Shears voice combined with the lyrics (We knew all the answers and we shouted them like anthems...WHY IS THAT DEPRESSING IN A BEAUTIFUL KIND OF WAY?!)
* "I Know You Are, But What Am I?" by Mogwai. Childish name, moving tune. By moving I mean, it could be played at a damn funeral.
* Want a quick way to make a Chinese mother's funeral more depressing? Play the popular Chinese lullaby "Shi Shang Zhi You Ma Ma Hao (Mom is the Best in the World)" and watch a huge portion of the family break down in uncontrollable tears.
** This troper has never heard of the song, but just started crying imagining that scenario.
** This troper has heard the song, and fully understands. He also hopes that it wasn't done intentionally.
* The bittersweet yet inspirationally heroic musical theme of the VideoGame ''MetalGearSolid 2 Sons of Liberty''.
** The even more beautiful version from ''MetalGearSolid 3''--especially in context. This Troper saluted and wept at the same time.
** Even more so than in Metal Gear Solid 3, Metal Gear Solid 4's "Here's to You", given the context in which it was playing, was enough to make this troper break down and bawl. Hard.
** May belong in the Videogames section, but there's a moment [[spoiler: at the end of MGS4, where Snake and Liquid are fighting. First using music from [=MGS1=], then 2, then 3. Then, at the end of the fist-fight, when both are utterly exhausted and barely alive, yet ''still'' fighting, the music switches to The Theme of Old Snake.]] Wow. Floodgates.
** And lets not forget [[spoiler: "Father and Son," the theme played during Big Boss' death.]]
** [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PXkgn3QUA2w&feature=related Calling to the Night]] from Metal Gear Portable Ops. Also featured in MGS4 as a track on your I-Pod and in SuperSmashBros Brawl, and it makes this troper cry ''every. damn. time.''
* "Blue" from the end of ''CowboyBebop''. Obviously has a lot of emotional impact as a part of the events, but the song is fairly tear jerking on its own.
** "Call Me Call Me" from the soundtrack to {{Cowboy Bebop}}, because a) the song itself just has that quality, b) in the context of the anime it comes in at a sad parting and turning point, and c) the lyrics call to mind one of this troper's real life experiences.
** The same could be said for "Space Lion", which played at the end of the first half of the show.
** "No reply" also fits in with these YokoKanno pieces, as well as many others.
** There's also "Is it real?" from the soundtrack of TheMovie. What's worse is that it belongs to the ''[[WoobieDestroyerOfWorlds villain]]''.
** Not to mention "Elm" from the melancholy chase scene in episode 10.
* The song "Duvet" by Bôa is a melodic, driving pop-rock tune which gets counterbalanced by the lyrics and the singer's immensely melancholic, beaten tone - which makes it a great choice as the [[AnimeThemeSong opening tune]] to ''SerialExperimentsLain''.
** Also by Boa, "Passport" is deliciously depressing.
* About half of Tom Waits' output (when he isn't being [[NightmareFuelUnleaded seriously scary]]), particularly the songs "Martha", "Christmas Card From a Hooker in Minneapolis", and "Georgia Lee". The album Blood Money (originally the score of a rock opera he co-wrote) contains a few pearls of melancholy, such as "Lullaby" and "The Part You Throw Away". And a good 90% of of ''Alice.''
** The ''Black Rider'' has its moments, but the strangest one is "Lucky Day." It seems like a little ranted remembrance of a man's life. It's not to sad on its own, just melancholy and even funny at times. Then you see the play and you find out its context: [[spoiler: the character singing it has just gone stark raving mad after accidentally murdering his bride-to-be on their wedding day, and he's being led off to hell by Pegleg the Devil]]. That's ''soul crushing.''
** How the fuck is '[[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0jyVZNrWkow If I Have To Go]]' not on here? This song has made multiple grown men sniffle and cry.
** His original version of "Downtown Train" [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PHyvjdn4rFk&feature=fvw]] is a bit sad, but Everything But The Girls' version is heartbreaking. [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KJWNcXV884I]]
** For this troper, it's [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ea8qsGDNZ6Q "Never Let Go."]]
** [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2oGVDLcpXQ8 "Take It With Me" always opens the ocular floodgates.
*"Aqualung" by Jethro Tull is about an old, senile, homeless pedophile freezing to death alone on the streets.
**Try "Requiem", from the "Minstrel In The Gallery" album, for a Tull "tearjerker". Made more poignant when you you realize it, and much of the rest of the album it's on, is about [[spoiler: the impending separation and divorce of Ian to his first wife, Jennie Franks. Franks wrote the lyrics to "Aqualung".]]
* [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=77f8wDf_Sdg "A Boy and His Frog"]] by Tom Smith
** I would add ''[[http://www.tomsmithonline.com/freestuff/oddio/iT024_192.mp3 Dave]]'' to that list too. "I had a friend, not close to me \\ but still someone I liked and he \\ had passed away quite suddenly \\ had passed away quite suddenly..."
* [[{{Outsyder0486}} This editor]] used to bawl like a schoolgirl whenever he heard "Puff the Magic Dragon." Just something about that tale of abandonment...
** He's not alone. And stay far, far away from the version by Seal.
** It's worth noting that a recent children's book based upon the song adds a new triumphant tearjerker ending: [[spoiler:Puff is befriended by another child.]]
** Peter, Paul & Mary have been known to add a more hopeful last verse to the song as well.
** This troper's parents used to sing it at her just to see how far they could get before the crying started.
** This troper always wants to cry when she listens to that song. and her brother refuses to listen to it because he doesn't want to feel depressed.
*Speaking of Peter, Paul & Mary, another one of the folk songs they've recorded that drives this troper to tears is "500 Miles". Between the group's haunting three-part harmonies and what I consider to be the most powerful verse in the song, the story of a traveler too ashamed of his poverty to return to his family is especially moving.
--->Not a shirt on my back\\
Not a penny to my name\\
Lord, I can't go a-home\\
This a-way
* This troper always gets teary eyed as she listens to ''Hime murasaki'' by Nana Mizuki. It doesn't help it's the ending song for a VERY tragic anime series, ''Basilisk: Koga Ninpu Chuu''.
*"World of Midnight" from Black Lagoon. Gets me every time.
* "Exit Music for a Film", by Radiohead. It was written for a ''RomeoAndJuliet'' adaptation, so the Tear Jerker quality is imported from a much older source.
** "How to Disappear Completely" is even worse.
**This troper remembers feeling melancholy from listening to "Karma Police".
** "Fake Plastic Trees" and "Let Down".
**Radiohead has a large assortment of these types of songs. "You and Whose Army" standing out especially.
** If you hear "Street Spirit (Fade Out)" and don't shed a single tear, you have. no. soul.
** "No Surprises" has sent many of this troper's friends and family into multi-day cascades of melancholy when they actually tried to reconcile the [[{{LyricalDissonance}} dissonance between the music and the lyrics]].
*** "Motion Picture Soundtrack", from the end of Kid A, has a similar air of desperation to it.
** [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=88VPZ74zk6w&feature=related "Harry Patch (In Memory Of)"]] was written as a tribute to Harry Patch, the last surviving soldier to have fought in the trenches during World War I, who has recently passed away.
* The Manic Street Preachers version of the M*A*S*H theme, "Suicide Is Painless", is... words fail.
* This troper has heard of people who ''can't even listen'' to "Dead Boy's Poem" by Nightwish, because it depresses them so much.
** [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x2sd8UMUaIk The Islander]] causes this troper to start bawling. Every. Single. Time.
** The same has been said of PearlJam's "Black".
*** And "Jeremy", in addition to being NightmareFuel.
** This troper, who has trouble with "Creek Mary's Blood," is suddenly questioning his desire to look for those songs...
** There's a [[NeonGenesisEvangelion Shinji/Asuka]] video on Youtube to "Dead Boy's Poem". It is the most ''depressing thing in the universe''.
** Speaking of Nightwish, this troper sometimes tears up when she listens to "Ghost Love Score".
** "The Poet And The Pendulum" isn't tearjerky at start, but is very emotionally fraying. You're pumped up, you're nostalgic, you're disturbed, you're creeped out... then comes the soft and emotional final part (''"Be still, my son... you're home..."''), at which point you burst into tears.
**Don't forget "Eva" and "Higher Than Hope." And "Meadows of Heaven."
** It doesn't even need to have Tarja or Anette singing it to be heartwrenching. "While Your Lips Are Still Red" is sung by Marco Hietala, the bassist, and this troper tears up ''every damn time'' he hears it.
* "Last Kiss" (originally performed by Wayne Cochran, more famously performed by Pearl Jam) is either this or {{Narm}}.
** To clarify: The original is {{Narm}}, but the Pearl Jam cover fits the trope.
* Country music of course specializes in these. Some of the highlights:
** John Denver's "Country Roads"...''Driving down the road, I get a feeling that I should have been home yesterday...''
** "I Don't Call Him Daddy", in which a divorced man thinks about his son and the new father in his life.
** "Dance, Little Jean", in which a cynical musician learns that the wedding party he's playing for is about a little girl's parents finally getting together. The moment it really hits you is when the singer's voice changes on the line "She was a happy little girl!"
** "One Promise Too Late", in which the singer meets her soul mate but decides to stay with the husband who's never been less than good to her.
** "Burning Bridges" by Garth Brooks, in which a man contemplates his string of broken relationships, and knows that despite wanting desperately to change, he probably won't manage to do so until it's far too late.
*** Garth Brooks has a lot of these - "The Dance", "The Change" (written just after the Oklahoma City bombings), "When You Come Back To Me Again", "More Than A Memory". If he isn't burnin' the house down, he's making you blubber.
***For This Troper, "Standing Outside the Fire" makes me cry tears of amazement that someone could write such a wonderful song.
** "How Can I Help You to Say Goodbye?" by Patty Loveless: verse 1, a childhood move; verse 2, a death/divorce; verse 3, the mother sings the chorus as she's about to die.
** Similarly, there's Tim [=McGraw's=] signature song, ''Don't Take the Girl'', in which the titular line takes on a different meaning every verse.
*** As well as Tim [=McGraw=]'s song "My Little Girl". This troper's dad pretends he doesn't get teary-eyed when he hears it.
*** And "If You're Reading This".
**** This troper had to pull off the road the first time she accidentally stumbled onto that song on the radio.
***While listening to "Live Like You Were Dying", the tears come from the level of awesome the lyrics have.
*** "Grown Men Don't Cry", ironicly, gets this troper choked up. She had to hold back the tears when she heard this in a Burger King with her dad one day.
** "Daisy" by Halfway to Hazard is similar to the above example, which halfway through has much the same twist as the ending to "Don't Take the Girl" but ends on a more uplifting note.
** "The Greatest Man I Never Knew" -- mourning the singer's late father.
** "I'm Already Home'', a letter sent home [[spoiler:from a dead soldier]]. Especially the line "There's gonna come a day... when you'll move on and find someone else... and that's okay."
** "Traveling Soldier" by the Dixie Chicks is debatably one of these. {{Narm}} in [[VietnamWar 'Nam]] notwithstanding.
*** This troper first heard that song in her Vocal Music class and had to contain herself from crying in front of her classmates.
** Rascal Flatts has a couple: "Skin (Sarabeth)" and "Ellsworth."
** Eric Church's "Lightning" chronicles the internal thoughts of a condemned murderer in the moments leading up to his execution via the electric chair. If you don't at least get goosebumps at the four-minute mark, you're not human.
** Lonestar's "I'm Already There" was a sweet, sad song about a performer on the road missing his family. Then radio stations began mixing it with messages from family members to servicemen and women overseas, taking the tearjerking to 11.
** Brad Paisley's "When I Get Where I'm Going", particularly the chorus with Dolly Parton. "when I get where I'm going/there'll be only happy tears. I will shed the sins and struggles/I have carried all these years. And I'll leave my heart wide open/I will love and have no fear. Yeah when I get where I'm going/Don't cry for me down here."
*** ''Whiskey Lullaby''. Oh, god, ''Whiskey Lullaby''. "He put that bottle to his head and pulled the trigger/And finally drank away her memory./Life is short, but this time it was bigger/Than the strength he had to stand up off his knees."
**** "We found her with her face down in the pillow, Clinging to his picture for dear life, We laid her next to him beneath the willow, While the angels sang a whiskey lullaby." For some reason, those lines really affect [[KingSonnDeeDoo This Troper]] a lot.
*** ''Letter to Me'' makes [[AcrossTheStars this troper]] weep like a child. Also ''He Didn't Have to Be''.
** This troper had just moved to college when she first heard Carrie Underwood's "Don't Forget to Remember Me" and promptly began crying her eyes out. She still gets weepy and homesick whenever she hears this song.
*** How have [[AntipathicZora I]] let this page get by without mentioning [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8khHqMntkbQ Just A Dream]]? And of course [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_PDLUGTK4sU I Told You So]]. The first is really freaking depressing in itself, and it doesn't help that I was in the midst of an emotional breakdown when I first heard the latter.
** Randy Travis's "Three Wooden Crosses."
** "I'll be waiting on the far-side banks of Jordan/ I'll be sitting, drawing pictures in the sand..."
** "She Misses Him". Not sure who sings it, but it's about a woman and her husband as he goes through Alzheimer's and how she deals with him forgetting her and their life together.
*** That's Tim Rushlow, former lead singer for the group Little Texas.
** As a matter of fact, there's a well-known joke about country music's Tear Jerker tendencies that goes like this:
---->Q: What happens when you play a country music album backwards?\\
A: You get your money back, your house back, your wife back, your kids back...etc.
*** In a similar vein, there is a bit by comedian Sean Cullen about how you can write country music just by thinking of something depressing and setting it to music.
---->"Well, I only got one leg...and it's itchy."
---->"And I only got one arm, but it's on the wrong side."
** A lot of Emmylou Harris, but especially "Bang the Drum Slowly."
*** And "Michelangelo".
*** That whole album, "Red Dirt Girl", is one heartbreaking song after another. "My Antonía" and the title track, especially the title track, make me tear up every time. Poor Lillian.
*** And "A Love That Will Never Grow Old" from ''BrokebackMountain''.
** Diamond Rio's got a number, including "You're Gone" (which is heartbreaking in its simplicity: "And the good news is I'm better for the time we spent together / And the bad news is / You're gone"), "One More Day" (which has been used in tribute to many tragic deaths), and "I Believe" (where the singer speaks to a loved one who has passed on). The fact that Diamond Rio employs incredible harmonies in these heartbreaking songs only makes it that much worse.
** Dolly Parton's [[http://youtube.com/watch?v=vr4GT4ltvBk "Coat of Many Colors"]] is just so childlike and sad you can't help but cry some.
*** Whitney Houston's long since rocketed the song to Narm levels, but the original "I Will Always Love You" by Dolly Parton is heartbreaking, because the vulnerable, quiet way she sings it evokes the image of someone who's falling apart, but trying her damnedest to be gracious and leave with a smile.
** Kenny Chesney's ''Who You'd Be Today''. Only natural, since it's a song directed to a deceased lover.
** [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H78uQhsZKKA This song, just listen to it.]]
*** You're right. I haven't cried that much in quite some time.
*** This Troper would like to tell ''that'' troper who posted that link: Gods ''damn'' you. I had managed to avoid that 'crying in a library/computer lab' thing until now.
*** Sobbing over here. Geez, this song knows exactly where my heartstrings are, tugs them, pulls a little harder, and then hauls off.
*** Fuck you. Fuck you, fuck you, ''fuck you.''
*** Oh my...*sniff*I could tell it was coming, but *sniff*...*sniff*...*SOB*
*** I must have a masochistic streak, because despite that song nearly tearing my heart in half I'm tempted to listen to it again.
*** I hate you...*sniff*....*sobs*
*** It's Crystal Shawanda's "You Can Let Go." To prevent others reaching the same fate just from wanting to know. It deserves the above reactions.
** Johhny Cash's cover of "Hurt" has a profound effect on both this troper, and his father. This troper has a hard time not breaking down into tears whenever he watches the music video...
** [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hvRcI0P2f90 "Flowers"]], by Chris Young (originally by Billy Yates, but [[YamiVizzini this troper]] can't find that version online). Starts out somewhat generically, but you can hear the singer's pain as he sings to his ex-wife/girlfriend [[spoiler:whom he had killed by driving drunk]].
** [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xumsvSi8qz0 Alyssa Lies]] is {{Narm}} either the first time you hear it or the fiftieth. In between, you will weep.
*** I tear up at the end of that song. Every time.
** "I Loved Her First." I have no idea who sings it, and there's another country father-daughter song that makes me tear up as well, and I can't remember the name.
*** That's Heartland
** Patty Loveless' "The Grandpa That I Know;" the singer contrasts the formality at her grandfather's funeral with the simple man that he was. (''And they all say he looks so natural / But all I see is a cold dark hole / I won't commit this day to memory / That ain't the grandpa that I know'')
** Jamey Johnson's "In Color" tells of a young boy looking through an old black-and-white photo album with his elderly grandfather. The photographs highlight the major events of his grandfather's life, including living through the Great Depression, fighting in World War II, and getting married. As the young boy stares in wonder at these photographs, his grandfather simply tells him "You should have seen it in color."
** Gary Allan's cover of Vertical Horizon's "Best I Ever Had" does this, considering the context: [[spoiler:his wife committed suicide.]]
** If [[{{Woobie}} woobiefication]] could be set to music, it would be "How Can You Mend A Broken Heart?" by the Bee Gees.
** [[{{Pinkbaron}} This troper]] was deciding on a college when [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nkORnaD2yls "Get Ready, Get Set, Don't Go"]] by Billy Ray Cyrus came on the TV. Voi la! Instant bawling!
** I don't remember who sings it, but there's a song called "Letting Go" that does it for me. Even though it's a generally positive message, it goes back to the realization that the daughter has grown up and is leaving... and it doesn't help that it came out when I was a teenager.
*** Oh, and another one: Alabama's "In Pictures".
** "Daddy's hands" by Holly Dunn. If you ever lost a father, this song will tear out your heart.
*** Same goes for "That's My Job" by Conway Twitty.
*** Oh Jesus...[[{{Willbyr}} this troper]] can't even hear "That's My Job" in his ''head'' without getting choked up.
**Blaine Larsen's song 'How Do You Get That Lonely" is already sad enough, seeing as it's about a teenage sucide but the music [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=28FYBvuGGl8 video]] just makes it so much *worse*. The most heartbreaking part, for this troper at least, is when Larsen sings the line 'did his mom and daddy forget to say, "I love you son"?' and you see the women who is apparently the boy's mother mouth the words "I love you son" along with Larsen.
** In Steve Azar's music video for [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RiOe-T14Bsg ''I Don't Have to be Me ('Til Monday)'']], an ecentric-looking man has a magical door that sends people to their ideal weekend. The scenarios range from a nun in boxing equipment to your typical biker stereotype in a three-piece suit to a businessman in drag. The true TearJerker is when a homeless woman goes through the portal, and nothing really appears different... except she's clutching a new, red hat to herself, an expression of pure, absolute ''joy'' and appreciation on her face. After seeing all sorts of rather big changes, seeing this humble one, possibly for the person most appreciative of the gift, is a true tear jerker.
***Also by Steve Azar, ''"Waitin' on Joe"''. A first, you think it's just about a guy with a dead beat friend who's constantly holding him back. The man laments that if he could just leave Joe behind, he could get on with his life. Then you find out that Joe really did try to be on time for their new job by racing the train, only to have the train win. Then you find out that Joe's not his friend, but his ''brother''. Yeah. ''"I didn't even tell my brother good-bye. I wish somehow, he could send me a sign."'' By this point you will be sobbing.
** The song 'Letters From Home' is a tear jerker for anyone that has a family member in the Armed Forces, but the final verse is what really gets this Troper. [[spoiler: The narrator's father, who hadn't spoken a word to him since his announcement to join the military, finally swollows his pride sends a letter to let his son know how proud of him he is. It actually makes the song's narrator cry.]]
** For [[{{Willbyr}} this troper]], the version of "Will The Circle Be Unbroken" on the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band's second album of the same title is one. The song is sad enough on its own (a child's experience of his mother's funeral and the family's sorrow), but this version is sung by a who's who of country stars, with the first two verses being sung by JohnnyCash and Roy Acuff, both of whom have passed away...that just compounds the sadness.
** Verne Gosdin's "Chiseled in Stone", about a man, feeling alienated and depressed after the latest of many fights with his wife, is counseled by an elderly widower that the alternative is far worse. For anyone who's lost a spouse, this song is potentially a sledgehammer.
* "Space Oddity" by David Bowie. A routine space mission accompanied by sad music and Major Tom philosophizing -- and then "Can you hear me, Major Tom? Can you hear me, Major Tom?" (Insert echo here.) Nothing's spelled out (it's all dialogue), but suicide is strongly implied.
** Um, what echo? [[CowboyBebopAtHisComputer You make it sounds like the song ends there]]. That particular line is sung ''actively'' three times, followed by "Can you heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeear, am I floating in a tin can?" In fact, the song ''has'' no echo.
** The true tragedy of this is that the song is two-layered: one is the implied suicide by Major Tom. The other is that the song was released at the very end of the Sixties: depending on interpretation, its either about drugs or technology, the two great hopes of the Space Age that never delivered on their Utopian promises. "And I think my spaceship knows which way to go..."
*** "Space Oddity" never did it for [[GGCrono this editor]]. Peter Schilling's ''Major Tom'', on the other hand...
**** For this troper, on the other hand, this song is both Tearjerker and NightmareFuel, especially when she imagines Mission Control calling out desperately to Major Tom and being completely unable to do ANYTHING. That level of utter helplessness is horrifying in every possible way.
** "Space Oddity" is one of the few songs that can make this troper cry, which is why she always turns the radio off when it comes on.
*** There's a [[http://www.quickstopentertainment.com/2008/07/24/masters-of-song-fu-1-final-challenge-voting-begins/ Masters of Song Fu]] challenge that deals with reinterpreting this song, and both have this undertone of loneliness that really gets this troper.
****I’m high!/ Can you see me?/ I’m the blink in the night sky./ I’m not afraid./ Everything’s clear./ Tell my wife no need for tears.
**** Jonathan Coulton's song about the first dog in space is worse: Moscow to Sputnik 2/ I think we're losing you/ Your life signs are fading/ We can't say that we're surprised/ There's always something that gets compromised/ Now I'm floating free/ And the moon's with me/ And it's bright enough/ To light the dark/ And it's so high up hear/ And the stars so clear/ Are they close enough/ To hear me bark/ From hear...
** I always thought it was a sudden malfunction, rather than suicide.
** Don't forget the final song of ''Ziggy Stardust'', "Rock and Roll Suicide." The chorus of "Give me your hands!" before the Main/LastNoteNightmare...I don't want to meet anyone who's not affected.
*** The first song, "Five Years", can be pretty depressing too.
**** "Ziggy Stardust" itself is pretty sad too, if you think about. Made even worse by the ''Stage'' live version, which sounds like something I'd hear song at a funeral.
** ThisTroper would also like to point out the imagery in the first verse of Life On Mars is decidedly heartbreaking. It doesn't help that the song is used in some of the more emotionally charged moments of the [[LifeOnMars TV series of the same name]].
* "Hide and Seek" by Imogen Heap. Yes, despite the "Dear Sister" MemeticMutation (or maybe because of it, actually).
** This troper never heard of these memes on Hide and Seek, but still finds this song makes her cry.
* "Sleep" and "The Dead Flag Blues" by Godspeed You Black Emperor, the latter being arguably the most bleak and depressing piece of music ever written. The cheery bit and the end actually makes it ''worse''.
** "Love Song for 15 Ontario" by Godspeed side-project ''Set Fire to Flames'' manages to be heartbreaking with no vocals at all.
**"Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven" features a beautiful build-up to a crash that feels like dawn... This Troper tears up every time.
* ''Viðrar Vel Til Loftárása'' by Sigur Rós. You will ''weep'' after seeing the video. See also the entirety of their ''()'' album
**[[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PDxMQaMqsig Hoppipolla]], also by Sigur Ros. Knowing what the [[LyricalDissonance lyrics mean]] made it even worse for this troper.
** If we're talking sad Sigur Ros videos, this troper must mention [[http://youtube.com/watch?v=P0AZIFmkogY Untitled #1]], which made her curl up in the fetal position sobbing wretchedly the first time she watched it.
*** The first five ''notes'' of that one are enough to set this troper going.
* "Riding A Tiger", by the filk band Echo's Children. It's set for a science fiction series, but despite that, this troper (who hasn't read it) will cry if you so much as play the opening notes.
* "The Queen And The Soldier" by Suzanne Vega, for much the same reasons. Not-conventionally-saccharine female vocals, well-meaning protagonist desperately trying to end a senseless waste of life, the feeling that just once they'll listen to reason and everything'll be okay, but no.
** "Luka" could also fit into this category.
** Especially if you were a small child yourself in 1987. Gives it that little bit extra.
** "Luka" is good at this, but what does [[{{Ospero}} this troper]] in every single time is "Penitent". No other song I know evokes the feeling of being lost and looking for guidance as good as this one.
* Pink's "Family Portrait", to the extent that this troper has to ask whoever plays the song to stop before she ''bawls''.
** This troper, though sufficiently unemotional to avoid actually breaking into tears, concurs.
** "Just Like A Pill" makes troper weepy.
** "Who Knew" is a song that should make anyone who's thinking back on a loss they never expected cry.
** For this troper, it's "Conversations With My 13-year-old Self" that does her in every time. At the time I first heard it, it felt like the song really was speaking to me personally because I was going through a time in my life where it felt like nobody really understood me...and then that song came along and summed up everything. Even to this day, this seventeen-year-old troper still tears up at the song, moreso because now it feels like I'm singing it to my thirteen-year-old self.
* "Hallelujah," by Leonard Cohen. It's been covered by virtually every artist in existence.
-->"And love is not a victory march\\
It's a cold and it's a broken hallelujah".
** This troper can't stand it after that verse either, but keeps listening. Yeah, he's a masochist.
** This troper only breaks down for the Cohen original's final verse:
---> ''"And even though it all went wrong\\
I'll stand before the Lord of Song\\
With nothing on my tongue but hallelujah"''.
*** This troper actually got ''angry'' at the use of Cohen's original version for the ''Watchmen'' movie, as it turns a beautiful sad song into an awful bit of {{Narm}}.
** The version used in ''Shrek'' is particularly gut-wrenching.
*** That'd be by Rufus Wainwright, and yeah.
*** Well it's John Cale in the film itself, and Rufus Wainwright on the soundtrack albun (copyright issues apparently). This troper finds the Cale version the more affecting, but when you're talking about this song it's all relative...
** But Jeff Buckley's raw utterances of "hallelujah!" are also prime TearJerker bait.
*** Really, just about anything by Jeff Buckley. Many of the songs are a bit melancholy already, but that ''voice'' of his could invoke tears just from its beauty.
*** ThisTroper, back in Christmas 2008, read a "what if?" hypothetical based on what would probably happen if he didn't die in 1997. Basically, the image created was a frail eighty-year-old Buckley in a wheelchair in front of tens of thousands of fans, moving just a little bit closer to the microphone so he could sing "Hallelujah" ''one last time''.
**It's [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2oa_q6Jnukg Regina Spektor's verison]] that does it for this troper.
** Leonard Cohen's "Anthem" is also heartbreaking:
--->''"The wars they will be fought again\\The holy dove, she will be caught again\\Bought and sold and bought again\\The dove is never free"''
*** But the chorus of "Anthem" has been known to bring [[CrowningMomentOFHeartwarming tears of an entirely different type]]:
----> ''"Ring the bells that still can ring\\Forget your perfect offering\\There is a crack, a crack in everything\\that's how the light gets in..."''
** Everybody knows the dice are loaded. Everybody rolls with their fingers crossed. Everybody knows the war is over. Everybody knows the good guys lost. Everybody knows the fight was fixed. The poor stay poor; the rich get rich. That's how it goes; everybody knows.
*** Everybody knows the boat is leaking. Everybody knows the captain lied. Everybody knows this broken feeling like their father or their dog just died.
** ''I'll try to say, a little more - love went on and on; until it reached an open door - then love itself, love itself was gone.''
**And what can I tell you, my brother, my killer, what could I possibly say? I guess that I miss you, I guess I forgive you, I'm glad you stood in my way...
* ''Samson'' by Regina Spektor is ''haunting''.
**This troper seconds that; he literally ''cannot'' listen to that song any more, having first heard it after being forced to break up with his girlfriend. The line "The history books forgot about us and the Bible didn't mention us" cuts him to the core.
**A slightly different story for this troper: while she and her boyfriend were still together, this was ''their song.'' After breaking up, she finds it hard to listen to without thinking about the past and feeling miserable.
** Regina Spektor also wrote the tearjerkers "Carbon Monoxide" and "the Flowers", but the worst is "Chemo Limo," which is about a mother of four dying of cancer. I was barely keeping it together when she says the last line, “Oh God Barbara, she looks just like my mom…” in a tone of horrified realization. And then you realize that a lot of cancers are genetic. Thanks for twisting the knife, Regina.
***I'd also like to throw in "Buildings," which chronicles a city woman's growing despair and her husband's trying to help her cope with it. It is heavily implied at that she ends up committing suicide. Regina's voice, often quirky or cheeky, has never been so soul-wrenching.
** As well, Regina's song ''The Call'', that plays during the end of ''The Chronicles of Narnia, Prince Caspian'' had this troper tearing up when she first heard it before seeing the movie. It made her immediately think of Susan, which just reminded her of what happens to that character.
***This troper first heard ''The Call'' the week she was graduating from college. The repeated line "No need to say goodbye" made her think of losing touch with some of the closest friends she's made in ''years'' and not having the chance to be with them every day.
** Not to mention Spektor's song ''Us'', which is her most beautifully orchestrated tunes in this troper's opinion.
** "Laughing With," in which Regina recites a long string of horrible, half-implied tragedies and matter-of-factly states that "nobody laughs at God" during these times. And she goes on to denounce people who treat God like a wish-granting genie used to justify their own hatred, which can inspire the good kind of tears.
* Coldplay's "Fix You" always sets this troper off.
** Me too.
** "Warning Sign" from ''A Rush of Blood to the Head'' does it for this troper.
** [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V3Kd7IGPyeg The Scientist]]. Even listening to it ''backwards'' makes this troper shed a few tears.
*** Same for this troper. Even the ''Avril Lavigne cover'' makes her a bit misty-eyed.
** "'Till Kingdom Come" always makes this troper tear up... partially because it was written for Johnny Cash to sing, but he died before he got the chance to record it.
** This troper seconds "Fix You", and would like to add "Rush of Blood to the Head". Some of my favorite lyrics ever, and makes me think of the moment in "Forest Gump" when Forest mentions how he paid for Jenny's childhood home to be demolished.
** "Amsterdam", from ''A Rush of Blood to the Head''. Holy crap.
* Blink-182's "Adam's Song", an [[LyricalDissonance upbeat song about suicide]].
** Not ''that'' upbeat.
**While on the subject of Blink, "Stay Together For The Kids" is fairly sad, and then this troper listened to the lyrics properly. Ooh dear.
* TheBeatles, "The Long and Winding Road" and "Eleanor Rigby". Depending on your mood, "Across The Universe" also fits.
** "In My Life" for this editor.
** Don't forget "Julia", which John Lennon wrote for his late mother.
** "Here Comes the Sun" is a particularly bittersweet song, especially when one considers how cheerful the song sounds.
** In [[{{Lurkerbunny}} this troper]]'s case, "When I'm Sixty Four" but only because it plays over the ending credits of ''The World According To Garp'' (which has its own entry in the film examples).
*** Although considered Narm to some, Russell Brand's version of "When I'm Sixty Four" is heartbreaking for this troper because Russell was instructed to sing it as if the answer to "Will you still need me, will you still feed me, when I'm sixty-four?" was "No."
*** "Yesterday" does it for me.
**** For me too.
*** Ever since watching the CowboyBebop AMV where it's featured, this troper simply can't hear "Yesterday" without going teary eyed.
** "Hey, Jude" -- sad melody, and there are times when the lyrics don't quite make it better.
*** As a child of two parents who divorced, "Hey Jude." (It helps that I'm blatantly idealistic.)
*** It's not just you. Now that he's divorced, "Hey Jude" has driven Paul [=McCartney=] to tears at least once, visibly, when he was performing it. In general, when "let her into your heart" becomes impossible or counter-productive, this song turns sad.
*** This troper associates "Hey Jude" with a ''bad'' crush who didn't return his feelings. He spent an hour listening to it on the way to the airport. Not pretty.
*** Paul [=McCartney=] has also admitted that the song has TearJerker connotations for him based on his relationship with John Lennon. Not only did Lennon praise it as the finest song [=McCartney=] ever wrote, but when first playing the song to Lennon, [=McCartney=] was adamant that he'd remove the line "the movement you need is on your shoulders", convinced it was just a placeholder lyric; Lennon, however, believed that that was the finest lyric in the song and insisted [=McCartney=] leave it alone. Since Lennon's death, [=McCartney=] admits that he finds it hard to think of that line without choking up a bit.
** "Let It Be", period.
*** This troper has seen large, shaven, tattooed men break down into ManlyTears hearing this song.
*** Although this troper found the rest of ''AcrossTheUniverse'' to be disappointing, their rendition of "Let It Be" done by a single a capella boy, a gospel choir, and then played over the image of a young soldier's funeral, just got to this troper.
*** ThisTroper was frozen to her seat, wide-eyed, during that portion of ''AcrossTheUniverse''. Personally, however, she finds [[spoiler:the imagery of the boy who was ''singing the a capella intro's funeral'' much more heartwenching''.]] It still chokes me up, sometimes, when it comes up on my iPod when I remember the scene.
** ''AcrossTheUniverse'''s rendition of "Happiness is a Warm Gun" unfailingly makes this troper feel lonely (and usually lachrymose).
***Tori Amos's cover of "Happiness is a Warm Gun", with the real-life newsreel audio of John Lennon's shooting, is ''heartbreaking''.
** "A Day in the Life" for this troper. Try to ignore the LyricalDissonance and notice how depressing the words actually are.
*** Except for Paul's cheery part.
**** Maybe that's why Paul has been omitting the final verse when he covers this song...
*** This troper now breaks down into tears at A Day in the Life, because of the way George Martin presents the song (and cries) in the Beatles Anthology documentary.
** This troper had never actually come to tears over a song. Then she heard Eleanor Rigby a few minutes ago...and the hopeless lyrics finally hit her.
*** Oh my God, Eleanor Rigby. It made me break down in tears every time I heard it. Given that I am a lonely nerd with few real friends, the gloomy lyrics about loneliness and people coming together too late really made an impact. If you don't cry at Eleanor Rigby, you have no heart.
*** Even the version from the Anthology, which is ''just the strings'', will haunt you.
**** Speaking of the Anthology, try to watch the music video of "Free as a Bird" now. That song makes me cry like a baby.
** "She's Leaving Home" also counts.
*** No, that one kills me, too.
** "For No One," as well.
** "All You Need Is Love". Really. Usually happy tears, but this troper's known more cynical people to break down when they hear the song. Why? "I wish it were true."
** "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" does it for [[{{Pinkbaron this troper]]. ''With every mistake we must surely be learning/Still my guitar gently weeps/I don't know how you were diverted/you were perverted too/I don't know how you were inverted/no one alerted you''
** The first time [[{{Ephedra}} This Troper]] heard the song ''Blackbird'' was on a long drive home one night. She broke down in tears.
* Beautiful boy has alway made this troper tear up a bit at the line saying how John can't wait to see Sean come of age... The mental conecction this tropper makes with Mr Holland's Opus doesn't help either.
* "[[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dZzXEFDznoA Empty Garden]]" by Elton John. Just...damn.
* "Personal" by Stars (the Canadian ones, not any of the other manifold musical groups under the name) brings tears to my eyes at total random. It's somewhat eerie (they went for the foreboding effect, so it sounds like the male of the song- who we only meet through personal ads- is about to murder someone or something) but emotacular whispered lyrics notwithstanding, it's quite powerful. It layers on the depression and angst without ever going beyond the realm of plausibility. Single M seeking single F. Single F replies and sends a photograph. They arrange a date... and [[spoiler: single M never shows up. No reason is ever given So- 'is it you, or me?']]
** Speaking of Stars, their song "Your Ex-Lover is Dead" brings this troper to tears every single time. Especially since the first time she heard it the song was a character song in a fanmix. Even more so since that character was nearly killed by his then-girlfriend, who becomes pivotal later in his life from beyond the grave and basically becomes a lawyer because of an old friend he hadn't seen in ages.
*** You have a ''PhoenixWright'' fanmix?!
*** "All of that time you thought I was sad//I was trying to remember your name."
*** "I'll write you a postcard//I'll send you the news//From a house down the road from real love..."
*** "Live through this and you won't look back"
** "In Our Bedroom After The War." Enough said.
*** As well as "Barricade". Gay football hooligans ''who fell tragically in love''.
* A slow, a capella rendition of ''One Tin Soldier'' and this troper loses it.
* Commercial [[PostGrunge Post-grunge]] crap or not, Seether can make some pretty damn sad songs. The one that brings this Troper to tears is "The Gift".
* "Gravity" and "Tell Me What the Rain Knows" by Maaya Sakamoto, both from ''[[WolfsRain Wolf's Rain]]''. Especially if you've actually seen the last few episodes.
** From the same anime, "Heaven's Not Enough". That song moved me to tears the first time I heard it.
** That song still slays this troper. Not to mention "Shiro, Long Tails", which is sad without any lyrics or even knowing its context.
* "He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother," by The Hollies. [[DarkSoldier This troper]] remembers it from the [[MediaWatchdogs Concerned Children's Advertisers]] PublicServiceAnnouncement that can on Canadian TV many moons ago, showing two childhood friends who slowly drift apart when one of them starts abusing drugs, only for them to reunite when the clean one visits his friend in rehab.
** I'm holding back the tears even as I write this.
*** Goddamnit, now I'm tearing up at ''work''. I hate you ''so much''.
**** That song reminds this troper of her brother. He died of cancer a few years ago.
* The song "Prayer of the Children." This troper heard her high school Women's Chorus sing it when she was a freshman, and bawled her eyes out. It doesn't help that she now has to sing it herself in an upcoming concert, despite the fact that she's now (as of this writing) a senior.
**This troper sang it this fall as a second soprano. We sang it in a church, with beautiful accoustics, and had almost everyone in the room, including our boys, bawling.
* Another tear-jerking American favorite that has yet to be mentioned: "[[AmazingFreakingGrace Amazing Grace]]".
** "[[AmazingFreakingGrace Amazing Grace]]" played by a lone bagpipe, at a military, police or firefighter funeral. Anyone who doesn't come close to breaking down has no soul (and this troper says that as an atheist).
** This troper, as a soprano in a family that basically spans the vocal range, gets to sing this at any funeral her church holds that wants it sung. She cries. Every time. People seem to appreciate it like it's a service for some reason, like some kind of professional mourner. This is why she occasionally gets delegated to playing the recorder.
*** This other troper feels your pain - she's the alto, though. I had to sing it in a trio beside the coffin of a friend who died in a car accident. I still can't do that last line ("we've no less days to sing God's praise/than when we first begun") without breaking down.
**** This troper can't hear this song played at a funeral or even on tv before she breaks down.
*** This troper first heard the song a few years ago for a security guard at his school who had died of cancer. He generally manages one verse before tears.
** This troper went to a memorial service for a guy who'd been producing local shows and encouraging local bands. Pretty much the entire scene showed up to pay their respects, and a few of them told stories in remembrance. One girl sang "Amazing Grace" with wonderful strength and clarity, and the room went absolutely silent to hear it. It was especially fitting because he'd encouraged so many of those present to take up music and to develop their talents. It's one of the more heartbreaking moments this troper can remember.
* "The Christmas Shoes" is a pretty extreme song to play on the radio, precisely because so many people start crying when they hear it, it's only a matter of time before it causes a car crash.
** That is the exact reason this troper changes the station whenever it comes on.
** It was the movie that made ''this'' troper bawl.
** It's pretty polarizing: some people are moved to tears, while others (this troper included) find it goes waaaay too overboard into Narm territory.
* Karen Carpenter, ''Merry Christmas, Darling.'' "I've just one wish on this Christmas Eve, I wish I were with you." Anyone who's ever lived through a holiday away from loved ones will be suffering from lumps in the throat by the end of this one.
** [[{{Prioris}} This troper,]] having been left by a significant other right before the holidays, suffered through the entire period from Halloween to New Year's being tormented by that damned song on the radio (curse you, radio stations that switch to all-holiday all-the-time programming). Worse yet, "Merry Christmas, Darling" had been our song, after a fashion - we spent two out of our four years as a long-distance couple, and frequently not together on Christmas. It's still no fun to hear it, six years later.
* [[http://www.animelyrics.com/game/air/torinoshi.htm Tori no Uta]] by Lia. It's the opening theme of {{Air}}. [[TearJerkerAnime Enough said]].
** Basically the whole ''Air'' soundtrack is a tear jerker, and this troper thinks that "Farewell Song" is the topper.
*** For this troper, the most simultaneously heartwarming ''and'' heartbreaking track would have to be [[http://youtube.com/watch?v=puz8Iyy_zZQ&feature=related Natsukage.]] Few musical scores, live action ''or'' anime, manages to capture the innocence, purity and transient briefness that is childhood as well as this one.
* Two songs from the EarthBound series: "Pollyanna," but that's kinda only teary if you know the lyrics, and [[http://starmen.net/mother1/music/36%20-%20MOTHER%20-%20Eight%20Melodies.mp3 The Eight Melodies]]. No, I'm not [=BSing=] you, it's a really sad tune.
** {{Mother 3}}'s Love theme.
** It's Mustin's vocal version of Flying Man in [[http://www.wushuplaya.com/boundtogether/ Bound Together]] that makes this troper weepy every time. Magicant and the Flying Men are magnificent tearjerkers just in the game, and the Flying Man genuinely thanking Ness for making him understand what life is worth [[spoiler: even as he's about to wink out of existence forever]] set to song is just too much to bear.
** The original game's "All That I Needed (Was You)".
** [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XkzAi-Lp9w4 This fanvideo]] for Eight Melodies never fails to tear me up.
* Boards of Canada manage to make highly emotional, moving music without even using any lyrics at all. A lot of it leaves the impression of a faint memory one can't quite get a hold of, making it very melancholic. This troper gets lumps in his throat whenever he hears "Amo Bishop Roden", for one.
** This troper is moved to tears during "Dayvan Cowboy"
* This troper admits to crying during Five For Fighting's "[[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K-kpR32B-Uk World]]", and "Forever Seventeen" by [=ZOEGirl=].
** "Forever Seventeen" is even worse when you consider that most of the album is cheerful religious pop...and then you get hit with THAT song out of nowhere.
** "Held" by Natalie Grant.
** And "She Walked Away" by BarlowGirl.
* [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pcNPGWgbIbo Cinderella]] by Stephen Curtis Chapman. It's even sadder when you learn that Maria Chapman, one of Stephen Curtis' daughters and the inspiration for this song, died in a tragic accident a year later.
-->"Yes, I will dance with Cinderella\\
I don't wanna miss even one song\\
'cause all too soon the clock will strike midnight\\
And she'll be gone."
*** Oh God, it was so hard to listen to his songs after his daughter died.
** While we're on that note, [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0upiGvnwSRA With Hope]]. This troper cannot get through that song without bawling.
* A rather obscure example, but "Read Me" by Tearwave.
* Just about the whole of Filter's ''Anthems of the Damned'' album is one giant tearjerker, especially considering that it was inspired by real life Iraq War veterans. And this troper admits that this is the first metal album she's cried to and actually had to pull over while listening to just to cry.
* Because of [[{{Supernatural}} certain connotations]], this troper really can't help but get weepy over "Carry On My Wayward Son". You may commence laughing.
** No, its melody is melancholy enough that it stands on its own.
* Annie Lennox's rendition of Cole Porter's "Ev'ry Time We Say Goodbye". Especially the video.
** "Why" is also pretty heartwrenching, considering the lyrics.
* "Fields of Gold" by Eva Cassidy. Especially when you realize that she died in 1996 from Melanoma at the age of 33.
* [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k7jH45JVdTw Admiral and Commander]] by Bear [=McCreary=], from the BattlestarGalactica soundtrack, especially at the end when the drums kick in.
** Similarly, [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4EQXEIoZrZE Something Dark Is Coming]], off the Season 2 soundtrack. This troper finds it heartbreaking.
* [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h2mH7wFiaKo K]] by Bump of Chicken is the only song that's ever made this troper start bawling. "Dandelion" and "Sharin no Uta" aren't far behind, either, once you look up the lyrics.
* This editor was driving the first time she heard Snow Patrol's "Make This Go On Forever." She nearly had to pull over.
** Speaking of Snow Patrol -- "Run". That is all.
** And "The Finish Line". Although the lyrics are a bit ambiguous, to [[KingSonnDeeDoo This Troper]] it seems like it's talking about someone who's been in a car crash, and's dying. It really doesn't help that at the end, the heartbeat-like sound that had been going on all through the song, stops.
** "Set Fire to the Third Bar" was rather tearjerking for this Troper.
* "Angel" by Sarah [=McLachlan.=] A prime OneWomanWail.
** "Man-Erg" also nearly does it in for ThisTroper.
** ThisTroper has to mute the TV every time "Angel" plays over a montage of sad animals during that ASPCA commercial.
*** This troper, in addition, teared up to Rod Stewart's "Forever Young" when it was used in, of all things, a diaper commercial--because it showed some of the most adorable baby animals imaginable. The song itself is pretty emotional too. You may laugh even more.
** "I Will Remember You" is probably one of the saddest "goodbye" songs one could ever listen to, and has been used for ''two'' different series finales: ''MelrosePlace'' and ''{{Felicity}}''.
** This troper is known among his friends as being very stoic, but he met his match when the senior members of his high school choir (himself included) sang "I Will Remember You" at his graduation, as a farewell to a member of his class that had died of cancer earlier that year. This troper was unable to sing after about halfway through the song, and cried into the shoulder of the girl next to him. A powerful tearjerker, indeed.
** And for BuffyTheVampireSlayer fans everywhere, "Full Of Grace".
* Mike Oldfield's rendition of funeral song [[http://youtube.com/watch?v=HCh8cIePnew&feature=related "The Hero"]], from ''Voyager.'' This troper has never heard any other piece that said, so effectively, "The End."
* ''Where You End'' by Moby. This troper cannot bring herself to listen to the entire song, sometimes.
* ''Schindler's List'' has a well-deserved mention on the [[TearJerkerFilm Film]] page, but it deserves a second here as the music takes it across the line from sad to [[http://youtube.com/watch?v=XLK5OWU2YGw utterly horrifying.]]
* Almost any song using the words of a Henry Lawson poem. This editor finds "The Water Lily", "The Bush Girl", and "Reedy River" to be especially heartbreaking.
* It cannot be possible to watch [[http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=Tc701BH_FDU this song]] from the movie version of ''Where the Red Fern Grows'' without crying.
* [[{{Cameoflage}} This troper]] found The Tea Party's "Messenger" to be incredibly saddening when she was a child; this has not abated all that much with time.
* This troper never thought he would see other people cry at a ''Rambo'' movie. But Brian Tyler's "Battle Adagio" brought a sad, tender humanity and a sense of hope to the finale that shod many manly tears from the audiences at his local theatre.
* Frigging John Williams and his frigging "Across the Stars" from ''[[StarWars Attack of the Clones]]''. Forget that it's the Leitmotif for ''the'' RomanticPlotTumor -- this is the music to what the love story should have been.
** Oh, yes! Particularly coming in at full blast after the glorious rendition of the Imperial March. It's telling that the most evocative sequences in the RomanticPlotTumor are those with ''no'' dialogue... just lovely, lovely music.
** Also, the soft viola version of the Imperial March subtly underscoring Darth Vader's death in ''Return of the Jedi''. A beautiful reversal of what is essentially ''the'' iconic "Bad Guy Theme".
** [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JRt-dieB3rs "Anakin's Betrayal,"]] the hauntingly sad music that played in the Order 66 sequence.
** Suffice it to say, if John Williams wants you to cry, you cry. The end.
** This troper would also like to nominate the music played during Yoda's death scene in Return of the Jedi. I think it's - aptly - called Yoda's Death, and most of the song is bits of Yoda's Theme and the Force Theme, which are both pretty sad tracks in the right context. However, the part that plays just as Yoda fades away is downright mournful.
** And the version of the Force Theme played during Anakin/Vader's cremation.
* Say what you will about Kanye West's public persona, but "Hey Mama" gets me every time. There's a video on YouTube of West performing the song in concert after his mother's death, and being overcome by tears and staggering off the stage, but it's really too sad to post.
**'Welcome to Heartbreak' and 'Coldest Winter' from 808's Heartbreak. The former's about the life he could've had, the latter a farewell to his mum. 'Street Lights' is also a bit depressing, given that it's mostly that one sad chorus repeated smeg knows how many times...in fact, the whole damn album is sure to move someone in some way.
* Much of ''TheBlackParade'', My Chemical Romance's RockOpera about a terminally ill patient, could be considered DeusAngstMachina or even {{Narm}}. Nevertheless, "Sleep" really is genuinely sad: "The hardest part is letting go of your dreams".
** This troper agrees at least partially on the Narm part but finds listening to the song ''"Mama"'' particularly wrenching for some reason. It's got that *very* My Chem, 'and man am I pissed!', gas-masks-and-angst thing going on but it's supposed to be at least vaguely about one of the world wars, and the verses that have Liza Minelli in them are... jeez. She doesn't even ''like'' Liza Minnelli.
** This troper always cries at the song "Welcome to the Black Parade", in part because she's always associated it with moving on from an unrequited love. (No, really. Something about the second verse...) The oddly upbeat melody and lyrics make it worse, not better.
*** She also cries at "The Ghost of You". Go ahead and laugh, but it's a very freakin' sad song, mkay?
** The song "Cancer". "Because the hardest part of this is leaving you..."
** [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mxRxpnHqfCE This video]] manages to make the TearJerker moments from TengenToppaGurrenLagann even worse by setting them to Welcome to the Black Parade.
**To all MCR fans, Early Sunsets Over Monroeville...if you're not crying halfway through, then you are not a fan. The last 5 seconds just make it so damn SAD...
**See also: Kill All Your Friends, Cemetery Drive, and worst, Demolition Lovers.
*** Aww, god. Kill All Your Friends does get this troper's emotions going in... one way or another but doesn't make her feel genuinely ''depressed'', maybe due to the vicious and wry way Gerard Way delivers it... At least until the last repeat of the chorus... "It's been ''ten fucking years'' since I been seeing your face/And you're walking away, and I will drown in the fear..."
** No love for Disenchanted? It's so nostalgic (if for the sake of its place in the album's storyline), emotional, and depressing this troper must've cried at least the first few times she listened to it. I don't even know where to ''begin.''
** This troper heartily agrees. Also, Ghost of You, with the video especially.
* "Civil War" by GunsNRoses is a very song, but the second verse when the singer tells how his first memory is the assassination of Kennedy and how he went numb for Vietnam get this troper every time.
** "November Rain". To say nothing of the music video (Overblown? Perhaps. Effective? Very.).
** "Estranged" and "Don't Cry" have some really depressing parts.
* This troper cried like a little girl the first time she listened to Bright Eyes' "At the Bottom of Everything". The music video didn't help. At all.
** This one did the same when she heard "Don't Know When but a Day is Gonna Come," and she wasn't even sure why.
* Luther Vandross tends to make teary songs, but what really gets this troper is "Dance With My Father." It was his last hit before his death. His mother had 4 children and she outlived ''all'' of them.
* I for one find "Greatest Journey" from ''{{Halo}} 3'' very heart wrenching.
** Also, "Heroes Also Fall", when Miranda dies. It's what is sometimes called "tragedy choir".
** And "Keep What You Steal".
** And "Wake Me when you Need Me". Part of it was also in the first game as "Dust and Echoes", but it wasn't as much of a tearjerker then.
*** That one's way, way worse if you didn't get the "good" ending.
* Peter Gabriel's "Blood of Eden" always does it to this troper: she isn't sure if it's the music or the ''Carnivale'' fanvid where she first heard it.
** Also Peter Gabriel: his cover of The Magnetic Fields "The Book of Love," especially to this troper. The song earns extra points by being pretty darn hilarious as well.
** One Word: ''Biko''- this troper cannot hear that song without shoving his fist in the air with the chorus.
** "Father, Son" and also the quiet, ending section of "Family Snapshot."
** "Red Rain" as well.
* The Barenaked Ladies have [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u1oM2T27cIM&feature=related "Tonight is the Night I Fell Asleep at the Wheel"]], which plays a tune that sounds like it belongs on a [[MoodDissonance cheerful carnival calliope]], but whose lyrics tell the story of a car crash and the futile attempts to save the titular driver whose love is the "last thing on my mind".
** The narrator? Ed Robertson's brother, who died in a motorcycle accident.
* The song 'Everything' by Lifehouse gets me almost every time... I still don't know if they're happy tears or sad tears. Oddly enough, I read the lyrics (and cried) long before I heard the actual song
** "Another Pilot" by Hey Rosetta! is also a bit of a tearjerker for me... though I have no idea why.
** Same with "The Salt Would Routine" by Thirteen Senses
** Another by Lifehouse, "[[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LBh7Muv0yac From Where You Are]]" especially when you learn that the singer wrote it about a friend who died when he was 16 in a car accident.
* The covers of ''A Dream Is a Wish Your Heart Makes'' and ''When You Wish Upon a Star'' by Jesse [=McCartney=] do it for this troper because he voiced Roxas in KingdomHearts II. [[spoiler: Roxas is Sora's Nobody. Nobodies don't ''have hearts''.]] And people wonder why fangirls feel so sorry for Organizaion XIII...
* The end of the Eagles' ''Hotel California'' album, 'The Last Resort.' If you have faith in humanity, this song will help you get rid of it. This troper can't listen to the song without feeling like we as a species have failed.
* "California Dreaming" ("I stopped into a church, AALLOONNGG the way...")
* ''Little Suzie'' by MichaelJackson. If hearing the tale of a little girl who died alone doesn't set you off, you're heartless!
** Also Heal the World, Gone Too Soon, You Are Not Alone, Man In The Mirror, Earth Song, Will You Be There and Cry. Made EVEN sadder when these songs were played right after he was pronounced dead on June 25 2009.
*** Don't forget ''She's Out of my Life'', from the Off the Wall album.
* Hyadain's song "My first friend", set to Dr. Mario's music, gets this troper to tears. The video doesn't make things better. [[http://mx.youtube.com/watch?v=etw3aSumBEU The video]] has English subtitles.
** Also from Hyadain, "Bubble Man, I'm Bubble Man!", set to [[CaptainObvious Bubble Man's]] stage theme from ''MegaMan 2''. So what if it's about Bubble Man having [[FoeYay unrequited love for Mega Man]], the song still manages to make it completely ''heartrending''. The video makes the whole thing even more heartbreaking then the song already is, especially the final scene... [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hK4q30e9N9s This video]] has English subtitles.
*** Less 'unrequited love,' more 'Oh god I'm so lonely down here thank you Rock Man for being the only one who bothered to acknowledge my existence.' So yeah, YourMileageMayVary, but it's still a Tearjerker.
** A sequel to My First Friend that is in the dog's POV, [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jMP_4mqMz7Y My First Friend~the answer]], was recently released. There isn't a subbed version yet as far as ThisTroper knows, but it's pretty much a TJ by principal. (On a totally unrelated note, she's friends with the person who subbed the Bubble Man song!)
** A subbed version can be found [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wUZ6qD_Q4jY here]].
*** Oh god! [[spoiler: The boy was the dog's first friend too.]] *sob*
** Wow, I...don't think I can listen to [[DrMario Fever]] ever again.
* "When the Stars Go Blue" is such a beautiful Ryan Adams song and the melancholy in his voice makes it just so... so...saddening... Though a lot of his songs have a melancholy tone in the vocals, there's just something so much worse with this one.
** In the week after 9/11, just hearing the opening notes of "New York, New York" was enough. The song's not about 9/11, but it sure could be . . . .
* [[http://youtube.com/watch?v=9SZsBdz2_g4 Passage]] by ViennaTeng has made this troper, and many of her friends, bawl. And the album performance is even more haunting then the live.
** For this editor, it's [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J94L5JvJNjU Blue Caravan]] that does it.
** While for this one, it's Watershed.
** And for this one, it's the final verse of "St. Stephen's Cross". Something about the lyric ''"And he closed his eyes and heard no sound/But her breathing warm against his mouth"'' makes this troper tear up.
** "'Anyway,' she says, 'I'll see you around...'" and the wails that follow... such a beautiful tragedy.
** "Lullaby for a Stormy Night"
* Rob Thomas's "Now Comes the Night." If you ever manage to hear it on the radio while driving, be sure to pull over before the bridge starts. It doesn't really make you cry--it simply destroys your soul.
** "Ever the Same" is both a happy and sad TearJerker. For those who don't know the story behind the song, it's one of those incredibly poignant songs that hardly anyone writes anymore. ''You tide me over with a warmth I'll not forget--but I can only give you love.'' It becomes a sad TearJerker when you find out that he wrote it when his wife was ill with a then-unknown disease, and it must have been hell for both of them to go through it--then it rolls right back to happy because hey, she's okay now! How many songs can be both happy ''and'' sad TearJerkers, ''at the same time''?
* Green Day's heartwarming "Time Of Your Life/Good Riddance" can break even the most macho of men when played at Funerals.
** That is, assuming they don't [[LyricalDissonance listen to the lyrics...]]
***Or, really, if they do, and realize that ''the lyrics are perfectly sweet.'' Seriously, this JustBugsMe. I have listened to that song a million times and read the lyrics equally often, and other than the title, there is nothing ironic or particularly bitter about them! Bittersweet, yes. It describes a relationship that has had its ups and downs, and now its time for both to move on, but it explicitly says that it was a relationship worth having!
*** Thank you! I said the same thing for "Time Of Your Life" for it's entry on Lyrical Dissonance, but you said it ''way'' better.
*** This troper has seen it happen. The fact that the funeral in question was for a teenage boy whose death would've been worthy of a Darwin Award nomination made the questionable appropriateness of the song even more tragic.
** Don't forget "Boulevard of Broken Dreams".
** Or "Wake Me Up When September Ends", considering the fact that this song is about his father, who died when Billie Joe was just 10 years old. This song makes this troper cry buckets.
** The ''American Idiot'' outro, "Whatsername", does it for this troper.
** "Before the Lobotomy", anyone.
* Notable twist: "Rendez-Vous '98" by Jean Michel Jarre. Many people were driven to tears with this one, but that was because this song radiates all the thrill and the emotion of a FIFA World Cup finale.
** Technically, this was a remix by Apollo 440 *cough*
** Something similar happened with Gianna Nannini and Edoardo Bennato's "Un'Estate Italiana", the anthem of the 90's Italian FIFA World Cup.
* "Komm, süßer Tod" from End of Evangelion. It may seem over the top in the film, but try listening to it on its own (especially if you suffer from severe depression already) and you'll hear what I mean.
* Any song by Harry Chapin, especially "Cat's in the Cradle."
* The Blue October song "For My Brother" is particularly gut wrenching once it turns to a plea for help. It's roughly the emotional equivalent of being sent through a meat grinder, and understandably this editor listens to it when trying to write particularly gut wrenching scenes in her current opus.
** "Hate Me".
** For this troper, it was "Black Orchid". You know it'll be depressing when it was written as a confession to the singer/writer's mother that he was suicidal, at the age of ''fourteen'', but the sheer helplessness in his voice is what makes this troper unable to listen all the way through.
* "The Light Before We Land", by the Delgados. There is a good reason it's the opening theme to GunslingerGirl. On first hearing it, this editor was so busy crying he missed the first five minutes of the following episode.
* Prelude's cover of "After The Gold Rush" takes an average-quality Neil Young song, turns it a capella, and somehow manages to wring the tears out of those who hear it.
* "Tears in Heaven" by Eric Clapton.
** ''Especially'' heartbreaking [[http://www.snopes.com/music/songs/tears.asp if you know what the song's really about.]]
*** [[http://www.theonion.com/content/node/32828 The Onion has the antidote for you.]]
*** Not to mention the "Teardrop Awards" skit from ''{{Mr. Show}}''.
* Add also "Eternal Winds" by Hiroko Moriguchi, the ending of Gundam F91.
* "Against All Odds" from the film of the same name by Phil Collins. The movie doesn't cause me to cry, but the song does. Go figure.
** Doesn't have to make sense. James Blunt's "You're Beautiful" has some sort of equivalent to a BrownNote, only for tears. It has made this troper cry twice in public for no reason, and she doesn't even like James Blunt. It should be {{Narm}} (as it is indeed for many), but for this troper, somehow isn't. It doesn't help that in the video, he appears to drown himself at the end.
** On the subject of James Blunt, his "No Bravery" is probably even more of a tearjerker when you realize he's most definitely lived through what he describes.
** GentlemensDame883 nominates Blunt's "[[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wVyggTKDcOE Goodbye My Lover]]".
** "A Groovy Kind of Love." The lyrics aren't sad, but the music, and the way Collins sings it, somehow makes it sad.
* Most of the songs from the Gundam 00 soundtrack. "Friends", "Love Today", "Prototype", "Trust You". And if "Tomorrow" doesn't make you tear up the slightest, you have no soul.
* As mentioned in the LordOfTheRings example, Annie Lennox's "Into the West."
** "Into The West" is made even better (worse?) when you see its documentary: While they were writing the song the production company discovered a teenaged filmmaker and were impressed by his skills; unfortunately he was [[LittlestCancerPatient dying of cancer]]. He managed to make several short films (or long trailers) before he died, and parts of his funeral are shown (complete with his mates doing a ''haka'' at his graveside).
** How about "The Steward of Gondor"?
** "Breaking of the Fellowship" and "The Gray Havens," anyone?
** "The White Tree" is both TearJerker and completely awesome at the same time. On an odder note, "Gollum's Song". The Singer's voice takes some getting used to, But then FridgeBrilliance kicks in and you realise that It's absolutly perfect for this desolate, hopeless creature.
** "Evenstar," "Amon Hen," and "The Bridge of Khazad Dum" for this troper
* Live, by Paul and Storm about a desperately lonely scientist trying to create his own perfect bride. Starts out as a parody of "Mad scientist" movies but the ending, where the two are killed by a rampaging mob just as the scientist FINALLY brings his creation to life, is a tear jerker.
** Link: http://www.paulandstorm.com/sounds/newstuff/Live.mp3
* Any song played over a ReallyDeadMontage.
* "Hush Hush Hush," by Paula Cole, is a lullaby sung by a father to his dying son. This contributor breaks down every time the song gets to the line "Maybe next time, you'll be given a chance."
* "August 7, 4:15" by Jon Bon Jovi, a tribute to an employee whose six-year-old daughter had been kidnapped and murdered. The killer was never found.
* Aimee Mann's contributions to "Magnolia" as mentioned above. And don't forget "Coming Up Close".
** Not to mention the entirety of the ''Lost in Space'' album. That record is the purely distilled sound of loneliness, and it WRECKS me.
* There's just something about how the music builds and builds in "Three Libras" by A Perfect Circle.
* And then, there's Pink Floyd's "Wish You Were Here"...
** The entire damn album (with the possible exception of "Welcome to the Machine", which is merely at the band's typical level of moroseness), but particularly "Shine On You Crazy Diamond".
*** All of it can be traced to the band's own melancholy after Syd Barrett left. Barrett actually visited the studio as they were recording the song, apparently in really bad shape and offering to help in any way he could.
***And he was in such bad shape they didn't recognise them as first...*whimper*
** This troper literally cried to this song after a certain Grad Night party incident.
** And on that note, "When the Tigers Broke Free" from ''TheWall'' is a pretty big downer as well.
*** The song's actually from ''The Final Cut'', though it's in [[TheWall the movie]] version of ''The Wall'' (which fits in with the overall theme of the movie).
** Ever heard Dar Williams's version of "Comfortably Numb"?
*** This troper has. And cried like a little kid every single time.
** 'The Great Gig in the Sky' and 'Us and Them', especially revisiting them after Richard Wright's death.
** 'Nobody Home'. Oh, God. And as if the song itself wasn't bad enough, there's WordOfGod that "elastic bands keeping my shoes on" is a direct reference to Syd.
** Speaking of Syd, especially sad are the songs he wrote about his realization that he's losing his mind and there's nothing he or anyone else can do about it - namely the Pink Floyd songs "Jugband Blues" and "Vegetable Man" and the solo song "Dark Globe".
*** Oh, "Dark Globe"...that song actually makes me cringe when I listen to it. And I don't mean that in a bad way; it's actually probably a good thing more than anything, because it shows Syd's skill in just pouring his own emotion into the song. His voice sounds like he's trying not to undergo a breakdown, and the fact that there's no instrumentation apart from the acoustic guitar makes me think of him as so very alone in his madness. And when he wails "Wouldn't you miss me at all?" - I feel like he's literally asking his friends in Pink Floyd and everyone else he knows whether he'll be missed at all. Most songs aren't as literal and personal as this. (Right now, I am simultaneously listening to "Dark Globe" and trying not to weep. I've got a feeling I'm going to fail.)
** "Outside the Wall", particularly the version from the movie ''The Wall'', and the accompanying visuals.
** "High Hopes" from ''The Division Bell'' is about longing for lost youth and innocence after growing old and cynical; doubly moving by the fact that it is the last song ever to be produced by the band (though it does end with the hopeful words "Forever and Ever").
** "[[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P3PIG6XXIdw The Gunner's Dream]]" from ''The Final Cut''.
* Personally, "Goodbye Blue Sky" gives me goosebumps. Just... gorgeous.
* "'Cause I'm leavin', on a jet plane, don't know when I'll be back again..."
* "Danny Boy", anyone?
** Unless you're actually Irish.
** In which case, "The minstrel boy to the war has gone, in the ranks of death you'll find him..."
*** This troper spent almost a whole day with that song on repeat, and teared up every time. And it's a short song. She's especially affected by [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DdA4NlJiikM this version]].
*** ''Both.'' And add in "Johnny I Hardly Knew Ye."
* They Might Be Giants' "I've Got a Match" always works on this guy, especially because he, like the person in the song, is always wearing a hat.
** "Destination Moon" does it for this troper. Okay, there are other ways to interpret the song, but to me it'll always be about a perpetually sick and crippled person constructing delusional fantasies about stuff they know deep down they'll never be able to do.
* Sinead O'Connor collaborated with The Chieftains on "The Foggy Dew", a song about the failed Easter Uprising of 1916, which was precursor to the War of Irish Independence. This Irish-Canadian guy can easily be reduced to tears of righteous fury within the first few lines.
** Whereas this troper just goes all melty inside over her slow, ''slow'', almost ''a capella'' version of "Peggy Gordon."
* Sinead O'Connor. Nothing Compares 2 U. The video, with just her face. The single tear. Come ''on'' people.
** This troper was driven to tears by "When you Love" upon hearing it in Rugrats in Paris, shown in a scene highlighting Chuckie's lack of a mother.
* Neutral Milk Hotel's album ''In The Aeroplane Over the Sea'' is a very emotional album, but it hits you all at once in the last song, "Two-Headed Boy pt. 2". You can practically feel the anguish in Jeff Mangum's voice when he sings it, especially in light of his nervous breakdown he had after completing this album.
** My goodness, that song makes me weep. The whole thing is kind of tragic to me (especially when I try to work it out with the rest of the album, figuring out how it works with the story), but something that really gets me is the very end. The last line is, "But don't hate her when she gets up to leave." Then you hear Jeff simply get up, sets his guitar down, and leave. Not very sad in and of itself, but when you realize that it's the [[{{Lostalgia}} last line of the last song on the last album that he recorded with Neutral Milk Hotel]] - it makes me feel rather sad.
* Peter Gabriel's [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L-p2sbt_C4w "Don't Give Up"]] is a prime example. Sounds like a cheesy title, but the lyrics, melody and Kate Bush doing supporting vocals all make it really work.
** This troper once reduced a whole group of comic books geeks (that his troper proudly belongs to) to tears, by pointing out that vast portions of this song contain perfect lyrics for Civil War/post-Civil War [[CaptainAmerica Captain America]].
* Dire Straits' "Brothers in Arms", about a dying (or dead) soldier talking to those he shed blood with.
**This troper thinks it's the other way around, the only soldier left alive talking to those who died. Which just makes it sadder, and that guitar doesn't exactly help.
** Dire Straits has a lot of this. "Romeo and Juliet", "Iron Hand", and "Tunnel of Love" are prime candidates.
* Elton John's "Don't Let the Sun go Down on Me" is pretty powerfully Tear-jerking. At least, this troper thinks so.
** For this other troper, the Elton John songs that make the trick are "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road" and "Sacrifice"
*** For this troper, it was "Daniel".
**** And for this troper, it was his version of "Circle of Life."
***** "Skyline Pigeon" for this one.
*** ''Candle In the Wind'' has always hit this troper right in the heart. And let's not forget ''American Triangle'', written to commemorate Matthew Shepherd.
* Johnny Cash's cover of the NineInchNails song, "Hurt", is way, waaaaaaay more powerful and moving than the original. Considering that it's an old man singing rather than a young guy who still has his life ahead of him, that's probably why. Made the original writer change his mind on the song's theme.
** Of course the original NineInchNails version can be quite the Tear Jerker itself.
*** Especially in the context of the album.
*** Sure, specially because Trent Reznor's vocals are haunting. It only doesn't reach much Tear Jerker potential due to LastNoteNightmare...
** The song is a powerful one, but along with the video, it hjjjkmfpht[breaks down crying]
*** Particularly when June is shown. Then it's Sob City for me.
*** This troper made herself cry while doing Cash's version on karaoke. Her ego isn't that big enough to take the credit for it. Johnny Cash is just that damn good.
** Don't forget Johnny Cash's version of Sting's "I Hung my Head". Much, much better and more poignant than the original.
** Add "Love's Been Good to Me" (especially the video) and "Give My Love to Rose." Knowing both were recorded after June died makes them even sadder.
** Add "I Hung My Head". Sting's original with wah-wah guitars is pure Narm, but Johnny Cash takes it, gives it minimalism and dignity, and makes it his own. It's the top song in this troper's iTunes. Also, "If You Could Read My Mind" leaves her with a pouty lip and PuppyDogEyes.
*** While we're on the subject, try listening to Roseanne Cash's "Black Cadillac" album and especially the song "I Was Watching You".
* "Falling Slowly" from Once. Not particularly sad in terms of lyrics or tune...but somehow manages to get you every time.
*** I find the lyrics and tune rather forlorn. The song is definitely about hope, but the kind of hope that you only believe in to keep going--"We screwed up, but at least we don't hate each other--maybe we can try again?" instead of "LOVE OVERCOMES ALL!" The lyrics are full of that sort of hopeful resignment, and I think that's why people find it so sad.
** "The Hill", however...just listen to the lyrics, and the emotion in her voice when she sings them.
* Warren Zevon's cover of "Knockin' On Heaven's Door" on his album ''The Wind.'' Why is Zevon's version such a tearjerker? Zevon composed it when he knew he was terminally ill with cancer. The album was released two weeks before he died.
** No matter who is doing it, "Knockin' On Heaven's Door" always causes at least sniffles in this troper. Yes, even the Avril Lavrigne cover.
**Or the song "Keep Me In Your Heart", which he wrote just before his death. And then Jorge Calderon covered it with a string quartet for the Zevon tribute album. Cue the waterworks for This Troper.
**Speaking of Zevon, I can't be the only person who finds "Desperadoes Under the Eaves" to be depression inducing.
** What about "My Ride's Here"? The first time this troper heard it, she was in the car with her dad, who told her about it and Zevon's death, and she couldn't stop thinking about it the rest of the morning. Makes me all teary eyed whenever I listen to it now. Just the whole tone of the song, and like what the first troper said about "Knockin' On Heaven's Door", that he knew he was dying when he wrote this one...
* "The Show Must Go On" by Queen is quite possibly the saddest song ever written. Quite unexpectedly, I have found tears welling up in my eyes just writing this.
** What really makes this (different) troper tear up over this song is the fact that, nine months after the album was released, Freddie Mercury was dead.
*** What makes [[{{Delcan}} this troper]] tear up is the power that Freddie Mercury pours into his voice, knowing that this was his swan song, and the defiance in it: "I'll face it with a grin! ''I'm never giving in! ON WITH THE SHOW!!''"
**** "These Are The Days of Our Lives" and it's video runs a close second. Especially the ending with Freddie Mercury visibly thin and weak speaking the final line 'I still love you'.
** And then after the last album, after his death, the ''Made In Heaven'' album was released... and it's Freddie, come back from heaven to tell you "It's a beautiful day."
** The version used in ''Moulin Rouge'' is also tear-jerking to this troper. The combination of the old seamstresses doing their coloratura, the stark lighting and funereal imagery on Satine, Nicole Kidman's very effective emotional performance, and how the song segues into a very melancholy version of "Nature Boy" at the end (itself already something of a TearJerker) gets him every time.
** "Who Wants to Live Forever".
* Quite a few of the works of Dan Fogelberg qualify. "Leader of the Band" is probably the saddest one.
** But "Same Auld Lang Syne" is in the running. As is "Hard to Say."
** As well as "Who Wants to Live Forever," a funeral dirge that gives way to a powerful middle eight that ends abruptly, replaced by an otherwordly outro.
** And perhaps the only worthwhile effort after Freddie's death, "No One But You (Only the Good Die Young)"
** And, of course, can't forget "Bohemian Rhapsody."
** After the dual tragedies of Barbaro and Eight Belles coming so close together, this troper can no longer listen to "Run For the Roses" without welling up.
*** Same here for this troper and "Run For the Roses", though it doesn't help that this was one of his mother's favorite songs and she requested it be played at her funeral. (She died of cancer.)
*** I don't cry during things, but I count it if it gets me near tears, and "Run for the Roses" did when my mother made me listen to it. It's one of her favorites and now it's one of mine. It's so sad because it's about how the whole point of the horse's life is the Triple Crown races, especially the Kentucky Derby.
* Space Doggity. Ignore the funny title (It's a homage to Space Oddity, obviously) this song is so depressing it's unbelievable. It's about Laika, the dog the Russians put in space and her last moments and it never fails to make this troper break down in tears.
** It hurts because it loves. What makes it worse is the third to last verse, where the scientists back home discuss the failure of the mission.
* "Baby Mine" from ''{{Dumbo}}''
* Simon and Garfunkel's "He Was My Brother", made worse by the fact that it's based on a true story.
* "Down In A Hole" by Alice In Chains is a kind of depressing only they can pull off; whether the tears come or not will depend on who you are, but hearing the singer accept that his life is over and it's all his fault evokes a certain gloom and sorrow rarely pulled of tastefully.
** I've always found "Would?" to be even more depressing than "Down in a Hole"
*** The normal version is depressing enough, but the [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g5ZNJWobQ-Y acoustic version]] is almost painful to listen to (and even harder to watch when you can see Layne's rotting teeth, constant shaking, and pained face). Hearing that song coming from a dying man is one of the most depressing things you'll ever hear.
** Most of their songs have this vibe, which is especially disturbing when you consider how the singer died...
** And "Rooster" as well. Especially the "Send me pictures of my boy" line...
** "Nutshell", good God, just..."Nutshell"
** Well, let's put it this way: The happiest song on the album ''Dirt'' is about the guitarist's Vietnam vet father, and it's still talking about him getting shot at, and all his friends getting gunned down or dying from malaria.
* The Fall Of Every Season's "From Below" is the kind of depressing that will drive a person to suicide.
* "A Walk In The Light Green / I Was Only Nineteen" by Redgum.
** Although the cover by The Herd isn't as much of a TearJerker, its film clip certainly is. [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1gmgwx77osw Especially when cut with the original song.]]
** "Then someone called out ‘Contact’ and the bloke behind me swore and we hooked in there for hours, then a god-almighty roar. Frankie kicked a mine the day that mankind kicked the moon. God help me, he was going home in June." So powerful they put it on the Vietnam Forces National Memorial in Canberra.
* For this editor, "castle.imitation" by Chihiro Onitsuka, mostly due to its capacity as the end theme to ''BreathOfFire V.'' They're more bittersweet tears of the "triumphing over adversity/hoping through sorrow" sort though.
* "Bright Eyes," performed by Art Garfunkel. This troper isn't even a fan of ''WatershipDown''; it's just the song itself.
** What makes it worse (though this troper ''is'' a big fan) is knowing that it was originally written as a memorial for the writer's--Mike Batt's--father. Having lost his father at an early age, this troper knows ''exactly'' how that feels.
* This troper bursts into tears during "Defying Gravity"(because she knows Elphie ends up hunted out of Oz), "The Wizard and I"(for the same reason), "For Good," "My Immortal," "I'm Already There" and "Closing Time."
**[[DesertDragon This editor]] agrees about "My Immortal." It reminds him of his fear of outliving his spouse (he isn't even married yet but still).
*** It certainly doesn't help any that it's about Amy Lee's little sister who ''died at the age of three.'' As is "Like You," which I cried reading the '''lyrics''' to.
** This [[{{e of pi}} troper]] has such serious issues with "For Good" that he's never listened to the whole damned song all the way through except for two occasions that he can recall: The first when the first girlfriend he'd ever had sang it for the damned camp talent show the night she broke up with him (after raving to him about the musical all week), the second when he went to the actual show in Chicago a bit later that same year (where he was so paralyzed by the memories of hearing the first time). The song itself didn't help, though. To this day, it remains the only song to have been specifically exempted from the iTunes playlist of musical theatre songs on this troper's computer. [[strike:Not that I'm STILL BITTER OR ANYTHING.]] Okay, maybe a little.
* "Ocean Gypsy" by Renaissance.
* "How to Save a Life" by the Fray, not so much due to the song itself, but because of how effectively it was used during the tragic climax of the {{Scrubs}} episode ''My Lunch''.
** The song itself is concerned with the writer's real attempts to prevent the suicide of a boy he was counselling, which failed. It's definitely a tearjerker for this troper, who is far more well-versed with someone she loves attempting suicide than she would ever want to be.
* "In Dreams," by Roy Orbison. It's just such a wistful, mournful little tune, but it's so sweet and innocent at the same time..
** Couple the overall sadness of "In Dreams" with the creepy way that it was used in Blue Velvet... It's pretty goddamn melancholy...
***While we're on that subject, why not Bobby Vinton's rendition of "Blue Velvet" from the same movie? This troper always breaks down over it, because it describes perfectly a happy and loving relationship he had that ended in messy heartbreak, down to the circumstances and minor details.
** Speaking of Orbison and tear-jerking, plenty of his songs qualify but the most moving for me is "Crying." The buildup to the end is incredible.
* Many ToriAmos songs become tearjerkers only after repeated listenings required to decipher the oftentimes cryptic lyrics, but there is nothing ambiguous about "Me and a Gun." It is stark, straightforward, and gutwrenching.
** "Yes, Anastasia" by ToriAmos.
** "Winter" by ToriAmos. The final chorus, where the strings suddenly drop out and Amos sings in a whisper against a minimal piano accompaniment, makes this troper break down every single time.
*** That effect coupled with the lyrics "When you gonna make up your mind? When you gonna love you as much as I do?"... *sniff.* Aw, and it's not even ''on''...
*** Basically any ToriAmos ballad is a tearjerker. Especially "Toast", "Silent All These Years", "Not The Red Baron", "Beauty Queen/Horses", "Doughnut Song", "Twinkle", "1000 Oceans", "Cooling", "I Can't See New York", "Playboy Mommy", "Gold Dust", and the aforementioned "Winter".
*** Tori can turn any of her songs into a tearjerker when singing it live. This troper found herself crying upon hearing ''Hotels'' during a concert, despite having never particularly liked the song before. ''Hey Jupiter'' and ''Bells for Her'' have made her cry since the very first time and still do, though.
*** Tori's live cover of Leonard Cohen's "Famous Blue Raincoat" remains one of this troper's favorite songs, but damn if it doesn't make her cry ''every time''.
*** Tori's first album's first track, "Pretty Good Year". Don't ask her why, but this troper can barely ''listen'' to this song, it's so powerful.
* "The Chosen Pessimist" by In Flames takes lyrics that would sound extremely cliche coming almost anyone else, and gives them a genuine sense of vulnerability and woe. Even hairy mid-thirties Swedish metal singers have feelings, apparently.
* Inverted in "Daddy" by Korn in which the lead singer Johnathan Davis himself breaks into tears and sobbing for a good few minutes.
** Kellie Pickler did the same singing "I Wonder" at the CMA's.
* The Red Hot Chili Peppers' eulogy song to Kurt Cobain (appropriately titled "Tearjerker").
** R.E.M.'s "Let Me In," about the same thing, is just as sad. It was even worse seeing it live because the guitar for the song is the actual one Cobain used to own. Heartbreaking.
** Don't forget "Under the Bridge", also by the Red Hot Chili Peppers.
** Dani California does it for me.
* Also from R.E.M. there's "Everybody Hurts", and its video. Specially the video.
** I would have not hesited to agree with that one anyway, but since this was one of the songs played at my mum's funeral (her own request, despite being healthy and fairly young at 50), I can't even start to think about it without crying, and don't think I ever will. It perhaps say's something about the song though that the other two (Shania Twain's "You're Still the one" and Robbie Williams "Angels") barely effect me at all. Worst thing, I bet she doesn't regret her request one minute.
** And "Nightswimming" from the same record.
*** And "Find the River." And "Sweetness Follows." And - hell, the whole of ''Automatic for the People''.
**** No mention of "The Wrong Child" yet? Come ON, that is like the only song that actually made me cry!
* Since you mentione, Robbie Williams' "Angels". "Advertising Space" can be pretty depressing as well.
* This troper admits to crying during Five For Fighting's "World", and this doubles as a TearJerkerLiveActionTV for its use in the PBS documentary ''{{Carrier}}.''
** This troper cried the first time he heard "A Hundred Years."
* James Taylor's "Fire and Rain".
** Oh, yes. Taylor's got quite a few tearjerkers, but this troper agrees that "Fire and Rain" takes the cake.
* "Grandad," as sung by Clive Dunn. Mostly because it makes me miss my Grandad, who used to have it on a crackly old 45 vinyl record. I get sniffley whenever I hear it these days.
* 'Tiny Dancer'. Triumphant tearjerker, but it still gets this troper every damn time.
* "Hero" by Superchick. This troper bawled through the fifth straight listen.
**This troper bawled straight through the first listen. The fact that she was somehow a poster girl for the second part of the song didn't help that much.
* This troper often cries after listening to 'Slipped Away' by Avril Lavigne, which became even worse after she found out that the song was written about Lavigne's grandfather passing away, which is what this troper related the song to.
** After frequent listenings of that song, this troper was so depressed she was inspired to kill off one of her characters in the story she is currently writing. (But don't worry, HesJustHiding.)
** This Troper can't bear listening to "When You're Gone". I cry like a baby at that.
* Don Henley's "The Heart of the Matter" makes this troper want to go out and hug everyone he's ever wronged.
* Richard Thompson's "Beeswing."
** And "1952 Vincent Black Lightning" especially the line "I see angels and aerials in leather and chrome/Swooping down from heaven to carry me home"
** And, on the punch-in-the-gut tragic side, "God Loves a Drunk." Richard is good at these.
** And "Guns Are The Tongues", though that's more of the despairing-angry tears department.
* In the "joyful tears" category: The Frames, "People Get Ready," somewhere around "all the love in the world."
* "Return To Oz" by The Scissor Sisters, which manages to use the obscure 80s film as an analogy for crystal meth abuse, and still manages to be a real tear-jerker.
* Bruce Springsteen's [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EZ-Ifwiz6Zw "Devil's Arcade"]] is currently doing it for this troper.
** Not to mention "Streets of Philadelphia", except perhaps thats been a bit overplayed. Try "Atlantic City" instead, especially the line 'Maybe everything that dies one day comes back'.
** Gotta give some points to "The River," which probably single-handedly earned him the nickname of "John Steinbeck in Black Leather."
** For this troper, along with Atlantic City (well, most of Nebraska, actually), Springsteen's tearjerker is [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xokeiep6yHU Devils and Dust]]. The video is especially powerful, and never fails to bring this troper to tears, even thinking about the song sometimes will do it.
** [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dcya8uKNWn4 Lonesome Day]] for this troper. For all that [[LyricalDissonance it sounds like a rousing anthem]], it's actually from the POV of the relatives of those who died in 9/11.
** A live version of "4th of July, Asbury Park (Sandy)" performed right after the death of E Street member Danny Federici. Right before they start the song, Bruce says, "We'd better get this right...someone's watching."
* Flobots' song [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AuK2A1ZqoWs "Handlebars"]] can actually be depressing; [[WordOfGod according to the music video]], it's basically about [[spoiler: two brothers going off on different paths: one becomes a protester with little money but happy nonetheless, the other becomes an evil, power hungry dictator who accidentally kills his brother during a political protest gone riot]].
** The music video interpretation can be different from the official interpretation. According to the band itself, it's about human potential, and about how it could be used to create or destroy, and how, unfortunately, mankind tends to prefer the latter option.
* "Tong Hua (Fairy Tale)" by Michael Wong. The [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T3Na7ZNoAcE music video]] will make you cry. You don't even need to know what the words mean.
* The Gary Jules version of "Mad World" doesn't make this troper cry exactly, but he does get awfully quite and introspective...
** Speaking of music played in ''{{Donnie Darko}}'', there's something horribly sad and horribly creepy about "Cellar Door".
* This troper can stand most of "The Battle Hymn of the Republic." Then the lyrics "As he died to make men holy / Let us die to make men free" come in.
* From ''KamenRiderKiva'' (which happens to have pretty much a Crowning ''Soundtrack'' Of Awesome), [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RoZ4V9FdHYw Rainy Rose]] by TETRA-FANG. The video makes it even more of a tearjerker than it already is. ><
* You may laugh now, but the version of [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=roeD4X2pcfQ "The Time Has Come (Pikachu's Goodbye)"]] on the album ''{{Pokemon}}: 2 B A Master'' will bring you to tears. (This troper read the lyrics as part of a speech he gave during his high school graduation.)
** This troper agrees. Pokemon or not, when you realize it's about someone having to leave their best friend in the entire world. It's pretty moving.
** ''Damn. You. To. Hell.'' This is a spot-perfect representation of my relationship with my best friend. Excuse me while I cry enough to refill the world's oceans.
** Have any of you guys heard [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y1JLTqKJHcI Kaze to Issho Ni (Together With the Wind)]], [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fbfgaPZsVDg=related Chiisaki Mono (A Small Thing)]], or [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AaY3pbdfbUM&feature=related Soka ni Sora ga Aru Kara (Because the Sky is There)]]? The first two are movie endings (First and Sixith, in fact.) and the last is the first Advanced Generation ending. They are not only amazing, they are bittersweet enough to be sad.
** From the anime series soundtrack, there's "[[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O6TWUjtbb9E Tears, After the Cloudy Weather]]". It plays during at least a few tearjerker moments in the first season, and is fairly sad to listen to on its own as well.
* You may, perhaps, be able to listen to "Ashokan Farewell" without crying. But if you can listen to it playing under the reading of [[http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=ken+burns+civil+war+sullivan+ballou&hl=en&sitesearch=# Sullivan Ballou's letter]], and not break down utterly ... you are not a healthy person.
* If you're a Spanish speaker who does NOT get teary eyed while listening to the song "Era en abril" ("It was in April") of Argentinian singer Juan Carlos Baglietto, where he describes a man and his wife's pain and attempts to cope with the loss of their stillborn son, you ''truly'' have no soul.
** If you're a Brazilian, and don't get sad to Pato Fu's "[[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ZImH4boCCw Canção pra você viver mais]]" ("Song to make you live more"), inspired by the sick and dying father of singer Fernanda Takai, you probably don't have a soul either.
* For the Italophones in the crowd, Andrea Bocelli, "E mi manchi tu" from ''Cieli di Toscana.'' The music itself is sad enough, but the lyrics - dear God, it'll rip your heart out.
* Martika's "Toy Soldiers". Not only it's heartwretching in itself, and even more when you learn that [[CreatorBreakdown Martika wrote it for a friend]] who was struggling against his drug addiction... and ''won''.
** Eminem's song that samples it ("Like Toy Soldiers") also serves, specially its video.
* Taion by The Gazette, especially during the chorus. Look up the lyrics and the backstory while listening, especially during the live version. The vocalist seems to begin tearing up at the start of the song. Unfortunately, it's hard to blame him.
* ''ani mavtiah lah, yalda sheli k'tana, she'zeh tehiyeh ha'milhama ha'aharona...'' "I promise you, my little daughter, that this will be the last war..."
* Tokio Hotel's 'In Die Nacht'. Not because it's sad, but because of the love that flows from the singer to the guitarist, the subject of the song.
** An introduction to a live performance of the song: "What we've got is pretty rare, I think. We're probably going to spend the rest of our lives together. We'll never part. Tom and I are going to go off together, into the night."
*"In This River" by Black Label Society brings a tear to many a metalhead's eye. This troper still looks for black ribbons on December 8th.
** It's even more of a tearjerker when you see it played live. If you can watch Zakk perform this song with tears running down his face, and not cry yourself, you're not a human being. Seeing the normally BadassBiker break down in tears over the loss of his best friend while playing it is both heartwarming and sad at the same time.
* Despite its origins, "Don't Look Down" from the ''PowerpuffGirls'' promotional CD/rock opera ''Heroes and Villains'' is surprisingly touching. It has a [[LyricalDissonance bright, happy bubblegum surf]] tune, but deals with Professor Untonium's fears about his girls. The chorus ("Please be strong / Wave goodbye / And don't look down") can easily bring on tears when you [[FridgeBrilliance stop to consider]] that the Professor is probably not speaking to the girls so much as ''himself,'' and telling himself to be strong and supportive for their sake.
* The discography of {{Buckethead}}, who's basically a malfunctioning robot with a guitar, is made of three types of songs: pure, ridiculous shred, terrifyingly weird stuff, and songs that evoke more emotion than nearly any on this list without uttering a single word. Examples include albums ''Electric Tears'' and ''Colma,'' which he wrote for his mother when she was ill, and ''Soothsayer,'' which he wrote for his elderly Aunt Suzie.
** This troper found the last two thirds of ''Nottingham Lace'' to be absolutely haunting and tragic - made all the more jarring because it ''is'' pure, ridiculous shred. How {{Buckethead}} managed that, we may never know.
* "Magic," by Ben Folds Five. It's particularly touching if you've ever lost someone to a painful disease.
** It's sad enough in any case, but this troper has special issues with [[http://info.benfolds.org/FredJonesPart2Lyrics Fred Jones, Part 2]]. She first heard it during a time in which she was watching a friend of many years suffer the effects of a debilitating brain tumor. He had been a brilliant man, tutored kids, taught chess, ran a secondhand bookstore at a deficit, but most of all loved math. By the time she heard the song, he could no longer even see the numbers on the paper, much less work with them. She spent a lot of long nights crying to the song over the unfairness of a good man fading away, unremarked on by the universe at large.
**"The Luckiest." That's love, love, love.
*** Seconded. It's subdued and awkward and honest, and it brings this troper, who thinks "true love" is a great load of bull, to tears every time.
** "Don't Change Your Plans" gets to ThisTroper due to an old high school friend of hers with whom she really bonded with a few weeks before graduation.
**[[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5CCUtcnexEY "Kylie From Connecticut"]] is a great one off his new album that gets me every time, especially the heartbreaking cry of the chorus
* "Runaway Train" from Soul Asylum is quite depressing because of the theme of the song, and also at the end of the video if you know that not all the (real) runaways that are shown got a happy ending.
* "Miss Sarajevo" by Passengers - otherwise known as U2 and Brian Eno (with Luciano Pavarotti as a guest, in this case). Although the original version is incredibly heartrending, the band's live versions of the song after the 7/7 bombings in 2005 are something special indeed.
* Also from the Eno & Pavarotti concert, [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d4geUoG1gsU this rendition of U2's "One"]], with Bono's vocals echoing over the haunting strings, brings ThisTroper to tears every time, it's so haunting. There's a reason its mp3 version is named [[http://www.google.com/search?q=u2+one+%22best+live+acoustic+ever%22 the best live acoustic ever]].
* "The Magdalene Laundries" by Joni Mitchell, based on the real-life indignities suffered by inmates of the Magdalene Asylums in Ireland.
* "What a Wonderful World" by Louis Armstrong. Because in spite of it all, it really is.
** ThisTroper cries at that song because it was used so heavily in ''BowlingForColumbine''.
** Unfortunately it doesn't affect this troper the same way anymore, since seeing commercials for TheMovie of TheHitchhikersGuideToTheGalaxy which used said song...
** Joey Ramone's cover is all that more heartwrenching because he recorded it a few weeks before his death.
** ThisTroper's daddy wants it used at his funeral, so ThisTroper cannot help but bawl when she hears it, because she is a Daddy's girl and doesn't even want to think about that day.
* "We Have All The Time In the World", also by Louis Armstrong, ''especially'' in the context that it was the backing to JamesBond's and Tracy's happy moments together in OnHerMajestysSecretService...[[Tearjerker/{{Film}} until...]]
* Death Cab For Cutie's "What Sarah Said" had this troper on the verge of tears after they actually listened to the lyrics. It didn't help that the whole song reminded them of some very depressing parts of a certain anime. The real gutwrenching lyrics are 'I'm thinking of what Sarah said: That love is watching someone die. So who's gonna watch you die?'
** This troper heard that song during an adaptation of Everyman, a medieval morality play about who will have your back when you die and face God's judgement. Very much a tearjerking juxtaposition.
** "I Will Follow You Into the Dark" especially with the video is absolutely devastating.
*** Truly one of the simplest, most haunting, and truly beautiful songs ever written.
** This substantially male [[{{Moviepyro}} troper]], having heard "I Will Follow You Into The Dark" only once, need only ''think'' of the song and he starts crying. No other song can make that claim.
** ''Brothers On A Hotel Bed'' does it for this troper when she's feeling particularly unhappy or needs to write something sad. From the first line, "You may tire of me as our December sun is setting because I'm not who I used to be," straight to the finish, it's a heartbreaking song.
** Don't forget ''Summer Skin.''
*** Dear God yes. "On the night you left/I came over/And we peeled the freckles from our shoulders/Our brand new coats so flushed and pale/And I knew your heart I couldn't win/Cause the season's change was a conduit/And we'd left our love in our summer skin".
** "Transatlanticism". This troper loses it when the lines "The rhythm of my footsteps crossing flatlands to your door have been silenced forever more/The distance is quite simply much too far for me to row/It seems farther than ever before" are sung. Although, the fact that she discovered it while mourning the death of her childhood best friend might have something to do with it.
** This troper can no longer listen to the whole ''Plans'' album without getting teary eyes and a lump in her throat.
** "Styrofoam Plates", which is told from the viewpoint of a boy at the funeral of his selfish, neglectful father, invariably leaves this troper in helpless, horrified tears -- especially after the last verse ("You're a disgrace to the concept of family; the priest won't divulge that fact in his homily, and I'll stand up and scream if the mourning remain quiet; you can deck out a lie in a suit, but I won't buy it..."), but it isn't uncommon for her to start tearing up from the very first line, either.
** "Someday You Will Be Loved" is the most powerful song, for this troper. ("You'll be loved, you'll be loved, like you never have known/And the memories of me will seem more like bad dreams/Just a series of blurs, like I never occured/Someday you will be loved.")
** "Grapevine fires was mediocre for me, until I thought about it and realized what it was talking about, which was the first time I had really thought about what the people, many, many real people, want through, and I could not stop crying. Even now I am crying a little, just thinking about the song.
** ''Do not'' listen to "Talking Bird" if you've ever lost a pet, especially a bird. I'd lost my beloved pet cockatiel a short while before listening to this song. It still makes me cry.
* To Destination's "Eden", the OP for YamiNoMatsuei. This troper still clearly remembers a fansub friend crying as she translated the song for their group, and she's gotten misty eyed as well. Doesn't help that the lead singer's voice sounds VERY similar to the one of HYDE from L'Arc En Ciel, a group with other heartwretching songs like "Niji" or "Pieces".
* "Chasing Cars", but only after I heard the title and promptly imagined up ''home video footage of people and their pets'' (sometimes the people are dying, sometimes the pets are dying, and sometimes both have their whole lives ahead of them).
** See, I wouldn't find this depressing aside from the almost wistful way he sings it...Snow Patrol always does this to me!
** Off the same album: "Set The Fire To The Third Bar". A duet with Martha Wainwright about loneliness and separation, set to fitting music. Beautiful and heartbreaking at the same time.
*{{Oasis}}, "Stop Crying Your Heart Out".
** Also, "Don't Go Away", which after you discover was written by Noel while his and Liam's mother Peggy was hospitalized and suspected of having cancer, you will cry every time you hear it. In fact, Liam was crying during one take. That take was the one used on the album.
** "Slide Away".
*{{U2}}'s "With Or Without You". And depending on your mood, "New Year's Day".
** Also, their "Sunday Bloody Sunday."
** "Electrical Storm" does it for this troper.
** "Kite" and "Sometimes You Can't Make It On Your Own", both dealing with Bono's father.
*** Especially when they did it at the Slane show the week of the funeral. Oh god, that was heartbreaking.
** "Mothers of the Disappeared" never fails to do it for this troper.
** Don't forget "Bad" and "All I Want Is You".
** For this troper, it's "Tomorrow" and, strangely enough, "Lemon" - both dealing with Bono's mother.
**This troper saw U2 in concert just after 9/11. During "One" she burst into tears. At a ''rock concert''. Every year on 9/11 she plays "One" and "Walk On" in the car as a tribute.
***For this troper it's Where the Streets Have No Name," due to [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gq08ouOwiqQ their halftime performance at the 2002 Super Bowl]] where they played this song in front of a scrolling list of the victims of 9/11.
*Paul Simon's "Boy in the Bubble" from the Graceland album always makes this troper feel pretty depressed. Something about the almost hopeful way that te lyrics come across...(Shudders in remembrance)
*"As the footsteps die out forever" by Catch 22 - From what I can gather from the lyics, it's about somebody with a terminal illness. This troper feels pretty sad after listening to it...
* Just about everyone who's been through the New South Wales public school system in the last few years knows Ian Jefferson's "Always Remember". It's a song about a war, where the persona appears to be singing about his friends from the army: "There was Charley and George, Thomas and Joseph, Patrick [=McGee=] and James..." But then, we reach the third verse's "And I'll not forget the roll-call at dawn, when a soldier's name brought no reply." And we realise who Charley, George, Patrick and James really were. I performed this as part of a massed choir recently, with a trumpet playing the Last Post accompanying that verse, and it was incredibly moving.
* This troper cannot believe "You'll Never Walk Alone" hasn't been mentioned yet. It's sad enough in the end of Carousel, but sung by thousands of people during football matches? My word.
** Speaking of ''Carousel'', the reprise of "If I Loved You" is highly tearjerking as well. It has extra significance for this troper, as it was played at her grandmother's funeral.
** And speaking of tear jerker football anthems, how about "The Fields of Athenry" at full volume.
* "The Ballad of Barry Allen" by Jim's Big Ego. It describes the life of Barry Allen, also known as the second Flash; this song makes a power that seems like a blast more like a condemnation to a lifetime of lonliness ("And I'd like to get to know you, but you're talking much too slowly").
* This troper can no longer quite deal with "Life On Mars?" after [[SuicideIsPainless certain associations]] it acquired in the series finale of the eponymous TV show.
* Joan Baez's a capella rendition of "O Come Angel Band."
* This is pretty much the entire point of Damien Rice's career; mileage can vary, and he's become pretty much the default choice for angsty episode-ending montages, but... "9 Crimes." "The Blower's Daughter." Yeah.
** And then you hear [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dvve4sZZrPo "The Professor"]], about how he's fucked over his own love life again and again. And you ''know'' it's autobiographical (ThisTroper definitely does: Dublin is a small city).
*** I just clicked the link and I...I'm speechless.
** The little hitch he gets when he sings "So come on courage, teach me to be shy" in [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AvtZnINtzh4 "Cannonball"]] is kind of heart wrenching.
* This troper can't be the only one who gets that strange, 'happy-depressed' feeling after listening to ''World End'' by FLOW (The second opening theme to Code Geass R2). I think part of it is, as someone summed up online somewhere, that you see all the main characters flying past in the intro, and it's like they're saying, 'even though this is the end of Code Geass, we're all together and we'll still be here forever.' That'll be one series this troper wants to end so we'll know how it all went down, but doesn't want to end because of how amazing it is. Of course, around the time of episode 19, the opening ''really'' turns into a TearJerker because of [[spoiler: the SoundtrackDissonance involved with such an upbeat song playing while it shows all those smiling people who don't have much to smile about within the show.]]
** Also, ''Masquerade'' by Hitomi Kuroishi. This song was playing in the background of episode 14 (season one), starting the moment Lelouch embraces Shirley, and continuing until the end of the episode, when they go their separate ways [[spoiler: as strangers]]. The lyrics are ''very'' appropriate.
** And now that [[BittersweetEnding we do know how it all went down]], ''Continued Story'' and ''One More Chance!'' have joined the ranks of WAAAAAH. '''Especially''' ''One More Chance!''
** ''Boku wa, Tori ni Naru''. Especially given the ''context'' it's played in... *sniff*
* Bob Marley's "Redemption Song" was as close as one can come to writing one's own epitaph, but Joe Strummer's cover is just gut wrenching.
** Try listening to Joe Strummer and Johnny Cash dueting on "Redemption Song" and remaining dry-eyed. This troper can't.
** "No Woman No Cry" has the opposite effect to it's title. Just listen to it! 'Good friends we have and good friends we've lost/Along the way/In this great future, you can't forget your past/So dry your tears, I say/Everything's gonna be all right!' Blubbing Central, and that's before we reach the line about 'My feet are my only carriage...'
* Guillemots' "If the World Ends" causes this troper to want to break into a sad puddle of tears everytime he hears it. That it's actually about the end of the world and not just a metaphore for a break-up makes it such a killer. ''If the world ends/I hope you're here with me/I think we can laugh just enough to not die in pain''"...
*It's emo, but any person who had even glimmerings of not fitting in as a child cannot fail to go bleary eyes at Pink's Conversations With My Thirteen Year Old Self.
* Melissa Etheridge's "This Is Not Goodbye". Which is about death, basically.
* Is it just me, or is any song that's done in male chorals and contains some reference to birds, wings and/or flying bound to be a tearjerker?
** Well, Eels' "I like Birds" doesn't do anything for me, but I suppose 'wings' could be considered a metaphor for angels or death.
* Half the songs towards the end of the Musical version of the book Wicked, in particular "For Good."
* Ever since she was a small child, this troper (who as a general rule isn't even a fan of pop) has cried at ABBA's "The Winner Takes it All". It seems that even at the age of five she understood there was [[TruthInTelevision something more to it]] that a five year old should've honestly been aware of.
** ... I thought I was the only one who went through that. With the same song ''and'' Janis Ian's "Stars".
*** It gets worse. Much worse. Listen to MerylStreep sing it in MammaMia!.
** Speaking of Abba, "One Of Us".
*** Also, "Cassandra."
*** And "Fernando", once you read the lyrics.
**** ...I think I've found where I belong.
*** What about "Slipping Through My Fingers"? [[TechnicolorPachyderm This stone-hearted troper]] bawled her eyes out when she learned Bjorn wrote it after realizing he (and his ex-wife Agnetha, who sings the song) missed out on his daughter's childhood by being so career-obsessed.
**** This troper has seen ''MammaMia!'' four times and that song reduced him to a shivering wreck ''every time, even when he knew it was coming''.
* ''It Just Is'' by Rilo Kiley is a tribute to the late singer-songwriter Elliot Smith who had just committed suicide, but its damn sad with or without the context.
**This troper felt "Ripchord" was a much more tearjerking example. The way Sennett's voice just breaks brought the tears.
* Not to mention Ben Folds' simple, personal lament to Smith, "Too Late". *Sigh* "The songs you wrote... got me through a lot, just wanna tell you that... But it's too late."
* ''In The Living Years" by Mike and the Mechanics is a real killer. Father/Son angst rendered huge.
* Loreena [=McKennitt=]'s rendition of the Alfred Noyes poem "The Highwayman".
** And "The Lady of Shalott." And especially "The Dark Night of the Soul."
* Basically anything by Patsy Cline. The music is amazing, but listening to her greatest hits on repeat is a serious downer.
* ''Pieces'' by Red.
* [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-7uMLhYnqXE&feature=related ''The Last Spring,'']] by Grieg, gets This Troper every time.
* Poison was a hair metal band with a long-haired pretty boy singer, but their ballad [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xe71zCA5xFQ "Something to believe in"]] is surprisingly moving.
* "September Song". Taken on its own, with someone like Frank Sinatra singing it, it can be pretty moving. Then [[VoiceOfDramatic Tony Jay]] covered it.
-->''Oh, the days dwindle down to a precious few: September... November...''
-->''And these precious days, I'll spend with you. These precious days, I'll spend with you...''
*"Only Women Bleed" by Alice Cooper.
**Don't forget "I Never Cry". This troper bawled her eyes out when the Coop performed it in concert.
* The synthpop band VNV Nation has a song called "Forsaken" that wasn't actually released with its vocal line on an album until a few years after the album it debuted on was released. The lead singer of the band has stated that there was no words for it until a live performance they did in Germany, which came entirely from emotions that night. [[http://http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NYjFD1QSttQ Here]] is a recording with the lyrics. Anyone who has lost anyone bursts into tears with the combination of the lyrics and the rawness of the singer's voice.
** From the same band, Beloved.
* Again with Synthpop, Apoptygma Bererk Until the End of the World.
* ''Guide You Home'' By Rebecca Kneubuhl and Gabriel Mann should be just another sappy romance song. Except that it was played at the conclusion of The Legend of Spyro: Dawn of the Dragon, the end of a trilogy in a [[SpyroTheDragon series]] which ThisTroper has followed for the last ten years of her life, which is basically the reason she’s studying cartooning. Add this to the fact that it followed a ''Thank You'' to the fans of the series for the last ''ten years'', and... yeah. [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oNSNW44SY-Q Tears ahoy.]]
-->There is an open door
-->Somehow it feels so familiar
-->We have been here before.
* IcedEarth has [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7jGw3QXsnTY "Watching Over Me"]] and [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PWW6ebWsGwk "A Question of Heaven"]]. ThisTroper heard the first played at a concert, and there were ManlyTears in the audience.
* DemonsAndWizards. [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BOzDykuoal0 "Love's Tragedy Asunder"]] probably qualifies, but [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HGMx0YkeTFQ "Fiddler on the Green"]] definitely does:
-->Just hold my hand
-->I'll take you there
-->Your pain will go away ...
* The tearjerker potential for many BlindGuardian is closely related to how much you like whatever character Hansi is singing about. However [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3lWspOLN5rY "The Eldar"]] should do it whether or not you like [[TheSilmarillion Finrod Felagund]], and this troper dislikes Turin but still tears up at [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x91byWU9hDY "Harvest of Sorrow"]].
* "The Man Who Can't Be Moved" by The Script. Mostly because of the lyrics, in which the titular Man clearly has some mental health issues, but believes that by sleeping on the street where he met his lost love he's making a big romantic gesture that will win her back.
** "Breakeven", also. And at the end of their debut album, "Anybody There".
* The ending of the music video for A-Ha's "Take On Me" is a TearJerker (but happy tears) for this troper, seeing Morten Harket slamming himself against the wall, phasing between comic book and real, struggling to break out to be with the real-life female protagonist he loves. Her tearful reaction shots up the Kleenex factor that much more.
** That little love story continues in the beginning of [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tqnawVJeck0 "The Sun Always Shines On TV"]]: [[spoiler: in the ''very'' first scene, the guy must go back home and abandon the girl he died for.]] After almost 20 years, ThisTroper still goes teary-eyed at that like when she was a child.
** Also, "Manhattan Skyline" (about two StarCrossedLovers who will never see each other again as one leave to New York) and "Slender Frame" (about a bad, bitter break-up). LoveHurts, indeed!
* It's a bit specific, but Ooh La La by The Faces does it for me, but only when I personally play and sing it. This is because I learned it in my first year of high school (see Troper Tales for my rant about a screwed up seven years) and used to play it as the final song anytime I practiced. By the time seven horrible years have gone past, the line 'I wish that I knew what I know now' takes on more and more resonance until eventually I can barely play the opening notes without crying tears. Nowadays they're tears of happiness, but still. Also, Dirty Old Town, which is the song I play before playing Ooh La La.
* Casimir Pulaski Day, by Sufjan Stevens. No more needs to be said.
**Hell, anything by Sufjan is pretty damn sad. He has a knack for making heartbreakers
* Jesse Mac's song Invincible. It's about his friend who drove drunk and died. Very sad. Many of songs make me cry, actually, including Beautiful Soul, Because You Live, Right Back In The Water
* Oliver. Tompsett. Superman. That makes me sob. It's sooooooooo sweet and sad, the last line of the bridge is 'maybe it's time I faced the fact that I should get over you'.
**Yep, not to mention 'without you I'm not superman at all' or 'I don't know what I've done to make this heartache mine, I want you to love me for who I am til the end of time. I'll forgo who I'm meant to be so that you will love me too...' Sob.
* ElectricLightOrchestra's "Eldorado", which is about a man who decides to stay in a fantasy world because he can't take the real world anymore. It really hits home for this troper, since she's been struggling with depression for years.
** Also, their "Is this the way life's meant to be?"
** I found it rather sad because when I first heard it, I was in the midst of a depression as well. I, like the guy in the song, had a sort of fantasy world in my head that I often escaped to, which I liked much better than the real world. I found myself identifying ''exactly'' with that song, to the point where I thought it might as well have been written about me.
* The theme to ''Brian's Song'', especially considering the story.
* Bob Dylan has quite a few. "Forever Young", "Knocking on Heaven's Door", "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue", and "Sad-Eyed Lady of the Lowlands" have all made me cry, off the top of my head. Also "Goin' to Acapulco", especially in ''I'm Not There''.
* "[[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X5pkkAhETYg Those were the days, my friend...]]"
* Just watch the last sequence of Yentl. Particuarly when your grandmother used to me a stage singer - and could then ''rival'' Striesand with this song.
-->Papa I can hear you, papa I can see you, papa I can feel you. Papa ''watch me fly''.
* ''La Venganza de Gaia'', by the Spanish band Mägo de Oz will make you bawl even if you're not an environmentalist --better if oyu know Spanish, or course.
* Symphonic Metal has plenty of these: ''Clavicula Nox'' and ''Raven of Dispersion'' (Therion); ''Feint'' and ''Cry for the Moon'' (Epica) to name a few.
** Symphonic metal? Try ''Return to You'' by Visions of Atlantis.
* ''I Don't like Mondays'' by the Boomtown Rats tells the story of a teenage girl who shot her classmates. The song is inspired by a true, if slightly dissimilar case where a girl shot a group of playground children with a sniper gun and later told the police:
-->"I don't like Mondays, this just brightens up the day."
* Electric Light Orchestra's "The Way Life's Meant To Be," a song about change, the future and letting go of the place you once called home. In fact, the entire ''Time'' album (which is basically a story about a man taken to the future, being separated from all he loves, trying to cope with it and then being ''sent back'' so that he can make the world into a better place.)
** Tell me you don't cry when you hear ''Wild West Hero''. Go on, all of you, ''tell me''.
*** I could never tell you that.
* The song ''"One World"'' by Celtic woman may come across as a typical celtic poppish type piece of cliche World-Peave, but just you try watching it to a youtube video. I dare you not to cry.
* Madonna's ''Live to tell''. I'm listening to it and I'm teary eyed right now.
--> '' A man can tell a thousand lies, I've learnt my lesson well / Hope I live to tell the secret I have learnt / 'Til then, it will burn innside of me... '''
* ''"Friend of Ours"'' by Elbow is the band's goodbye to a dead friend of theirs. Never have the words "love you, mate" been so heartwrenching that they almost made this troper cry in a public train.
** After reading up on several songs by Elbow I bawl like a baby listening to them to the point where I really want to but won't because I don't like the emotional torment.
* ''"Wie" (who)'' by Herman van Veen
--> ''"Wie heeft jouw net als ik te weinig liefgehad?" Who, like me, hasn't loved you enough?''
* "Tomorrow Is Another Day" from the Disney film ''TheRescuers'' never fails to bring [[JillBug this troper]] to tears.
**Anything Shelby Flint has ever sung for ''any'' animated movie, ''ever''.
* "Mary" by the Scissor Sisters. It was written for Jake Shears's best friend and at one point expresses his touching wish to be able to sacrifice his own happiness in exchange for hers. It's even sadder considering that the real Mary later died from complications of surgery.
* NineInchNails songs that fall under this include "Hurt"(see above), "'Something I Can Never Have", "A Warm Place", "The Day The World Went Away", "The Great Below" (and its sequel, "And All That Could Have Been"), "Right Where It Belongs", "In This Twilight", "Zero-Sum''...but the most heartwrenching is the instrumental "Leaving Hope": Written when Trent Reznor was "at his lowest", it's a simple piece that builds up layer upon layer of soaring, beautiful, uplifting music, that dies away...only to give way to a mesmerising chorus of voices. Breathtaking.
* [[{{Python}} This troper]] gets teary eye when he hears the ''Star Spangled Banner'' played. When I hear ''God Bless America'' you can see the tears roll down my face.
** "America the Beautiful" does it for this troper.
** Call it cheesy or cliché, this troper tears up for Lee Greenwood's "God Bless the USA."
* The American folk song ''Dreaming of Home and Mother'' is pretty tearjerking in the original language, but the Japanese, and ''especially'' the [[http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=hqEoznkqqpw Chinese]] renditions really tug on the heartstrings.
* How To Save a Life by The Fray. Just...the goddamn scene from Scrubs made...I...I have something in my eye...
* "Working at Perfekt" from Geddy Lee's underrated solo album ''My Favorite Headache'' was a punch to the gut for this troper. It didn't help that her then-boyfriend broke up with her at the time...
* "Love will Tear Us Apart" by Joy Division. Between Ian Curtis' haunting vocals, the fact that he committed suicide a ''month'' after the song was recorded; and, well, the song in general, it's a hell of a spectacle of sorrow.
** Though when New Order have played it live it's become a bit of a singalong anthem. [[TooSoon Guess enough time has passed]].
** Also there's "Decades", "Atmosphere" and "Ceremony". (The latter was released as the first single by New Order after Ian's death). The absolute pit of misery has to be "The Eternal" though. Really don't listen to it if you're feeling down.
** New Order's own "Your Silent Face" has one of the most tear-jerkingly lovely synth-choruses ever.
* 'Feliz Navidad' for this (Jewish!) troper, due to it's asscociation with the opening sequence of Christmas Eve on Sesame Street. Ditto 'Christmastime is Here' for the Peanuts special.
* 'Big Yellow Taxi' by Joni Mitchell, also as performed by CountingCrows I have to admit. This troper cries every time a beloved restaurant or book store closes down to make way for some soulless chain of some sort, so this song really touches a nerve.
** Speaking of Joni Mitchell, we cannot let 'Both Sides Now' go without pass. This troper made the mistake of listening to that song one night when he was feeling lonely and unloved, and guess what happened:
--->I've looked at love from both sides now
--->From give and take, and still somehow
--->It's love's illusions that I recall.
--->I really don't know love at all.
** And "River", holy crap. Strangely enough, a lot of artists cover it on Christmas albums.
* Speaking of Counting Crows, "Round Here" always gets this troper.
** The song ''Another Horsedreamer's Blues'' by Counting Crows, especially the line "So she takes her pills/careful and round/and one day she's gonna throw the whole bottle down". Adam Duritz is so good at channeling feelings of hopelessness into his listeners. This troper wonders why she likes this music so much sometimes.
**Also, the song ''Raining in Baltimore''.
** How have the Counting Crows not gotten more mention on this page? Almost every song they put out is incredibly sad! Just take a listen here, to this live rendition of [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WUr1xZMo8Gc&feature=channel_page "Anna Begins"]]. This song crushed this troper down a million times.
** Speaking of "Beloved restaurant or book store closes down", 'Our Town' by James Taylor. But hey, it's Pixar's fault.
* 'Midnight Radio' from Hedwig and the Angry Inch, especially at "All you strange rock and rollers... you know you're doing all right!"
* [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yquIWfvdGXE "House With No Door"]] by Van Der Graaf Generator, about a mental patient who desperetly wants to be cured, but just can't no matter how hard he tries. Especially heartbreaking when Peter Hammill spueaks out the "won't somebody help me" a the end of each chorus.
** Speaking of mental patients, "Institutionalized" by Suicidal Tendencies is poignant for a punk song, especially the Pepsi verse. "All I wanted was a Pepsi, and she wouldn't give it to me, just one Pepsi."
* ''Local Boy In The Photograph'' by Stereophonics. "He'll always be 23, yet the train runs on and on/Past the place they found his clothing"
* There are 2 songs that are about Australian soldiers that really hits this troper- one about Vietnam called [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j6vy4RmRhko 'A walk in the light green/Only 19']] about a new soldier going to Vietnam, losing his friend to a landmine, then coming home to Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. Another that is often played on ANZAC Day (remembrance to all Australian soldiers who fought and died in all wars) is [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GPFjToKuZQM 'The Band played Waltzing Matilda']] about a soldier in World War 1 who lost his legs. There probably isn't an Aussie alive anywhere who didn't tear up listening to that song the first time.
** This American lost it during "The Band Played Waltzing Matilda" as well.
* Jump Little Children's "Cathedrals".
* Mark Sandman has had many in his songs, but two are the most heartbreaking because of their later FunnyAneurysmMoment usage. In the Morphine song, "French Fries With Pepper" he references the date of 09/09/99, which is the same year he died. In the Treat Her Right song "No Reason" he recounts that his brothers all died at young ages as well as the stabbing that would lead to his fatal heart attack.
* "Not A Day Goes By" from Sondheim's musical 'Merrily We Roll Along' is an incredible kick to the gut tear-jerker. This troper can barely listen to it without being made utterly useless for several minutes afterwards.
*Thanks to Naruto Shippuden, we get the second opening, Distance by Long Shot Party. Since it is the Sai arc and how he is accepted....shit!;_;
**Followed by Blue Bird by Ikimono Gakari. "Aoi aoi ano sora..."
**Then Closer by Joe Inoue. I mean....gosh...
**Ikimono Gakari returns for Hotaru no Hikari...damnit all.
***Half of the endings, in fact!
**Long Kiss Good Bye by halcali...this troper still gets tears listening to it.
**Shinkokyu by Super Braver as the 9th ending followed the filler arc of the Three Tails. The Aesop of said arc was "Where someone thinks of you, thatis a place to return to."...-sniff-
* "Dante's Prayer" by Loreena [=McKennitt=] has made this troper tear up more than once.
** The same for this troper, but also to a lesser extent, "Cé Hé Mise Le Ulaingt/The Two Trees". The lyrics are from a Yeats poem, but the singer's rendering of some of the bleak imagery, plus the beautiful melancholic pipe intro, is incredibly isolating.
*** And for this troper, "The Lady of Shalott." The whole song is beautifully rendered, gorgeously played, and poignant, but it's the last verse that always gets him because of a) the shift in the melody to bring the song to a close, ending ''exactly'' where your ear and heart wants it to and b) the true tragedy of the story--that if Elaine had come to Lancelot and professed her love, rather than simply pining away for him, [[ForWantOfANail the whole sordid mess with Guinevere, Arthur's death, and the fall of Camelot would never have happened]].
* "Glycerine" by Bush.
* It doesn't matter how bad GundamSEED and/or GundamSEEDDestiny might have been. This troper still tears up whenever she listens to either "Find the Way" by Mika Nakashima or "Shinkai no kodoku" by Houko Kuwashima.
** For this troper, it's [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IZyMernW_Pw Shizuka na Yoru Ni]]. Curse you Rie Takada, your vocals are so beautiful and tragic in this song...
* Iced Earth's ''Dracula'' from their album ''Horror Show'', especially at the beginning. Aswell as ''Hollow Man'', ''Watching Over Me'', ''When The Eagle Cries'' and parts of the Gettysburg Trilogy (''The Devil To Pay'', ''Hold At All Costs'' and ''High-Water Mark'') from their album ''The Glorious Burden''.
** Don't forget "A Question of Heaven". Yes, it's about {{Spawn}}, but it's really sad. Iced Earth's leader Jon Schaffer's other band, Demons & Wizards, also has "Fiddler on the Green" and "Love's Tragedy Asunder". Also worth mentioning is Demons & Wizards' singer Hansi Kürsh's main band {{Blind Guardian}}'s "The Eldar" and "Harvest of Sorrow". Finrod Felagund is one of this troper's favorite characters, which makes the first worse, but she doesn't even ''like'' Túrin and "Harvest of Sorrow" still makes her cry.
** From the Gettysburg trilogy: "We're Almost There My Boys / I've Never Served With Finer / We Must Push Forward Boys / And Bayonet The Yankee Tyrants! / To The Copse Of Trees We Charge / To Crush The Union Center / And When They Turn And Run / An Open Road Leads Us To Freedom!" Commence tears.
*** "Just a mile or so away, is my dearest friend in this world. He wears the blue, and I the gray, and God it hurts me so. The last time we were together, I grabbed his hand and I pledged, 'If I ever draw my sword on you, may the Good Lord strike me dead'." Even more powerful because it's [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winfield_Scott_Hancock TRUE]] [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewis_Armistead HISTORY!]]
* ''{{Halo}} 2's'' Volume 2. Specifically, [[http://youtube.com/watch?v=otZ9nfgs3Qk "Unforgotten."]] It starts off low and sad, but then the pianos hit, and ''hittsnfrtch.''
** Halo 3 has "Wake Me When You Need Me". Maybe won't have the same effect if you haven't seen the cutscene in game... but oh man, if you saw it *snifff*... It's even worse if you didn't get the "good" ending.
* ''Flying Without Wings" during the end credits of ''Pokemon: the Movie 2000'' did it for this troper when he was younger. Listening to it today, he doesn't know why.
* Most anything by Jeffrey Foucault makes this troper tear up. Especially "Battle Hymn (of the College Dropout Farmhand)" and "Stripping Cane".
* The Decemberists' "On The Bus Mall." Soaring acoustic guitars + story about teenage runaways in love turning to underage prostitution to survive = utter uselessness on this troper's part.
** Three words: "But oh, Valencia..." This troper and his brother always mist and choke a bit, even when ''we're playing it.''
*** From the same album, "You'll Not Feel The Drowning" and "The Crane Wife 1 & 2" can be quite depressing.
*** "After the Bombs." Two lovers imagining life after war's end.
**A whole crapload of songs that Colin Meloy has written will make me cry, most notably (in chronological order) "Odalisque", "Grace Cathedral Hill" (the line "We were both a little hungry, so we went to get a hot dog" makes me tear up for some unknown reason), "Red Right Ankle", "Eli, The Barrow Boy", "The Bagman's Gambit", especially the lines
-->"And at the gate of the embassy
-->Our hands met through the bars
-->As your whisper stilled my heart
-->No, they'll never catch me now"
::along with, as a troper above mentioned, "The Crane Wife 1 & 2". I can NOT listen to that song without weeping at the mental imagery it conjures up.
** Sons And Daughters gets this troper the most, which is odd because it's about a family ''escaping'' a war torn country. They're bittersweet tears, I guess.
** Now from the new album, we have the last two songs, where [[spoiler:Margaret and William knowingly go into the river that will drown them.]]
* Mike Doughty's [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BaB9dow1eR4 "Ft. Hood,"]] named after the army base in Texas that's produced the most US casualties in the Iraq war.
* Five for Fighting's "Superman" is so cliche a song that she shouldn't get choked up during it.
** [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uHnT908mp3U This video makes it a million times worse. *SNIFF*]]
* This may sound really lame, but The Scorpions' song [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=taVW8Kv2HcQ "Winds of Change"]] always makes this troper cry, mostly because she listened to it before she went to graduate from high school; but the context of the song (the Berlin Wall is torn down, it's the 1990's, and everything looks hopeful) just makes it more sad, especially given our circumstances in the world now. What ever happened to all those bright, optomistic outlooks of the future?
* The [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ebs5cZyRsIE ending song]] (''Michiyuki'') to the anime series ''Loveless'' made this troper clutch a pillow and sob, and the [[http://www.animelyrics.com/anime/loveless/michiyuki.htm english translation]] doesn't dry up any eyes.
* According to the "Making Off" special of ''The Princess Diaries 2'' (OrSoIHeard), when Julie Andrews agreed to sing a song for the movie, several tattooed, {{Perma Stubble}}d, bald-shaven production crew members openly wept at getting to hear her sing in person.
* "Strange Chameleon" by the pillows, particulary the verse after the ''bitching'' guitar solo.
-->If everything is a lie that's made to look okay\\
And the cat that I tamed was just hungry for food\\
Even if it's an illusion that bursts with the sound of a snap\\
The palm of my hand is still warm
* The song "When Somebody Loved Me" is easily one of the most heart-wrenching songs of all time. Although it's from the ''ToyStory 2'' soundtrack, you needn't have seen the movie to be affected by it. This troper hadn't. She still needed tissues.
-->So the years went by,
-->I stayed the same;
-->But she began to drift away.
-->Still I waited for the day
-->When she'd say, "I will always love you..."
** This troper never found the song particularly upsetting when watching the film, but has now been reduced to floods of tears just by reading that extract.
** For this troper, it reduces her to an ocean because it remindes her of her relationship with her mother...
* The songs "Icaro" and "Moon Love Flower" from ShadowHearts Covenant. The most surprising thing is these are from a game that's for the most part a rather silly romp through HoYay, {{Fanservice}}, NinjaPirateZombieRobot, [[LargeHam Large Hamminess]] and historical inaccuracy. (That said, the title of "Moon Love Flower" sounds like [[Narm something you'd find on Babelfish]]. The actual song's still very good, though)
** The song "Alice". Hoo boy.
* ''The Living Years'' by Mike and the Mechanics.
* "Tanjyou" ("Birth") by Miyuki Nakajima. [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DI6N803NC44 "Remember, when you were born, someone must have said it. Listen closely and remember the first time you heard someone say 'Welcome.' Remember that you were born. Remember that we met. Remember that we lived together, and that you remember."]]
* "Gloomy Sunday" (aka "The Hungarian Suicide Song").
** Take Sinead O'Connor - well represented in this trope already, as seen above. Now give her a cover version of this song to do. The Angels themselves will weep.
** Billie Holiday's version is similarly amazing... if by "amazing" you mean "this clinically-depressed troper can't listen to it without getting it stuck in her head and being hurled into a vicious blue funk".
Full-Metal Alchemist's Vic Mignogna singing Brothers...-sob-
* On better days, this troper gets the chills listening to {{Music/Muse}}'s "Blackout". On worse days, the tears run rivers.
** This troper cries tears of soul-swelling joy and exuberance when listening to the b-side "Glorious". [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LM0a2u9nOdg&feature=related Words cannot describe.]]
* Sabaton's [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_dpNfhEztIM "Purple Heart"]].
** For that matter, [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oOCe2Y7iVF8&NR=1 "Cliffs of Gallipoli"]] is a serious tear jerker in my honest opinion.
** Add [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MIenz9tHqbs "Light in the Black"]] to that list too, the lyrics to the chorus should explain all.
** For that matter, [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Ubqk7c8tpg&NR=1 "Angels Calling"]] needs to be here. I dare you t read any off the 'Real Life' tearjerkers, even if you've got a stone heart(like me) while listening to this...it'll open the waterworks up nice'n'wide.
* "Canto Alla Vita", particularly the Josh Groban version, for whatever reason.
** "To Where You Are" and "Broken Vow" by Groban will send this troper into crying jags.
** On the subject of Groban, this troper absolutely ''cannot'' hear "You Are Loved (Don't Give Up)" without nearly sobbing, if not much, much more. To understand why, realize that the troper in question has occasional lapses into severe depression, wherein he feels completely useless and alone. That'd make the song powerful enough on its own, but combine it with Josh Groban's ''voice''...
* [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3J8q4cBSkTQ "Here Without You"]] by Three Doors Down always gets this troper blubbing, as does their song [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q233CxlIZtk "Kryponite"]]. Despite the latter being almost upbeat with its rhythm, I became familiar with these songs around the same time I separated from my partner of several years. The lyrics hit hard, although the latter gives some sort of optimism as we're still friends with each other.
* This troper isn't quite sure where it belongs, but the reprise of "I'll Cover You" from RENT is one of the most heartbreaking songs she knows due to its DarkReprise status. If you aren't visibly devastated by the time Collins sings ''When your heart has expired,'' you do not deserve to call yourself human. Almost ''everyone'' who watches RENT admits that this song has shaken them up horribly--the emotional impact triples when you remember the happiness of the original song.
** I second that. I still get chills listening to this for the umpteenth time. Not to mention "Will I". The crescendo of the male and female voices for this song is so beautiful.
*** Thirded - I just had to READ that lyric to get shivers and a little misty thinking of that song.
* "You're The Inspiration", by Chicago. Yes, it's cheesy. But then ''EliteBeatAgents'' came and made it unbelieviably touching, to the point anyone who's played the game will never hear it the same way again.
* "I Miss You" by Aaliyah. Now, ''discounting'' her tragic death shortly after the release of this one, the song itself is just filled with loneliness and want.
* This troper always gets choked up listening to Freezepop's "Swimming Pool", particularly the last few lines (I went under and you followed/let's not think about tomorrow/everything is perfect now). Even more so now that she associates it with [[MayflyDecemberRomance Snake]] [[HeterosexualLifePartners and Otacon]] from ''MetalGearSolid 4''.
* Guys, how could you forget Lita Ford and Ozzy Osbourne's "Close my eyes forever"!?
* Let's talk about the Dresden Dolls for a moment. Even the ''name'' is depressing. Highlights include about ninety percent of their debut album (listen to the lyrics of "Half-Jack" closely and marvel at what you're hearing), "Delilah," "Sing" (which manages to be both one of the most somber songs ever written and one of the most triumphant), and "Me & the Minibar," the last line of which will ''make your jaw drop'' with depression overload. Imagine something [[{{Narm}} so depressing you can't help but laugh]] and dial it back exactly enough to keep it completely serious.
** [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hE92yD9zNhg The Point of it All]] from Amanda Palmer's solo album, ''Who Killed Amanda Palmer.'' "But no one can stare at the wall as good as you, my baby doll/and you're aces for coming along/you're almost human, after all..."
*** This Troper still has no idea what that song is even ''about'' (drug use? terminal illness? dolls?), and she still cannot finish the song without crying. Also, the album in question was produced by Ben Folds, for whom this trope may be an actual superpower.
***''Blake Says'' and ''Another Year'' could also qualify.
***Obnoxious title aside, "Strength Through Music" makes this troper bawl every damn time. How many songs are there about school shooters? How many artistic works in any medium that make you pity them?
***The cover of "What's the Use of Wond'rin'?" puts the song in a whole new (and disturbing) prospective.
**Pretty much the entire album of Who Killed Amanda Palmer?
** [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xP00qel_0qs Trout Heart Replica]] a song Amanda wrote while on tour after seeing a dead trout's still beating heart, at both shows this troper saw that when she played this, the entire audience was in tears.
** This troper had a brief breakdown after staying up helping to coax a friend out of depression, and the day before "it" happened, I'd loaded a lot of fanmixes onto my iPod, sight unseen. I turn on my iPod and the first song that pops up is "Runs In The Family". Congratulations; I have not only a tearjerker, but a serious trigger. Gorgeous song, but... oh, wow.
* This Troper has seen what happens when you play Vitamin C's "Graduation" at the end of the school year.
* Personally for this troper Vanessa Carlton's "White Houses" could be quite a tear jerker due to the beautiful melody while a girl talks about her "First Mistake" (IE losing her virginity).
** "Annie", "Twilight"... Vanessa manages to pull off one of these with every album. ''Heroes and Thieves'' tops it with at least three big ones: the title track, "Home", and "More Than This".
* Another that one could recommend would be Mandy Moore's "I Wanna Be with You".
** Mandy Moore has a duet song with Jonathan Foreman called "Someday We'll Know" The song itself is about two people who, for some reason that is as absolute and inexplicable as the sky being blue, are in love with each other and can't be together, but the lyrics are just vague enough to where the listener can interpret it for themselves. The LyricalDissonance plus the metaphor-heavy lines basically make it customized suffering.
*** ThisTroper could not stop crying when she first heard it, thinking that it was about two people who were each in love wtih the other but never confessed their feelings, and the girl in question committed suicide and the guy's world fell apart due to his grief.
* Nur zu Besuch from the Toten Hosen. A song about the sadness of losing a beloved person. Made extra sad as the lead singer dedicated it to his dead mother
* Keane's "Somewhere Only We Know" does it for this troper. So beautifully bittersweet.
** Lots of Keane songs have an odd ense of melancholy to them. The passion behind "Might as Well Be Strangers" does it for this troper, definitely.
* Since [[AcrossTheStars this troper]] is starting college this year, Carrie Underwood's ''Don't Forget to Remember Me'' and ''Slipping Through My Fingers'' from MammaMia! induce complete emotional incapacitation when she lets herself think about their implications. And ''Slipping Through My Fingers'' hurts ''oh'' so much more when she lets herself think about the fact that she's only just starting to have a relationship with her mother. She's bawling as she writes this.
** Two weeks later, and that same troper is sitting in her dorm room while her roommate's home for the weekend typing away on her ''dad's laptop''. She never in a million years thought a Billy Ray Cyrus song could make her cry... then she ran across "Ready, Set, Don't Go" and lost it in truly spectacular fashion.
* Out of ''all'' of Fiction Junction YUUKA's songs, the one who makes me cry the most is "Hitomi no kakera". "Akatsuki no kuruma" is quite the tear jerker too, but "Hitomi no kakera" makes me bawl. I'm even teary-eyed now.
* "Fatal hesitation" by Chris [=DeBurgh=]. "Oh Romeo is standing in the rain... I know I have let her slip away... Fatal hesitation..."
* Embrace seem to have at least one of these on every album they've released, but the title track from "Drawn from Memory" (consisting of [[EpicRocking seven minutes]] of pure melancholy) is probably the winner.
* The {{Music/Muse}} song ''Soldier's Poem'' is a complete wrecker for this troper, as is ''This Lullaby'' by Queens of the Stone Age. Mark Lanegan's deep raspy voice singing it doesn't help.
** Lanegan's voice makes his own Screaming Trees' ''Make My Mind'' and ''Dollar Bill'' another couple of heart breakers.
* Michael W. Smith's "Friends" does it for this troper.
* ANYTHING Mark Schultz has done. But especially "He's My Son" and "Letters From War".
* Depending on your mood (and your awareness of the story), "A Place For Us" from the ''Bridge To Terabithia'' soundtrack can be an excellent example of this.
* U2's ''MLK'' was lovely in itself, but then a crazy man named Bob Chilcott did a 6-part ''a cappella'' arrangement for The King's Singers which is [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rw55J-0Dqbs far superior]] and downright chilling in its grandeur.
* ''Alone Again (Naturally)'', by Gilbert [=O'Sullivan=], later covered by Donny Osmond. Whichever version you're listening to, if you can hear it and ''not'' get a tear in your eye, you must [[TheSpock have no emotions.]]
** I misted up hearing it the first time on a car to work and I had only caught the last few lyrics about his father and mother dying and being left alone again. Sad stuff.
* "[[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_U5nelkxMKQ&feature=related The People Left Behind]]", from the soundtrack to ''ChronoCross''. It's the song that plays when you fight Miguel, [[spoiler:Leena's father, trapped forever in the Dead Sea unless you kill him and unfreeze it]], as well as the BonusBoss fight against [[spoiler:Riddel's possessed lover Dario]]. The song itself is an extremely melancholy melody that emphasizes how hopeless the situation is.
**Composer Yasunori Mitsuda has reportedly said that he himself was brought to tears upon seeing exactly how the piece was used, particularly in the Dead Sea sequence and the associated nostalgic imagery from ''Chrono Trigger''.
** Speaking of ''ChronoTrigger'', this troper always tears up during the closing credits song, "[[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FyemxHCJUNg To Far Away Times"/"Outskirts of Time]]."
*** Then try [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UtmryMmuIVo this version]], remixed for piano and voice, done by two of OCRemix's best. Even worse when you know the pianist died in a boating accident.
*** Wait, Reuben Kee... [[PlayerPunch uh]].
** The vocal version of "Merkabah" always causes this troper to cry. ''Always.''
** The game over theme, known as "[[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4qnronNdlxQ The Day the World Revived]]", had this troper in tears every time upon hearing it after his dog was euthanized.
** ''Cross'''s "[[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j-xrTeCB0hg&feature=related Leaving the Body]]", played over Dario's grave, is quite poignant...and made all the better for foreshadowing its powered-up heroic remix, "[[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LKaCk7wn13U Dragon Rider]]."
*In the Tears Of Joy/Hope/Happiness category:
**U2's "The Window In The Skies"
**Matchbox 20's "How Far We've Come"
**Try listening to the Stone Roses "Waterfall" when you're driving in the northern English moors.
**"Emily" by Joanna Newsom. Especially the last minute.
***Likewise with another song on the same album; ''Only Skin'', the whole song is something of a tear jerker, but the final crescendo had this troper weeping tears of pure joy.
** "Song For A Friend" by Jason Mraz. Especially the last bit.
* After watching episode 20 of ''MacrossFrontier'', this troper will never be able to listen to Sheryl's "Diamond Crevasse" without tearing up.
* "Someday we'll find it, the Rainbow Connection, the lovers, the dreamers, and me."
** The original version is a bit disputable since some people like to look at it as more of a hopeful song. However, nobody questions the version done by Big Bird at Henson's funeral. The hardest part to watch/hear is at the end, when Big Bird says a soft "Goodbye" to Henson... God damn it, why does it still hurt so much to even think about that?
*I've always found the song "Orion" by {{Metallica}} to be a tearjerker. It's a cool song, but what makes it a tearjerker is the fact that this is the song that was played at Cliff Burton's funeral after he was killed in a bus accident in 1986. Until recently (2006), the remaining members of the band had never played it live, partially as a tribute to their bandmate.
** Just to prove how much of a masochist he is, this Troper decided to read through the entire TearJerker section on this website while listening to "To Live Is To Die". What, IMHO makes this song special is that the band didn't sully their feelings by putting them in words. In the entire 10 minute song, the only lyrics are the following poem written by Cliff shortly before his death:
---> When a man lies, he murders a part of the world.\\
These are the pale deaths, which men miscall their lives.\\
All this I can no longer bare to witness.\\
Can not the Kingdom of Salvation take me home?
* Meatloaf's "Objects in the Mirror may appear closer than they are". If you don't cry after hearing this song, you have no soul.
* While it doesn't make this troper cry, Linkin Park's ''Hands Held High'' pumps her up yet makes her feel bad. In more or less the same vein, the video for ''Shadow of the Day'' is mighty powerful to her."Breaking The Habit" even brings the guy thst sings it to tears.
** This troper just plain cries at ''The Little Things Give You Away''.
** And then there's My December and Leave Out All The Rest. If the latter song doesn't make you shed a tear then you are souless.
* "Sunrise" by The Divine Comedy is a resigned, jaded song about the troubles in Ireland that builds first to despairing rage at the futility of it all ("Who cares what name you call a town? Who'll care when you're six feet beneath the ground?") then goes from ''there'' to a glorious, crying-with-joy crescendo.
* The original, piano-only version of the Kate Nash song "We Get On" causes this troper to shed a tear or two. "But I must admit that there is still a part of me/That still thinks that we might get on" The way she sings the song, just simply and so honestly- gets this troper EVERY time.
*Noah & The Whales 'Second Lover'. Self-explanatory, really. But the lyrics are quite haunting.
**'Hold My Hand As I'm Lowered' may qualify for this trope. Due to the music kicking in combined with the lines "Well, I fell in love with the world in you/And now I feel cold"
* ''[[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HmL3m2zcoOI Two Little Boys]]'', most famously sung by Rolf Harris. ''Do you think I would leave you dying... When there's room on my horse for two...'' *Sniff.*
** Thank god I'm not the only one...
*"Pour le Monde" by Crowded House is one of the most exquisitely sad midtempo pieces this troper's ever heard.
*"Ruby Tuesday." Specifically, the version used in ChildrenOfMen. Even more specifically, the scene ''where it's played'' in ChildrenOfMen. You know the one I'm talking about.
* The ending of ''Abbey Road''. ''Boy, you're gonna carry that weight''...
* Warning's "Watching from a distance" album is an example of the emotional power of great songwriting. Each song is the tale of a man who is pouring his heart out to the woman in his life. The voice of the singer may be irritating to a few but to most captures a real and heart wrenching emotion in a way that pop music could never capture.
* George Harrison's "Isn't It A Pity?" breaks [[DoctorNemesis This Troper's]] heart every time he listens to it.
** This troper has been literally brought to tears by Harrison's "[[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4MfBmK-DIQ8 Marwa Blues]]." A hauntingly beautiful instrumental by itself; the fact that it came out on his posthumous album ''Brainwashed'' just adds to the poignancy.
* Not very well known, but "The Beaches of St. Valery" by Battlefield Band is a heartbreaking WWII song.
** Having seen it live before the sad passing of Davy Steele - who sang it so well - I can agree. Also, the final verse of Jenny O' the Braes from the same album - "Rain, Hail or Shine" - can be a bit of a tearjerker too, but in a bittersweet way.
* On the same note as the above, the song "1000 Candles, 1000 Cranes" by Small Potatoes, about an American woman who lots two sons in WWII and a Japanese woman who lost her parents when the bomb was dropped on Japan. This troper tears up every single time.
** [[{{Pepinson}} This Troper]] has ''never even heard'' this song, but the title alone just made me cry...
* "Beloved Wife" by Natalie Merchant, a slow piano ballad with lyrics from the point of view of someone who's just lost their wife of 50 years.
* "He Doesn't Know Why" by Fleet Foxes has the power to make this troper incredibly emotional.
* ''Flame Trees'' by Cold Chisel. Especially in the movie ''Little Fish'', where this song about lost loves and small towns and long gone glory days is sung by a ''children's choir''.
--> Do you remember, nothing stopped us on the field, in our day
* This troper discovered J-pop during a hard time of her life, and for some reason she always teared each time she listened to Ayumi Hamasaki's "[[http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x119xs_ayumi-hamasaki-a-song-for-xx_events A Song for XX]]" (specially the more emotional re-recording for the A BEST). Then, [[ItGotWorse she found]] [[http://ayumi.primenova.com/lyrics/asongforxx.htm the translation of the lyrics]]...
** For this troper, it's [[http://ayumi.primenova.com/lyrics/endoftheworld.htm End of the World]]
* Sam Cooke's "A Change is Gonna Come", especially when you consider what's it's about.
* This contributor admits to a lump in the throat hearing the whole crowd at a Dinosaur Jr gig singing the ending of "Freak Scene"; 'Don't let me fuck up will you, 'cos when I need a friend it's still you'.
* "Walking After You" and "Next Year" by the Foo Fighters
* Less Than Jake can really bring on the wistful melancholy sometimes, just listen to "Screws Fall Out": ‘Friends leave as time fades away/The people and the places along the way/Without a doubt/Yeah, screws fall in and screws, they fall out', and then try looking at some old school photos.
* The Minutemen's nostalgic 'History Lesson Pt2' is a bit of a tear jerker when you consider the writer (D. Boon) died in a road crash a year after recording it.
* Sandy Denny's "Who Knows Where the Time Goes?".
* The riff from Thin Lizzy's "Downtown Sundown" has this effect on this contributor.
* Jimi Hendrix; "The Wind Cries Mary" and "Angel" - which even works as a spoken poem.
* We must mention The Pogues, and not just "Fairytale of New York". After a few beers on a winter's evening "The Broad Majestic Shannon" will also start the waterworks.
** "The Band Played Waltzing Matilda". That is all.
* "Georgia on My Mind" anyone?
* There's an old spiritual called Were You There, which is only sung on Maundy Thursday or Good Friday. It's such a simply little tune, but incredibly poignant- it makes this troper bawl every time.
* Also, thanks to the Concert for George, I'll See You In My Dreams.
* VNV Nation's song "Forsaken." Its only vocal release was on a rare EP, and after reading the lyrics and hearing it sung, you'll know why.
** If you feel like sobbing, [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NYjFD1QSttQ here it is]]. Ronan's vocal rawness just adds that extra layer of gutwrenching.
* On ''SesameStreet'', Ernie's song "I Don't Want To Live on the Moon" works for this troper. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i9OVTfgVJ8Y
** [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MgfxKm0m1Vs This one]] is even worse.
** Grover's "[[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fj-NV1h7_cA What Do I Do When I'm Alone?]]" is the sad Sesame song for this troper.
* "Innocent" by Our Lady Peace. This troper can barely hold them back during the chorus "I remember feeling low/I remember losing hope/I remember all the feelings and the day they stopped" [[{{Skazka}} This troper]], however, only really starts to sob on the second section and the line that 'she wishes she were a dancer/and she'd never heard of cancer...' These aren't pretty tears. These are the real thing.
* Manic Street Preachers, Nobody Loved You. A song written by Nicky Wire (bassist/lyricist) about the loss of Richey Edwards (former lyricist/guitarist, now missing). Example lines. "Cherry blossom tree/but at least you are free/Nobody loved you/Like me" can make me tear up.
** Also by the Manics, Sepia. A B-Side, also about Richey.
* The song "Italy and France" by Debi Smith, a song about a mother comparing her "different" special-needs child with flying to Italy when she thought she was going to France. This troper, who has an autistic brother and is herself bisexual, was sobbing nothing short of hysterically with just four lines:
--->We landed in Rome, and I had to make
--->the best of what seemed a colossal mistake.
--->But as it turned out, as it unwound
--->I loved Italy; I was spellbound...
* Pretty much all of the album ''Electroshock Blues'' by Eels, especially Dead of Winter and the final track P.S. You Rock My World ("...everyone is dying, and maybe it's time to live")
** Also especially "Last Stop: This Town". It helps if you know beforehand that it's about the death of the songwriter's mother.
* For some reason, a certain college a capella group's version of "Walk of Shame"- which is a ''comedy'' song, mostly- makes this troper cry. Mostly it's the line 'I pray to God he stays asleep' at the very beginning, before embarking on the (titular) walk home after hooking up with a random fellow college student. Some lines make me giggle like an idiot, but that line... um, doesn't. (And this troper has never needed to walk home from someone's house after a ''junior high sleepover'', let alone after sleeping with a guy while drunk. It's all the vocals. Damn.)
* Eels' "Somebody Loves You" chokes this troper up whenever she listens to it.
** What about ''I Need Some Sleep''? One of the saddest songs I've ever heard.
* Luke Kelly's powerful tenor and genuine emotion in his rendition of [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=55OBEs98Pj4 The Town I Loved So Well]] is so moving, especially the end of the penultimate verse:
-->"With their tanks/and their guns/Oh my God, what have they done/to the town I loved so well?"
* "One Sweet Day" by Boyz II Men. This single troper listened to a live rendition of it last night, and had to suppress his depression.
--> And I know you're shining down on me from Heaven \\
Like so many friends we've lost along the way \\
And I know eventually we'll be together \\
One sweet day
* Nick Drake. His biography is depressing alone, but the album "Pink Moon" has ThisTroper weeping. It doesn't help that Nick commited suicide a few years after this album and you can hear how completely he had given up on the world.
** This troper always cries at "Fruit Tree" especially since Nick wound up basically living the song.
* You might laugh, but "Snuff" by Slipknot gets this troper all misty-eyed. That might be because it details a really messy breakup, and the possible suicide of one of the people involved.
** "Vermillion Part 2", the slow version. Chilling.
* "I Know What Kind of Love This Is" was kind of depressing when The Nields did it, but when Cry Cry Cry covered it... [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin yeah.]]
* I know it's up on the video games page, but Adagio For Strings (Homeworld) deserves mention; that recording never fails, even without the scene it plays during.
* Likewise most likely has its own, but Everything You Ever from Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog.
** Seconded - furthermore (at least for this troper), listening to the songs without visual input just intensifies the effect.
* "Wild Horses," by TheRollingStones. This troper just timed it: 22 seconds from hitting "play" to swallowing ''hard'' around the lump in her throat.
** This troper gets choked up by the cover done by The Sundays, but that's mostly because of the [[BuffytheVampireSlayer Buffy]] connection.
** Come on, nobody remembers ''Ran out of tears''?
** Angie... Angie, ain't it good to be alive?
* The circumstances of his death doesn't help, but Elliot Smith's "Waltz No. 3" is a punch to the gut.
** Mainly because of the circumstances of his death, the entirety of "From a Basement on a Hill" gives this troper shivers. Particularly "King's Crossing". ...."I can't prepare for death anymor than I already have..."
*This troper found herself bawling at Sam Roberts' "Hard Road".
* It's a lovely song in its own right, but for anyone who has ever watched {{NANA}}, Olivia's "A Little Pain" is a guaranteed tear-jerker.
** Along those same lines, Anna Tsuchiya's "Kuroi Namida". This troper has no idea what she's singing, but the pure emotion in her voice is breathtaking.
* Counting Crows, "Amy Hit The Atmosphere."
* Kris Kristofferson's "Epitaph (Black and Blue)", which is about Janis Joplin's death, and has been reducing this troper to tears since before she knew who Janis Joplin was.
-->But when she was dying / Lord, we let her down. / There's no use cryin' / It can't help her now
** Another Kristofferson song: "Jodie and the Kid". Especially the sheer simplicity with which the lyrics state, "It gets a little lonesome...."
* Dream Theater's "Disappear", "Vacant", and "Space-Dye Vest." "And I'll smile and learn to pretend/And I'll never be open again/And I'll have no more dreams to defend/And I'll never be open again?" God-''damn''.
** Not to mention "Goodnight Kiss", a song about post-partum depression. And that is merely the pinnacle of the suite of depression that is Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence. Parts of Scenes from a Memory also qualify, especially Scene V: Through Her Eyes and Scene IX: Finally Free, bridges the gap between {{Nightmare Fuel}} and TearJerker.
** The Budokan DVD version of "Disappear" is worse. If I remember right, the singer wrote it about his mother's death, and it's easy to see when they play it on that particular DVD, that he's very, very close to breaking down at the end of the song. The Ministry of Lost Souls is pretty depressing, too.
*** The Ministry of Lost Souls is depressing, sad, heartwarming, and disturbing all at the same time. For those who don't know: A man dies to save a woman from drowning, but she's unable to enjoy her life because she loved him too much. [[spoiler: His spirit returns to take her with him.]] The final "Don't turn your back on paradise" always gives this troper the chills.
** Hollow Years. Just Hollow Years...
** From their new cd: "The Best of Times" is TearJerker of the heartwarming variety: the drummer wrote it in memory of his late father, reminiscing about how great it was when they were together.
* Neil Young's "The Needle and the Damage Done" is one of the saddest songs about drug addiction there is.
* [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZqRTtkEHrA4 I'll never find another girl like you... for happy endings it takes two... with fire and ice, your dream won't come true...]]
* The music video for ''[[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BVTyLqkez6A If I Were A Boy]]'' was just shown to this troper a day or two ago, and mere mentions of it will make me whimper, if not sob. There's a scene in the middle, where the switched roles (Beyoncé as sexy, callous police officer having an affair with her partner, and the male love interest playing the suffering spouse) revert... maybe the song concept is a tad {{narm}}, but it makes me cry like a child.
* Biffy Clyro's "Folding Stars". Sure, it's a depressing song in itself, but when you find out who Eleanor is, then it ''really'' hits you.
* Listen to the lyrics of "Castles In The Sand" by Jimi Hendrix and see which verse you can get to without crying. Nobody ever makes it past verse three.
* ''[[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jcLGLbYyeHQ Little Did She Know (She Kissed a Hero)]]''. Back when this song was released, this troper heard it (for the first and only time) on his car's radio as he pulled in to work one evening, and he ended up starting late because he'd spent ten minutes sitting in the driver's seat, too shaken and misty-eyed to even take the keys out of the ignition.
* "Shangri-La" by the Kinks. ''You can't go anywhere...''
* [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pxAya2bC78Y JENINA]] from KimagureOrangeRoad
* Knowing the story behind Don [=McLean=]'s ''American Pie'', this troper considers this one of the saddest songs in rock history. The upbeat music doesn't help, either. The Day the Music Died indeed.
** Even ''not'' knowing the story behind it, this troper burst into tears listening to it, just at the prospect of music dying.
** This is one of the very few songs that can make this troper cty--excuse me, ''cry'', consistently.
***What that troper said. It was sad enough with just the song, but add PCTYD? Yeah. There's a reason I rarely listen to it in public.
* "Hear You Me," by Jimmy Eat World. "May angels lead you in..." It certainly doesn't help that the first time ThisTroper heard it was on a very well put together [and now taken down] Firefly vid where freakin' ''Kaylee'' actually ''died''.
** This troper has to add that this song was one of the things that helped me cope with and express myself after the death of a friend. Made worse by the fact that it could've been written for her -- she died young, and the people at her funeral kept extolling her virtues, pointing out how much of a positive impact she'd made on them. Really goes with the line "A song for a heart so big/God wouldn't let it live."
* {{Nirvana}}. "All Apologies". The final part with the distorted guitar and Kurt singing "All in all is all we are"... choke-inducing at least. ThisTroper even deleted his copy of "Gallons of Rubbing Alcohol..." because it ruined the effect. The ''MTV Unplugged in New York'' album also has tons of this.
* "Then You Look at Me", as sung by Celine Dion, from the ending credits of ''Bicentennial Man''. It helps that it plays immediately after the DownerEnding (or is it a BittersweetEnding? YourMileageMayVary), and its tune is in fact played as an instrumental when [[spoiler:Andrew and Portia die]].
* Oddly enough, the old song "Laurie (Strange Things Happen in This World)." This troper can't recall the artist who sang it, but it's a retelling of the old ghost story about the mysterious girl at the dance who asks for a ride home, and the young man realizes he forgot to get his sweater back from her, only to go back to her house and discover "she died a year ago today." The part that always gets him is the last lines (not so much the words, but the tune): "And then he saw his sweater/Lying there upon her grave."
* Styx's "Babe", for this troper.
* Poe's "Amazed", particularly this line (especially within the context of the album):
-->''The voice of my father, still loud as before''
-->''It used to scare me, but not anymore''
* This troper finds hymns/church music to be effective tearjerkers as well-- but only as she's singing them, or contemplating lyrics, not just listening. People probably think she's insane. Recently, it's been ''In Christ Alone'' (when last sung, I had to duck out before the line 'no pow'r of hell, no scheme of man', because I was already actually in tears) but it looks like the Christmas season is coming early-- and with the traditional songs (none of this young person crap, with their tight pants and their rock and roll...) a whole freaking ton of similar tearjerkers. Sentimental? Yes. But ow.
* Scorpions' "Still Loving You," especially the last few lines. It doesn't help that Klaus Meine actually sounds genuinely heartbroken when he sings it.
-->''Yes I've hurt your pride''
-->''And I know what you've been through''
-->''You should give me a chance''
-->''This can't be the end''
-->''I'm still loving you''
* This troper likes to think he isn't easy to bring to tears (well, when it comes to music), but, even so, there are a couple songs that will make me tear up very easily: Alive by Pearl Jam, Don't Look Back In Anger by Oasis, Who Wants to Live Forever by Queen, Love Reign O'er Me by The Who, Top of the World by Van Halen, Welcome to the Black Parade by My Chemical Romance, Amanda by Boston, and I Don't Want to Miss A Thing by Aerosmith. For most of them, the subject matter isn't really what gets me, it's the overwhelming emotion, especially in the choruses.
* Kilkelly, Ireland never fails to bring this troper to tears. The story of an Irish immigrant, told through the letters written to him by his family back at home.
* [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sJi41RWaTCs Christmas in the Trenches]].
** This troper listened to that song a lot as a child (his mother was fond of John [=McCutcheon=]), but is still brought to tears by it.
* This troper had to quit choral group in elementary school when he was ''completely unable'' to finish singing "The Leader Of The Pack" without crying.
*"Momma Sed" by Puscifer. This [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SwRNLGF2tFw disturbing fan video]] set to clips of FantasticPlanet doesn't help.
* "I'm Your Moon," by Jonathan Coulton, describe elsewhere on this very Wiki as "the most touching song about astronomical taxonomy ever written." Yes, it's quite literally about Charon trying to cheer Pluto up after being demonted to dwarf planet. But really, this troper can't NOT tear up at the gentle sweetness of it. "From out here, it's the rest of the world that looks so small..."
* Everyone I Love Is Dead by {{Type O Negative}} reduces this troper to tears every time she hears it
** From the same album, [[http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=3073082 Everything Dies]].
* You Raise Me Up is pure, unadulterated {{Narm}}. The [[EverythingSoundsSexierInFrench Japanese version]], ''Inori'', is the opening for RomeoXJuliet... and is [[http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=VY7iXJyy1ys heartbreakingly sad and beautiful.]]
** "You Raise Me Up" is narm until it is sung by this troper's little brother's close friend - who has Asperger's syndrome and whose father is mostly (if not totally) out of the picture - at his middle school's eighth grade talent showcase. He sang it directly to his mother, and he has one of the most pure, gorgeous voices this troper has ever heard in her life. There is a very good reason he was the last to go. As this troper's mother put it: "[That song] was designed to make mommies cry." There wasn't a dry eye in the house.
* What About Everything by Carbon Leaf is bittersweet all on its own. But add Miyazaki footage, [[http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=3Q7Ced0L3iQ and...]]
* Some might consider it {{Narm}} in a terrible game, but "1000 Words" and the accompanying animation (namely Lenne and Shuyin's death) from ''FinalFantasyX2'' has inspired tears in this troper.
*** This troper agrees with you. Who says all FFX-2 was good at was Fanservice...?
* Duran Duran's ''Ordinary World'' and "Save a Prayer".
* Garbage's "Drive You Home" stops this troper dead every time.
* The Pretenders, "I'll Stand By You". NOT the [[SoBadItsHorrible bog-awful]] Girls Aloud version.
* ''Radio Protector'' by 65 Days of Static. It's an instrumental, but that doesn't stop it from being absolutely beautiful.
* In this troper's case, [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a2Cn6BqE4TM "Da Slockit Light"]] by Tom Anderson will always have that tearjerking position in memory, due to it's use at his father's funeral. It was by request of this troper's father only a few months before - in a half joking way - and yet hearing it played in a packed church memorial service on a solo set of uillean pipes broke more than a few people down.
* "Amitriptyline" by John Vanderslice: angsty lyrics delivered in a quietly wrenching tone. The song is about being forced to take prescription drugs (amitriptyline is used to treat depression), and the singer sounds so desperate and yet resigned, telling the listener "please remember me as I was" and not to worry about him as he sings goodbye. To date it is one of the most claustrophobic and depressing songs this troper has every heard.
* Gordon Lightfoot's [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iquCHSkmUek&feature=related "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald"]] also gets this troper going slightly, even more so when one realises that despite finding the wreck to this day we still don't know exactly what happened to the ship or the 29 men on board her.
* {{Your Mileage May Vary}} but in this troper's case, a short segment of music from the documentary 'Empress of Ireland: Lost Not Forgotten' gets him going most times. [[http://www.sea-viewdiving.com/books_videos/empress_library/empressdetail.htm Check out the Bow and Stern videos to see what I mean]]. The imagary along with the music and the knowledge of what happened that night always brings a lump to the throat.
* "[[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TWJTKc2-SWU Mama]]" by Il Divo.
* Although many of the songs on its soundtrack may belong on the CrowningMusicOfAwesome page, Gurren Lagann has a few heartbreakingly sad pieces as well. Off the top of my head: "[[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UVUOr9Q0TY8 Love Conservative]]" and "With Your XXX..." (???XXX?...). The latter may not seem like a tearjerker, but look at it in context and it's both heartwarming and beautifully sad.
* Kaizers Orchestra's "170" is about an soldier who's sent out on the battlefield and knows that he won't return to see his wife and kid again. It gets especially heartbreaking when the general asks him if he's ready (we're waiting for an answer, 170).
* [[IAmNoMakingThisUp It sounds unbelievable at first]], but ''The Branding of the Gear'' from Metalocalypse; notable in that it isn't a sad song at all, but a loyalty anthem (face it, if you've ever dedicated yourself to someone who pays no attention to you, this is the song you wish they'd play for you). This troper tears up every time she hears it. Also doubles as CrowningMusicOfAwesome for the scene in the show it plays in. Plus, it's metal.
--->''You're here because''
--->''You're one of us''
* Migue Bosé's song [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lNHVmpy0qgM Morir de amor]]. The video is sorta Narm-y by modern standards (specially considering Miguel's... wardrobe), but the lyrics about someone trying to cope with an absolutely broken heart and the despair after losing their significant other breaks your heart when you think of it.
* Death's "Voice of the Soul" from their final album, which is a somber acoustic piece with electric guitar noodling throughout the song. A sharp contrast from the death metal/progressive metal workings of the rest of the album.
* Poet's of the Fall's "The Beautiful Ones". ''Why do we sacrifice our beautiful souls? How do you break a heart of gold?''.
* Bebo Norman's "Britney". A beautiful song that serves as an apology to Britney Spears for all the crap the media put her through.
* How has "Everytime" by Britney Spears been forgotten? ''Everytime I try to fly, I fall. Without my wings, I feel so small.''
* For a metal band you wouldn't expect {{Kamelot}} to pull out one of these, but Don't You Cry (written by one of the members about their deceased father) certainly qualifies.
* "I Can't Stop Loving You" by Ray Charles. It became even worse for [[SayaAensland this troper]] after she started associating it with an original novel character of hers; an [[BreakTheCutie insane]] [[WhoWantsToLiveForever immortal]] still grieving for his long-dead lover.
--->They say that time heals a broken heart
--->But time has stood still since we've been apart
* "Jeremy" by Pearl Jam. About a guy to committed suicide in the middle of his English class.
--->Daddy didn't give attention
--->Oh, to the fact that Mommy didn't care.
--->King Jeremy the Wicked,
--->Oh, ruled his world.
* "And So It Goes" by Billy Joel. This troper is often reduced to tears when she hears it, since it pretty much sums up the tumultuous relationship she had with her best friend/ex-boyfriend.
--->So I would choose to be with you
--->That's if the choice were mine to make
--->But you can make decisions too
--->And you can have this heart to break
** More Billy Joel agony: This troper's seen grown men cry at the end of "Goodnight Saigon", when all the voices, presumably of the soldier's lost comrades, join in with
--->And we would all go down together.
--->Yes, we would all go down together.
--->We said we'd all go down together.
** And dear, God, "Lullabye (Goodnight, My Angel)". This troper was part of a children's choir that sang this, and there wasn't a single adult not in tears. Once it was explained to us that the song was written for his daughter in the middle of a messy divorce, we cried too.
--->Someday, we'll all be gone,
--->But lullabies go on and on.
--->They never die,
--->That's how you and I will be.
** "Leningrad" used to kill me when I was a kid. I love that it's based on a true story.
* Motorhead - '1916'.
* Bon Jovi - Someday I'll Be Saturday Night. Something about the stories of so many hopeless lives calls to this troper.
* Sydney band The Whitlams definitely have a few that come under this category. The band started in the early nineties with Tim Freedman, Stevie Plunder, and Andy Lewis. Stevie committed suicide in 1996, Tim wrote [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d8cirkULmyU Charlie No. 3]] two weeks later. Andy committed suicide in 1999, prompting Tim to write "The Curse Stops Here" and [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9mMWMWvfjvw Blow Up The Pokies]]. These three songs, along with Stevie's earlier ode to self-destruction, "Following My Own Tracks", never fail to make this troper cry. (Especially the live version of "The Curse Stops Here", where Tim usually ends up welling up as well.)
*[[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJRthpxDM10 "Citizen Soldiers"]] by 3 Doors Down is ''guaranteed'' to make any American with the tiniest bit of respect for their country's armed forces break down, whether in normal tears or the [[ManlyTears manly]] variety. The National Guard recruitment video just adds an extra layer onto that.
** "American" not required. This Troper generally find American patriotism suffoctingly cheesy, and she cried just reading the lyrics.
* "Imagine" makes this troper break down in tears whenever she hears it. It's something about how heartfelt the entire song is, and how the lyrics describe an impossibly beautiful dream. As well, I can't help but feel that with everything happening right now, the world is doomed - so there'll never be a true realisation of the vision described there. Global warming, forests disappearing, coral reefs dying... And there still isn't peace, acceptance of others instead of prejudice and dicrimination, and resolution of social issues, at all, it seems...
--->Imagine no possessions
--->I wonder if you can
--->No need for greed or hunger
--->A brotherhood of man
--->Imagine all the people
--->Sharing all the world...
* Take That's [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KII1ruAfvsg Rule The World]], inspired by the film Stardust.
* [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hw7G4MIr5sE Thunderchild]] from Jeff Wayne's WarOfTheWorlds musical. I dare you not to shed at least one tear at "Farewell Thunderchild!"
--->There were ships of shapes and sizes
--->Scattered out along the bay
--->And I thought I heard her calling
--->As the steamer pulled away
--->The Invaders must have seen them
--->As across the coast they filed
--->Standing firm between them, there lay...
--->THUNDER CHILD!
**This troper is always singing through her tears by this part:
--->...the smoke of battle clearing
--->Over graves in waves defiled
* This Troper gets teary when she hears [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UcTcLP9YF04 Missed the Boat]] by Modest Mouse.
--->Oh and I know this of myself
--->We listen more to life's end gong
--->Than the sound of life's sweet bells
* "Ornament", by the Trans-Siberian Orchestra. Allow me to put it in some perspective. Imagine you're separated from someone you care about. You don't really know why. You don't know where this person is, and have no means to contact them. Oh, and it's Christmas.
** The concert version tells it as a full-blown story, then ''resolves'' it in the next song, "Old City Bar". See: CrowningMomentOfHeartwarming.
* "Oboro" by Shibasaki Kou aka RUI. This troper sometimes can't listen to the song ''at all'' without bursting into tears.
*"The Year Summer Ended in June" by Misery Signals is pretty heartbreaking. A couple of the band's current members used to be in another band. The reason they aren't anymore? The other members of the band died in a car wreck they were all in. This song is about that. The line, "Man, I'd give this whole thing up for you" is especially hard for this troper to hear.
* The final songs on each Garbage album are, in chronological and progressive tear-inducing effectivity order (for this troper, anyways), as follows:
** [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gfsQEpQyxvA Milk]]
** [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4jmk1Mlmnck You Look So Fine]]
** [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HJGtqLnJvc4 So Like A Rose]]
** [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mLQ8XOFotJ8 Happy Home]]
*** Mmyeah. Take your pick.
* [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EFCqwedWHRk&feature=related Sara]] by Bob Dylan is on its own, a well written, melancholic love song. But realizing that it was one of the few songs that Bob Dylan wrote about his personal life- in an attempt to salvage his failing marriage makes the emotion within it a lot more powerful. And then, you find out that it ''didn't work''.
* [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KG1MezAd2nw Goodnight, Travel Well]] by The Killers.
-->Everything you loved, and every time you try,
-->Everybody's watching, everybody cry.
-->Stay, don't leave me, the stars can wait for your sign, don't signal now.
* "L.G. Fuad" (Lets Get Fucked Up and Die) by Motion City Soundtrack
-->I believe that I can overcome this and beat everything in the end
-->But I choose to abuse for the time being
-->Maybe I'll win, but for now I've decided to die
** So is Hold Me Down, My Favorite Accident, Time Turned Fragile, Mary Go Round, and Broken Heart when coupled with its music video.
* Simon & Garfunkel's "Seven o'Clock News/Silent Night". There's just something in the juxtaposition of the calm and peaceful melody and all the violence in the news report.
** Just stop an really pay attention the next time you hear "The Sound of Silence".
* "There Were Roses" performed by Cara Dillon. Deeply ironic Northern Ireland violence.
* Rammstein has some. Yes, it's a German band, yes, it's NDH, yes, the singer may be the scariest guy alive... But God, isn't [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lWd_7cI4FUw Ohne Dich]] just... *sniff*
-->Without you I cannot be
-->Without you
-->With you I am alone too
-->Without you
-->Without you I count the hours without you
-->With you the seconds stand still
-->They aren't worth it without you
** "''Klavier''" talks about a guy who loved a woman, and who liked to watch her while she played a piano. She slept with another one, he kills her. Horrible? Yes. Then... why it's so ''sad''? (''There, at the piano/ I listened to her/ and when her performance began/ I held my breath'')
** "''[[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A8ZlCL9pyDg Nebel]]''". Oh God, "''Nebel''".
--> The last kiss was so long ago
-->the last kiss
-->he does not remember it anymore
** "''Mutter''" was pure horror and agony all in one, especially with the music video. The song is an anti-genetic engineering/cloning song, and the music video features the lead singer naked and bald in a concrete hole in the ground sort of closet prison. Another person, presumably the singer's clone, is making an epic journey through a swamp and terrain to get to the hole, where he brings a bowl of water for the naked man to drink. The horrifying part is this--you have ''no idea'' whether the naked, imprisoned one is the clone, or if the well-dressed version is the clone, having replaced the original.
** "''Rosenrot''", about a group of priests (the band members) coming upon a village, where they are all enticed and utterly enchanted by a very young girl (Rosenrot). Every night, they gather together in a circle and flagellate themselves, likely for thinking impure thoughts about her. The lead singer ends up being totally seduced by her, and she manipulates him into murdering her parents. When he emerges from the house, she smiles, then shouts, and the entire town wakes up and realizes he's murdered her family. They burn him at the stake, and the girl is the ''first one'' to toss the torch onto the pile to set him aflame. AND she's hugging one of the other priests for support.
* "Gravedigger", off Dave Matthews' solo album.
--->Muriel Stonewall, 1903 to 1954
--->Lost both of her babies in the second Great War
--->Now, you should never have to watch
--->As your only children are lowered in the ground
--->I mean, never have to bury your own babies.
* [[http://www.imeem.com/people/cHBc0L/music/0s7Yy_-D/hoshi-no-koe-through-the-years-and-far-away/ "Through the Years and Far Away"]] from the soundtrack to ''Voices of a Distant Star''. Every time This Troper hears it, all he can think about is the final words from the OVA and cry like a little bitch. Watching the OVA just makes it worse.
* You Could Be Happy by Snow Patrol. About a guy who, after a break-up, still loves his girlfriend and misses her. [[IWantMyBelovedToBeHappy But he wants his beloved to be happy.]]
* "Russians" by Sting. That's all that needs to be said.
* "It Makes No Difference" by The Band.
** "Whispering Pines". It's especially heartbreaking if you know anything about the life and death of its singer/composer, Richard Manuel.
** Also "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down", "Acadian Driftwood". Robbie Robertson had a knack for writing these types of songs.
* [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQVMMkyKhwM ''Ashitaka and San'']], the last piece of music that plays in ''PrincessMononoke'', makes this troper well up.
* This one is probably more of a CrowningMomentOfHeartWarming than anything, but the ending to the [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NxdrgYy_SE8 video]] for Taylor Swift's "Love Story" gets this troper. Particularly when the couple being compared to good ol' dead Romeo and Juliet, having been split up by Juliet's dad, reunite, and the chorus is sung a bit differently...*sniff* It's better if you hear the whole song.
-->[[spoiler:Marry me, Juliet, you'll never have to be alone]]
-->[[spoiler:I love you, and that's all I really know]]
-->[[spoiler:I talked to your dad, you'll pick out a white dress]]
-->[[HappilyEverAfter It's a love story, baby, just say yes]]
**This troper was deeply affected by Taylor Swift's "White Horse", with its quite frankly miserable lyrics about having overly high hopes for a relationship. Take a wild guess why.
* Breaking Benjamin's 'Unknown Soldier'.
-->''Show me what it's like
-->To dream in black and white
-->So I can leave this world behind.''
* Yellowcard's Believe, a song about firefighters who die saving people. This troper especially begins to tear up at the chorus of 'everything is going to be alright, be strong, believe'.
* Evanescence's 'Missing', 'Hello', 'My Last Breath' and 'Everybody's Fool'. One is about someone who asks themselves if anyone would miss them (and implies suicide with the line 'Even though I'm the sacrifice'), the second one is about someone who's broken down due to a trauma - a girl's death. the third one is sung by a dying person to ther loved one who can't do anything to avoid it, and the fourth one is some severe self loathing (and [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ewO5NWQ97sI the music video]] ''does not help at all'').
"My Immortal" does it for this troper.
* One Republic's 'Come Home' and 'Dreaming Out Loud'.
* Think Marilyn Manson can't do tearjerkers? Just listen to 'The Speed Of Pain'.
** Or 'Coma White'. Or 'Putting Holes In Happiness'. YMMV at the latter.
** 1/4th of all Manson's songs are {{TearJerker}}s.
-->"I know it's the '''Last Day on Earth'''\\
We'll be together while the planet dies\\
I know it's the last day on Earth\\
We'll never say goodbye."

-->'''Coma White''': "A pill to make you numb\\
A pill to make you dumb\\
A pill to make you anybody else\\
All the drugs in this world\\
Won't save her from herself."

** ''Count to Six and Die'' is even more of a tearjerker and NightmareFuel when you realize the "counting to six" and the five clicking sounds at the end really mean... [[spoiler: a revolver with five empty rounds]]
-->"She's got her eyes open wide\\
she's got the dirt and spit of the world\\
her mouth on the metal\\
the lips of a scared little girl\\

-->She's got her Christian prescriptures\\
and death has crawled in her ear\\
like elevator music of songs\\
that she shouldn't hear\\

-->and it spins around 1...2...3\\
and we all lay down 4...5...6\\
some do it fast \\
some do it better in smaller amounts..."
* 'Halloween' is all about Mark's fear of ending up alone and have all of his friends, [Hoyay especially Roger], dying on him, and this troper having the same fears and being also called Marc (c (and o) instead of K, small difference) can relate.
* [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sVNAp1C8LIw The Freshmen]] by The Verve Pipe.
-->My best friend took a week's vacation to forget her\\
His girl took a week's worth of valium and slept\\
And now he's guilt stricken sobbin' with his head on the floor\\
Thinks about her now and how he never really wept he says

-->I can't be held responsible\\
'Cause she was touching her face\\
I won't be held responsible\\
She fell in love in the first place
* Saint Etienne's "Teenage Winter", the centrepiece of the ''Tales From Turnpike House'' ConceptAlbum. "Holding on to something / And not knowing exactly what you're waiting for" may be the perfect summation of this troper's life, the four-fold repetition of the chorus with the strings in the middle is just gorgeous, and by the closing coda even the album's characters are in tears.
-->"Mums with pushchairs outside Sainsburys
-->Tears in their eyes
-->They'll never buy another [[BeeGees Gibb Brothers]] record again
-->Their old 45s gathering dust
-->The birthday cards they couldn't face throwing away..."
** And the main character of the album gets a Tear Jerker all to himself four tracks earlier, with "Last Orders For Gary Stead" - having spent most of the album as a [[TheAlcoholic comedy alcoholic]], we finally find out exactly why he's DrowningHisSorrows (it's because of [[spoiler:a rather awkward divorce]]).
* [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KYlrrAWCTRg Pittance of Time by Terry Kelly]] makes [[{{FullMetalCookies}} this troper]] break down in tears when they play it at Remembrance Day at her high school, and if you have a soul it will probably do the same thing to you.
* Paschendale, by IronMaiden. The battle it talks about is bad enough, but this magnificent song both makes you angry and brings a tear in your eye. "Rust your bullets with his tears/Let me tell you 'bout his years."
** "Blood Brothers", inspired by the death of Steve Harris' father.
* "Feed the Birds" from ''MaryPoppins'', the bridge passage. Not only are the lyrics themselves tear-inducing enough, but the second time the bridge is played it is only a wordless, haunting chorus sung as the camera pans back out from the snowglobe.
-->''All around the cathedral the saints and apostles''
-->''Look down as she sells her wares''
-->''Although you can't see it, you know they are smiling''
-->''Each time someone shows that he cares.''
** Oh ''man'', for some reason, the other songs on this page barely even touched me, but just listening to that one song made tears well up in my eyes...
* Oh, God. Belle and Sebastian, "Like Dylan in the Movies", third verse:
-->You're worth the trouble and you're the pain
-->You're worth the worry, I would do the same
-->If we all went back to another time
-->I will love you over
-->I will love you...
* This troper sniffles whenever Little Wing plays. Ditto Crosby Stills and Nash's Find the Cost of Freedom, especially over the final coda of the Woodstock film.
* X Japan's Forever Love is sad on its own, but just watch the [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cnD5U8oLlow live version]], and try not to cry. To make matters worse, bear in mind that the band thought that this song was the last they'd ever perform together, AND that hide, the pink-haired guitarist, had just a few months to live at this point. Never mind tissues, you're going to need a bucket.
** Also speaking of which, the first music video X Japan did when they reformed recently seemed to be a standard performance PV, spiced up by random clips of the Saw films. That is, until the camera showed a billboard with a massive picture of the deceased hide's face on it, before cutting to a close-up of his old guitar on a stand. Nnk.
* Domino by Genesis, the song is about a man who tries to search for his love, who he knows is dead, dreams about the good times he had with his life, but he gets nightmares about the fact that his place is getting blown up and by the time it gets to the part of the kids getting vapourised by an atomic bomb (Maybe, it doesn't specify what liquidises them.) The fact that the song is based on the fact that Israelites bombed a Lebanese hotel for no goddamn reason.
*Boy Soldier by Johnny Clegg gets me every time. Especially the chorus.
-->Once we played in the morning light
-->Once we were children
-->Then one morning they came
-->The soldiers took us away
* The song "Seize the Day" by Avenged Sevenfold. They may be a hard rock band, but damn they know how to yank at your heartstrings. The guitar solo in the middle of it, [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0-38wFpXE3Q especially in the video]] is beautiful. (Also noting the video is quite a TearJerker). Their songs "MIA" and "Dear God" may also qualify.
* Then you've got Demon Hunter. Hard medal, head-banging awesomeness. And then there's [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eEA-ri00xEI&feature=related this]] song. ThisTroper had heard it on the radio, but didn't really catch many of the words. So she looked up the lyrics while listening to it again when she got home. And bawled.
* [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=geurpRYXqoA&feature=related Zero]] by Hawk Nelson. The music video made it all the worse.
* Needs more Audioslave. There's something about "Like a Stone" that usually kicks in sometime around the halfway point of the guitar solo that tells me that if a guitar could cry, that's what it would sound like. Also from their first album, "I Am the Highway" and "Getaway Car".
*Nickel Creek's [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ARIr6S_0lAQ "The Lighthouse's Tale"]]. Odd as having a narrator being a lighthouse is, the song is still weep material.
** Unless you're this troper, and you were too busy being in awe over how PRETTY the song is to be sad.
** It's especially tearjerking when you combine it with some [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WUnPo2mTI9c incredibly emotive ASL-singing]]. (Yes, it's possible to sing in sign language. Have a look. Bring a tissue.)
* Christina Aguilera's song Hurt. I lost my mum really soon after this song was released, and it hits me harder every time all things never said.
* Diana Ross' [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aVlbbk4SPC4 "Missing You"]] - her tribute to her fallen friend, Marvin Gaye. The video ratchets things up by including Tami Terrell and Ross' bandmate, Florence Ballard.
* "Patches" - originally by The Chairmen Of The Board, but [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5rhy2rBqrao popularized by Clarence Carter.]] This troper was 12 the first time he heard it and had to go sit by himself for a while.
* Great Big Sea's ''Fisherman's Lament''. [[http://www.greatbigsea.com/music/discography/songdetails.aspx?songid=7530df09-17f9-4501-9fdf-0b32f554037e The lyrics speak for themselves]], but it's about losing the only life you've ever known, the loss of much of what your home province is known for, the future of said province... the anger and hurt and the feeling of betrayal are there in spades. Goosebumps every time [[TaelNightengale this troper]] ever hears it.
* Stan Rogers. Go listen to "Northwest Passage", then try "Barrett's Privateers".
-->Goddamn them all, I was told
-->We'd cruise the seas for American gold
-->We'd fire no guns, shed no tears
-->Now I'm a broken man on a Halifax pier
-->The last of Barrett's Privateers.
* The video to Kate Bush's ''This Woman's Work'' can reduce [[CrypticMirror This Troper]] to tears every time she sees it. Especially the ending which doesn't tell you whether the woman dies or not.
* ''Who Knew'' by P!nk. Especially knowing the story behind it - she wrote it for a guy friend of hers who died of a drug overdose when he was in high school.
* Kansas' ''Dust in the Wind''. Nihilism at its finest.
* "Your Fancy" by 1000 Funerals has driven this troper to tears on numerous occasions. A Funeral Doom Metal project from Iran that was tragically cut short when one of the members got married and was forced to abandon it because her husband didn't approve of metal. [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e47k5KgPnCM Listen]] and you will hear a sorrow that resonates with all humanity.
* The Police's Message in a Bottle. Unless you're actually playing the song, its hard to not cry.
* Jean-Jacques Goldman's "Pas Toi". [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5q6ExxFD9YU Oh, c'est pas juste / C'est mal écrit / Comme un injure / Plus qu'un mépris...]]
* To say that Simple plan might be able to break down the average teenager is an understatement. To save that the song ''Untitled'' could make someone cry like a family member died is an even bigger understatement.
* Rancid's "Otherside" - A tribute to Lars's brother. "I love you Robert, and I always will"
* The lyrics of "Open Door," an obscure song by Genesis, can basically be summed up as "I have to leave, and I'll never see you again." This troper has made two people cry just by playing them this song (although, in fairness, one of them was already upset over a breakup, and so wanted to listen to sad songs).
* "Telephone Line" by Electric Light Orchestra (which, admittedly, kind of straddles the line between being sad and lugubrious).
* ''[[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K5s4wjOmW_M&feature=related Green Fields of France]]'' by the Dropkick Murphys.
* Listen to [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ck4kyZQkSKs this]] version of ''Don't Fear The Reaper'' a few times and I guarantee you'll want to hang yourself from depression.
* Someone please explain why Rascal Flatts' "What Hurts the Most" isn't on here already.
** Also, what about "[[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WB76cYS8Ehw Arlington]]", by Trace Adkins? It's about a soldier being brought to Arlington National Cemetery. It always gets me at "And it gave me a chill, when he clicked his heels, and saluted me." (talking of his dead grandfather)
* [[{{Nohbody}} This troper]] has yet to not break into tears when the Caroline's Spine song ''[[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zi8wMWInVFs Sullivan]]'', about the five Sullivan brothers lost when the ''USS Juneau'' (CL-52) was sunk during WorldWarTwo, comes on the radio. This was even before he found out about the details of the loss of the ''Juneau'' and the Sullivans, including survivors being left hanging in the lurch because reports of them got lost in a flurry of paperwork. Eight days after the sinking, the remaining ten of an estimated 100 survivors (two of the original survivors were from the Sullivan family, but later died while awaiting rescue) were finally retrieved.
* This troper heard Jennifer Hudson's "Can't Stop The Rain" a few times, didn't quite hear the lyrics, thought it sounded OK. She got the name of the song and artist, downloaded the song, and on a tip from the person who gave her the song (who told her it was about drink driving), she looked up the lyrics. Goddamn depressing.
* ''And good old boys were drinking whiskey and rye, singin' "This'll be the day that I die, this'll be the day that I die..."''
** Once it gets past ''I met a girl who sang the blues/ and I asked her for some happy news./ She just smiled and turned away'', I quickly descend into tears
** I have Madonna's cover, which is now associated with hurricane Katrina (the "Girl who Sang the Blues" is the AnthropomorphicPersonification of New Orleans or Death; the mondegreened lyrics are now "In the streets/The children screamed/The ''robbers'' cried/And the poets dreamed"; the "whooping" sound effects are helicopters).
* What about Porcupine Tree's [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yp4kVvSXTU4 "Heartattack in a Layby"]]? Steven Wilson's mournful voice, the final verse of the song, and the sad keyboard make this the saddest song ever. [[spoiler: The guy in the song had a fight with his wife and goes to cool off in a rest stop, but dies of a heart attack before he goes back.]]
-->''I guess I should go now\\
She's waiting to make up\\
To tell me she's sorry\\
And how much she missed me\\
I guess I'm just burnt out\\
I really should slow down\\
I'm perfectly fine but\\
I just need to lie down\\
We'll grow old together''
**The beauty of the album that song is from is that all the songs are pretty ambiguous and can be interpreted any way you want, but the song takes on a darker tone when you think about the fact that it's on a concept album about psychopaths and serial killers. This troper looked up the serial killer Fred West after hearing him referenced as one possible inspiration and suddenly the last four tracks on the album - including this one - seemed to fit in with the story of how West was caught and brought to justice.
**While Heartattack in a Layby's music is incredibly depressing, this troper feels that the ending verse of Collapse the Light into Earth, the last song on the album, are is more heartbreaking.
-->''I won't heal given time
-->I won't try to change your mind
-->I won't feel better in the cold light of day
-->But I wouldn't stop you if you wanted to stay''
**Though honestly, most PT songs are either just bitter or depressing as possible. Stop Swimming, Arriving Somewhere But Not Here (kinda), Shesmovedon, the ending of Anesthetize, Normal, the list goes on and on. Then again, Steven Wilson, the main songwriter/leader of the band, feels that the most beautiful songs are the saddest, so this makes sense.
*Barenaked Ladies' "War on Drugs" always hits this troper hard. I mean, come on:
--->''She likes to sleep with the radio on''
--->''So she can dream of her favourite song''
--->''The one that no one has ever sung''
--->''Since she was small''
* "Vincent" by Don [=McLean=] always gets me. It's about Van Gogh, the artist who made beautiful things, even as the world rejected them, until he finally went mad and killed himself... And the fact that the whole song describes his paintings in great details only makes it even worse.
* Also by [=McLean=], "The Grave". *passes Kleenex* You'll need them.
* [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZUKxqU0yzIY I was born and raised by the sea, shy yet proud...]]
** With Sonata Arctica, that's really just scratching the surface. There's Shamandalie, My Selene, and if you pay attention to the lyrics, Paid in Full. All awesome, all will bring you to your knees if you let them.
*** Tallulah. Listen to it after a breakup! Yeah, a breakup song after a breakup is extra tear jerking as it is, but Tallulah tops them all. Now listen to it after a breakup when neither of you wanted to break up, but you did, because you wanted your ex-significant-other to be happy and you knew that she couldn't be happy with you anymore. And you know that you could practically undo it with a phone call. But you still don't do it because [[IWantMyBelovedToBeHappy you want her to be happy]]. This troper usually has the emotion control of [[TheStoic Mr. Spock and Teal'c combined]]. He cried. Yeah, [[GallowsHumor it's good]] [[DeadpanSnarker for sore eyes]] though...
* Somewhere a Clock is Ticking by Snow Patrol. A song about death, and as the song goes on the deaths get more obvious and complex. At the end the song reminds us that:
--->A clock is ticking, but it's hidden far away.
--->Safe and sound...
--->''Safe and sound...''
The very reminder that we'll all die is beautiful, heartbreaking, and horrifying all at the same time.
*Nickelback, surprisingly, had a song. The popular "Gotta Be Somebody" usually makes this troper tear up at least a little bit. Maybe that's just me.
--->'Cause nobody wants to be the last one there
--->'Cause everyone wants to feel like someone cares
--->Someone to love with my live in their hands
--->There's gotta be somebody for me like that
--->'Cause nobody wants to go it on their own
--->And everyone wants to know they're not alone
--->There's somebody else that feels the same somewhere
--->There's gotta be somebody for me out there
* "No Children" by the Mountain Goats. After seeing its heartrending use in ''MoralOrel'', this troper tracked it down and...well, it's not good to be addicted to a song with lyrics as bleak as "You are coming down with me/Hand in unlovable hand/And I hope you die/I hope we both die."
** The sheer derpessingness of this song actually cracks this troper's mother up.
** The Mountain Goats may have outdone themselves with "Matthew 25:21" from their most recent album, which, in a similar fashion to SufjanStevens' "Casimir Pulaski Day", chronicles a loved one's death from cancer. From the last verse:
--->And as though you were speaking through a thick haze, you said hello to me
--->We all stood there around you, happy to hear you speak
--->The last of something bright burning still burning
--->Beyond the cancer and the chemotherapy
--->And you were a presence full of light upon this earth
--->And I am a witness to your life and to it's worth
--->It's three days later when I get the call
--->And there's nobody around to break my fall
* Fighting it by Ben Folds Five, a song about how teenage years are hard.
* We said Hello Goodbye by Phil Collins, the piano and the vocals really make it sad but what really cues the waterworks are the lyrics:
-->"We said goodbye to a dear old friend\
And we packed our bags and left feeling sad\\
It's the only way\\
We said hello as we turned the key\\
A new roof over our heads\\
Gave a smile\\
It's the only way\\
Only way"

Turn your head
And don't look back
Set your sails for a new horizon
Don't turn around don't look down
Oh there's life across the tracks
And you know it's really not surprising
It gets better when you get there oh

Well it really don't matter much where you are
Cause home is in your heart
It's a feeling that you wake with one day
Some people keep running all their life
And still find they haven't gone too far
They don't see it's the feeling inside - the feeling inside oh

Turn your head and don't look back
Just set your sails for a new horizon
Don't turn around don't look down
Oh there's life across the tracks
And you know it's really not surprising
It gets better when you get there

We said hello as we turned the key
A new roof over our heads
Gave a smile - it's the only way" Yeah, the whole song is sad.
*Can't believe no one has mentioned The Verve's "Drugs Don't Work." Depressing enough on its own but once you know that its about the singer watching his father die slowly in the hospital and being powerless to help him... yeah you will bawl. Also, "Philadelphia" by Neil Young, particularly combined with the footage at the end of the film of the same name.
*Another one I can't believe has been overlooked: "Streets of London" by Ralph McTell. "One more forgotten hero, and a world that doesn't care...."
* [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pAplEhbAbQU&feature=PlayList&p=0829A71229443DCD&index=5&playnext=6&playnext_from=PL Chris Rice's song "Breakfast Table"]] -- a man singing to his deceased wife: how much he misses her now, and how he looks forward to seeing her in heaven. The chorus in particular -
--> Save me a seat at the breakfast table, save me a dance around the Milky Way, and save me a thousand years to whisper in your ears all I've wanted to say.
* Elvis Presley's "In the Ghetto". It's not just the sad story of the life of one man in the slums, but the fact that the same thing happens in an unending cycle.
*If your of a certain age, [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ufMdo9AyMng This]] will reduce you to tears. It gets this troper every time.
*Even CowboyMouth (in [[{{CR}} this troper's]] opinion, the ultimate feel-good band) has a few: in particular "The Avenue" and "Maureen".
* The standard "You Don't Know Me" is all about unrequited love, but the two versions that make ThisTroper tear up the most are [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L-5LwRinkJ0 Ray Charles']] and [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c7k2y08dSV4 Michael Buble's]].
* Brad Paisley's "You'll Never Leave Harlan Alive", a ballad about getting out of a hellhole, and falling back in again.
-->Where the sun comes up about ten in the morning
-->And the sun comes down about three in the day
-->And you fill your cup with whatever bitter brew you're drinking
-->And you spend your life digging coal from the bottom of your grave.
* Bruce Hornsby's "The Way It Is" - specifically, a piano-only version from the multi-artist album "Moneyland", performed along with the Fairfield Four. Bruce sings the second verse, about the kid who can't play with the other kids because of the color of his skin and asks why not - and fifty years after segregation in the US ended, a gospel choir sings "that's just the way it is... some things will never change." Sad... but with an underlying sense of hope.
* This Troper is appalled that [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FjwnWU6OsaI Here Today]] is not on the list. She can't even listen to the first few notes without tearing up, let alone the whole song.
* For this troper, it's listening to her father and his friends (all Vietnam vets) singing Springsteen's "Born in the [=USA=]" and Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young's "Ohio", both sides of the Vietnam debate. Tears, every time.
*Roughly half of Lynyrd Skynyrd's songs. Specifically Simple Man and the Ballad of Curtis Loew. Both have just incredibly sad guitar riffs combined with singing that is just absolutely gut wrenching.
* "Shine Your Light" by Robbie Robertson. Thanks to a beautiful fanvid done to honor Doyle from {{Angel the Series}} with the song, this troper always loses it at this line:
-->I thought I saw him walking by the side of the road / Maybe trying to find his way home...
* The last song on The Crow OST, "It Can't Rain All the Time" by Jane Siberry is just absolutely shattering. Her partially spoken word account of what happened to Eric and Shelley is so full of grief that it's almost unbearable to hear.
**In addition to that, on the Fear & Bullets album by Trust Obey (made to accompany reading the original graphic novel), the song "Sleeping Angel (The Dreaming)" just breaks you.
* "All the Wild Horses" by Ray La Montagne almost sounds like a sweet, quiet lullaby, but anyone who's seen RescueMe knows how heartbreaking it can be. If you haven't, [[spoiler: it plays during the death of Tommy's son Connor]].
* For this troper, Janis Joplin's version of "Little Girl Blue" never fails to bring the tears forth.
* Sherrie Austin's ''Streets of Heaven'' is sung from the persepctive of a mother sitting by her daughter's side in ICU, bargaining with God for her life. The transition from "God, you can't take her, she's my little girl!" to "God, if she dies tonight, please take care of her in heaven for me" gets me every time.

[[foldercontrol]]

[[folder: Classical Music ]]

* Singers have been known to break down in tears while performing "Das Lied von der Erde." Composer Gustav Mahler himself wondered if audiences would commit suicide after hearing it; he did not live to see it performed.
** Satirist TomLehrer made a joke about this on one of his albums, describing Mahler as the writer of Das Lied von der Erde "and other light classics".
** Mahler's song "Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen" is similarly tear-jerking.
* The adagietto from Mahler's Fifth Symphony is also in this category.
* Chopin's [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wNAyKL2GHvA "Étude Op.10 No.3 in E major - Tristesse"]] is already beautifully melancholy. But after being used to heartbreakingly bittersweet effect in the score of the [[Anime/FullmetalAlchemist Fullmetal Alchemist]] anime series finale, years later it still makes this troper bawl in public when it's played on public radio.
* Ennio Morricone's ''Sacco e Vanzetti'' made this Chilean troper bawl during Morricone's live show in Santiago, Chile. And then some more when she heard the versions performed by Joan Baez and George Mustaki, thanks to her father.
** Now also available by Lisbeth Scott over the end credits of ''MetalGearSolid 4''. Yep, still a tearjerker.
* Ludwig Von Beethoven's ''Moonlight Sonata'' and the second movement of his ''Symphony #7''. He wrote the ''Seventh'' just after he went completely deaf.
** And the second movement of his 3rd, an actual funeral march.
** Don't forget the Adagio Cantabile of the ''Pathetique'' Sonata.
**Dear God, the final movement of the Ninth Symphony is one of about three pieces that can make this troper literally weep (like tears running down his face) when he listens to it. The whole symphony is amazing, but the final movement is one of the crowning achievements of Western classical music.
***Just to make clear, this is more of a Tear Jerker combined with {{Crowning Music of Awesome}}. The tears aren't of sorrow, but hope and joy at the idealism of the lyrics (look up a translation, you'll see).
* Lully lullay thou little tiny child... ''The Coventry Carol''. A lullaby being sung to hush babies so that they won't alert the soldiers who are out to kill them. Although StarWars has spoiled the word ''youngling'' from this carol for this troper.
** The version done by Loreena [=McKennitt=] on her Christmas album ''A Winter Garden'' is even more heart-rending thanks to her haunting instrumentation, gorgeous voice, and vibrato.
* Michishirube by Yuumao, the end theme of Kashimashi ~Girl Meets Girl~ especially after rewatching certain heart wrenching episodes of the anime.
* "Sadness and Sorrow" in the original ''{{Naruto}}'' series (you'll remember it from Haku's death and the flashbacks to Naruto or Gaara's neglected childhhods), and the dramatic rendition of Sasori/Chiyo's theme in Shippuuden (their background flashbacks and death scenes).
* Lots of people out there [[DisContinuity really hate]] ''Yoshi's Story.'' This troper loved it when she was younger, however. So when she heard the song "Love Is in the Air" from its soundtrack several years later, the combination of meloncholy cellos and nostalgia caused her to break down into tears.
** ''This'' troper teared up at the ''opening theme'' after downloading it to the Virtual Console. Not to mention the between-level storybook segments' "Eee-yaay-yo" thing.
* "[[http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=0Acq8yG2Fy8 Where Is Your Heart?]]", a.k.a. "The Song from ''Moulin Rouge''". It [[NameThatTune appears in the film itself]] as [[http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=oLyKbOtASHA Jane Avril's song]]. Makes this troper tear up every time, especially when he considers the huge DownerEnding of the film.
* The {{Forrest Gump}} Suite.
* J.S. Bach's "Air on a G String".
* Samuel Barber's "Adagio For Strings".
**It ''really'' doesn't help that this song is '''the''' song to play during funerals and other events of great tragedy (Franklin D. Roosevelt's funeral, 9/11, etc.).
** It's also almost universally considered the world's saddest piece of classical music ''ever''.
** You know what hurts the most? It's impossible to find a single version of this piece on Youtube that isn't... ''contaminated'' by looking at the comments section. Political wank, religious ''and'' anti-religious vitriol, paranoid conspiracy theories... I honestly couldn't feel angrier at these people if they were tap-dancing on Ground Zero.
***I don't personally feel angry at these people, but their existence, for me, makes the music sadder. That mankind can produce something so hauntingly beautiful, dignified and universal, contrasted with the clumsy, hateful vitriole we sadly casually produce so much more often. Makes a tragic image.
** "Agnus Dei" (the choral arrangement) used masterfully in {{Homeworld}}''.
*** Not nearly as masterfully as in ''Platoon'', though. Yikes.
**** Also used well in Joss Whedon's comic Sugarshock.
* Renowned men's choir Chanticleer. Franz Biebl's rendition of ''Ave Maria''. [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9WSbq3TCcd0 If you don't cry, you have no soul.]]
** This troper performed this piece several times this year, and finds it far more uplifting than sad. The lyrics are celebratory, anyway.
* [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Zx9JA2DOow&feature=related Lullay Myn Lyking]] always does it for this troper.
* There's a contemporary piece, ''Be Thou My Vision'', which was commissioned by a man in honor of his dead parents. Happier in tone than you'd expect, but still incredibly touching.
** And then there's ''It Is Well With My Soul'', which was written by a man as he passed over the spot where his wife and three daughters had drowned in a shipwreck.
* Requiems in general, but for this troper, particularly Brahms's (especially the first and second movements) and Mozart's (Lacrimosa, whether it's accompanied by its use in ''{{Amadeus}}'' or not).
** Also, Fauré's Pie Jesu
** Benjamin Britten's ''War Requiem'' is absolutely shattering. It's the traditional Requiem mass interspersed with settings of Wilfred Owen's war poetry (which is TearJerker all by itself). The ending, which features a mournful, eerie setting of Owen's Strange Meeting, segues into a quiet, gentle finale, with the last line of the poem ("Let us sleep now..." sung over the boy choir and the main choir singing "In paradisum" (Into Paradise lead them) and then Requiescat in Pace, Amen. Heartbreakingly beautiful, at the end of a tumultuous, dark, stormy work.
* If you know the lyrics to the Japanese Pikmin theme song Ai No Uta and you can't feel sorry for the Pikmin you have no soul [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=esYm9q-bi4w]]
**Oh my god. You're right. That's so sad.
* "????, ???? ?????! (God Save the Tsar!)", the former Russian national anthem, is a pretty melancholy-sounding piece already, but considering all that has happened since, it becomes [[http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=pxCcEp4aAjs heartbreaking]].
* "Va pensiero", from Verdi's opera ''Nabucco''.
** This troper sung it for numerous concerts in high school and was fine until she sung it for the funeral of one of her good friends. Haven't been able to sing it since.
**This troper had it as a lullabye. And was perfectly aware that it was sung by the chorus of Hebrew slaves grieving for their slaughtered children.
* Just play "Il Gladiatore" or "Nessun Dorma" for this troper, and sit back with popcorn.
* "When I Am Laid in Earth" from ''Dido and Aeneas'' is quite a downer. While singing before committing suicide is common in opera, Dido's swan song is much more melancholy than any Wagnerian heroine's...and, unlike most opera songs, it's in English.
* The 2nd Movement from Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto in E minor has one of the most beautiful, heartbreaking melodies this troper has ever heard, literally driving him to tears on first hearing it.
* Something about James Horner's "Casper's Lullaby" from the Casper movie gets me everytime I hear it. Just a nice little song and when you remember that the whole premise of Casper is the fact that this is a young boy who is stuck living as a ghost it adds an even deeper layer of sadness.
* The sad, wondrous theme that plays in ''Superman Returns'' when Superman takes Lois flying. I don't know what it's called, but coupled with [[PatrickStewartSpeech Jor El talking]], or the part just when they're flying under the bridge...
* So much [[{{Opera}} Puccini]].
** Two words: ''Madame Butterfly''. Two more: ''La Boheme''. Dammit, Cio-cio-san and Mimi, WHY?! T-T
* Pick an Ave Maria, any Ave Maria -- this editor's top choices are Verdi's (from ''[[{{Opera}} Otello]]''), Yoko Kanno's (from ''CowboyBebop''), and Schubert's.
** Remember the cliché slogan "You don't have to be Jewish to enjoy (whatever)"? Well, "You don't have to be Christian" to be moved to tears by Schubert's ''Ave''. This troper's grandfather, an atheist Jew, would shush everyone whenever it played on his favourite classical station.
**Schubert's ''Fantasie in F Minor, D.940'' for four hands made this troper realize for the first time that music doesn't need lyrics to be packed full of emotion. She has about 5 different versions of it on her computer that she listens to semi-regularly, but still bawled again the ''second'' she unexpectedly heard it again at a concert.
* The final trio from ''[[{{Opera}} Der Rosenkavalier]]'' by R. Strauss. It was performed at the composer's funeral, and the sopranos couldn't make it through without stopping to cry.
* RichardWagner's sublime "Träume."
* "Binary Sunset" from the ''StarWars Episode IV'' soundtrack. The horn solo just destroys this troper.
** It's even sadder in ''Revenge of the Sith'', because it plays when [[BittersweetEnding everyone's going into hiding from the Emperor.]] And then Obi-Wan gives Luke to Owen and Beru...''then'' it's tears of joy.
* In ''StargateSG1'', the music related to Daniel Jackson's ascension is beautiful. Just a few simple piano keys, but that's all it needs. One of the best examples was when Dan Castellana appeared as a guest character who had learned of Daniel's "death" and his reaction is synched to this tune. Even though it sounds like Homer Simpson is crying for Daniel Jackson, it does not sound even remotely funny, but genuinely touching.
* Never thought the plight of a ''[[DoctorWho Dalek]]'' would choke you up? Thanks to Murray Gold's heartbreaking "The Lone Dalek", from the ''DoctorWho'' soundtrack, you've been proven wrong.
**"Doomsday". Just... "Doomsday".
** That music that plays in ''Logopolis'' when the Doctor [[spoiler:falls off a giant telescope and has to regenerate.]]
** Don't forget "Madame de Pompadour", "Father's Day" and "This is Gallifrey: Our Childhood, Our Home". Murray Gold is honest to god ''aiming'' for this trope.
* Rachmaninoff's Prelude in B Minor. ''Soul-crushing''. Not that the rest of Rach's music is uplifting...
** It just isn't. The ''moderato'' from Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No.2 breaks this troper's heart every time.
* Arvo Part's ''Spiegel im Spiegel''. It's been used in several movies (''Gerry'', ''Wit'', ''Heaven'' and ''Mother Night'', among others). It's only a few notes being repeated and varied upon, but it's just so beautiful, it's hard not to feel melancholy.
**Not to mention "Cantus In Memoriam Benjamin Britten", or a number of other works by Part.
*** "Cantus In Memoriam of Benjamin Britten" is by far the worst, especially when you find out it was, according to the first victims dying slowly of AIDS, the piece of music that best described their plight. Soul-Gouging.
*This troper has a whole list of about 15 or 20 hymns that will make her cry every time she hears them. Singing at the National Cathedral doesn't help matters. The best example is probably "Were You There?"
* "Gabriel's Oboe" from ''The Mission''. It's an extremely powerful song...especially when you realize that Ennio Morricone took the random on-screen oboe-pantomiming of Jeremy Irons and turned it into such a beautiful piece. This troper heard it played during an ordination Mass, and the men being ordained were inches from just ''losing it''.
* ''[[TransformersFilmSeries Arrival To Earth]]'' [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C-E8rcV7L2s]]. Something about the incredibly awe-inspiring choir in the background as the Autobots find a new home rarely fails to produce tears in fans.
* Tchaikovsky's 5th Symphony, the French Horn solo. [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-TtQRWwW_Ww&feature=related]]
* ''{{Halo}} 1'' - Lament for Pvt. Jenkins, Dust and Echoes. Halo 2 - Ghosts of Reach, Heavy Price Paid, Unforgotten. Halo 3 - The Covenant: Heroes Also Fall, Cortana: Keep What You Steal, Halo: Greatest Journey, Never Forget.
* James Horner has personally brought this troper to the brink two particular times. The closing score/opening score for ''StarTrek''s ''II'' and ''III'', and ''{{Braveheart}}''. That man is a talent.
** Say what you will about ''{{Titanic}}'', and it's overplayed Love Theme, but you can't deny the soundtrack itself is quite beautiful and yes, a TearJerker at times. Most notably tracks such as "Hymn to the Sea" and "A Rising Panic", as well as any point where the human voice (that most versatile of instruments) [[OneWomanWail enters the haunting, wordless chorus]]. Most particularly, the end of the film (which gave this troper happy tears due to seeing Rose reunited with all those who had died).
* This troper doesn't even like the ''LordOfTheRings'' but damn, Howard Shore's music managed to be incredibly [[TearJerker tear-inducing]] at times.
* [[http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=0HqOowRwGxA Nimrod]] from the Enigma Variations by Edward Elgar as played at the Cenotaph on Remembrance Sundays.
* [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mta3-sGMi5Q&fmt=18 The Fire Bird Suite, Finale]] is [[TearJerker Tear-Jerking]] [[CrowningMusicOfAwesome Music of Awesome]]. The first part tugged at the heartstrings, but once the 7/4 meter kicked in, this normally stone-hearted troper was sobbing.
* The Heart Asks Pleasure First, also known as 'that song from ''The Piano''.' It is this troper's favourite song, of any sort. It is like rain in summer, dancing leaves in autumn, snow at Christmas, and warm sun in spring all in one song. When asked by her mother ''why'' it was her favourite, before she even knew what she was saying, this troper replied, "Because it flows on beautifully, and you think it will forever, and then it stops... like a life." And then she and her mother ''both'' started to cry.
** And then you read the poem it's named after and you die all over again.
* ''Comptine d'un autre été: Après midi'' by Yann Tiersen. The song by itself (a simple piano piece) is breathtakingly beautiful and sad, but when considered with [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sr64NI33qUo this video]] it becomes especially poignant. The part with his dead wife and war buddies gets ThisTroper.
* Aaron Copland's [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xzf0rvQa4Mc&feature=related ''Fanfare for the Common Man.'']] The power and majesty of this song attributed to the common man really effects ThisTroper. Tears of pride, maybe. Hope. The Common Man is awesome.
* Step 1: Play through ''[[{{GearsOfWar}} Gears of War 2]]'' - specifically, the section "Hive: Answers". Step 2: Go to YouTube (if you don't already have the soundtrack) and listen to the heart-breaking scene's accompanying music, "With Sympathy" while reading the {{TearJerker}} articles on this site. Step 3: Cry.
*This troper finds many of Eric Whitacre's choral works to be just overwhelming.
* Two FinalFantasy examples for this troper:
**The "To Zanarkand" segment of "Ending Theme" from FinalFantasyX. Part of it has to be the oboe ostinato or something because in any version it's left out the effect is just not the same.
**"Theme of Elfe" from BeforeCrisis. The motive behind the tears is unclear, but we'll just go with for ''sheer beauty''.
*[[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X6-Ok2nsROA&feature=related Farewell to Sue]] a music piece from Noroyuki Iwadare for the JRPG Grandia frequently reduces this troper and her friends to tears, even when not thinking about the heartbreaking scene to which it played.
* Also from Final Fantasy, [[FinalFantasyVI VI's]] "Terra" (which is both a theme for said character, and the Overworld theme for World of Balance).
* [[TheGunheart This troper]] finds the VirtualOn ending theme ''Burned By The Fire'' to be one of the most tragic sounding 1:34 of soundtrack from any game. The fact that it plays over the wreckage of your chosen [[HumongousMecha Virtuaroid]] as it drifts through space doesn't help.
* The last, unfinished, fugue from Johann Sebastian Bach's 'Art of Fugue'. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iDSAXtsDB5k
* Ralph Vaughn Williams' "Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis". Ever since this Troper played it in high school orchestra, it's just so moving. So beautiful.
* Akira Ifukube's [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1yjOZmlbshU "Requiem" from Godzilla VS Destoroyah]] must be mentioned. Damn.... Regardless of your opinion on the Godzilla films and others of their ilk, only a freakin' cyborg could hear that piece of music and not cry. The fact that it plays while [[spoiler: GODZILLA IS DYING]] doesn't help matters. Ifukube's [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FAXOqSnpUCg "Prayer for Peace" from the original Gojira]] is pretty powerful as well.
* Chopin's ''Tristesse'' (or, Op. 10, No. 3). http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wNAyKL2GHvA
* [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1mbKjV5OChA "The Last Waltz"]] by Jo Yeong-Wook, the end credits theme from {{Oldboy}}. This troper's friend described it simply as "music to cry to". An anthem for sadness itself.
*Over It by Katherine McPhee had this troper ({{Dark Lady Celebrian}}) bawling for about 20 minutes.
*This troper is shocked that Henryk Gorecki's Symphony No. 3 hasn't been mentioned. What did it for me? The soloist coming to the end of her piece in the first movement... and the orchestra comes in hard. I was a sobbing, gibbering wreck after that.
* The motet ''Ne irascaris Domine,'' by the Elizabethan composer William Byrd. Byrd was a Catholic at a time when it was illegal to be Catholic in England, and this piece expresses that anguish beautifully (the most wrenching part as far as this troper is concerned is the switch from polyphony to chordal harmony at "Sion deserta facta sunt"). An English translation of the Latin text:
--> Be not angry, O Lord,\\
and remember our iniquity no more.\\
Behold, we are all your people.\\
Your holy city has become a wilderness.\\
Zion has become a wilderness,\\
Jerusalem has been made desolate.\\
* "Che Faro Senza Euridice" from Gluck's ''Orfeo et Euridice''. A bad singer will turn it into {{Narm}}; a good one will break your heart.

[[/folder]]

[[folder: Comedy/Other? ]]

* Okay, [[{{Lurkerbunny}} this troper]] doesn't know quite where to put this, but it's by RobinWilliams and it's a song.. kinda. It's only on his "Live 2002" CD. It's called "The Grim Rapper". It starts off with Robin saying that maybe we're not taken away by the Grim Reaper but the Grim Rapper, and he does a little rap about souls being taken away. Then he does a whole routine detailing various stages in a man's life as he starts to realize he's not so invincible (some parts taken from Robin's own life), mixed with the chorus of "Those Were The Days" by Mary Hopkin. This description doesn't do it justice, it's very profound and haunting.
* Reportedly, the tears shed during the singing of “La Marseillaise” (the French national anthem) during that one scene in ''{{Casablanca}}'' were genuine. It is possible that most patriotic songs can become these, under the right circumstances.
* Graduation songs, too: [[{{Peanuts}} Snoopy]] once remarked that "Pomp and Circumstance" had an effect on old grads. And don't think that you have to have gone to a Japanese high school for the song in ''AzumangaDaioh'' to work on you, although that may be part empathy for Chiyo.
* This troper was very literally in tears after watching a music video for the FilkSong Okkusenman that included translated subtitles...
** The words themselves are rather melancholic and an interesting juxtaposition to the music, but if it's [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yATI48dcsMU&fmt=18 the same video]] [[ZekeSulastin this troper]] saw, the singer's high octave pushes it so close to Narm it's not even funny.
*** [[GGCrono This troper]] is glad he's not the only one who gets misty-eyed at Okkusenman. Despite the style of the song, the subject matter is something I can really relate with.
* Blind Willie Johnson's acoustic blues rendition of "Dark Was the Night, Cold Was the Ground," a traditional hymn about the Crucifixion. No words, just subdued moaning in tune with the guitar melody. It's {{Better Than It Sounds}} and widely considered one of the most moving recorded blues performances of all time.
* Okay, fine, ''someone'' has to cop to being made to cry by "Two Little Boys" as sung by Rolf Harris. Shut up! Stop looking at me like that! You know it made you cry too! (Even ''Harris'' has said that when his grandfather sung it to him as a kid, he thought it was the twee-est thing ever until it got to the line "Did you think I would leave you ''dying...''")
** Try [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LHTPUEE74LQ this version]]. Oh god...now I'm gonna start...
*"Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round the Old Oak Tree" by Dawn always makes me mist up a little, especially the chorus and final verse the first time he heard it.
* ''Rich Fantasy Lives'' by Rob Balder gets this troper every time. ''Some whispering poem was calling us home, to a place we know never existed...''
* "Kono Daremo Inai Heya de (in this empty room)" by Gackt. "Doooooshite...daremo inai kooono heya de...karada ga...furueru n darooo...oshiete." Na na na na na...
** Which translates as "Why in this empty room, is my body shaking? Tell me..."
** [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yLMLCvRBAA0 Last Song]] is quite saddening, especially because of the way Gackt sings it.
** In fact, Gackt is quite good at invoking this trope. Other Tear Jerker songs by Gackt include [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s56h9ZMPliY&feature=related Hoshi no Suna]] and the Gackt/Hyde duet[[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qwrqzAF-zGU&feature=related Orenji no Taiyou]]. The last one caused this troper to cry for all 9 minutes and 10 seconds when she first heard it, and a couple times after that. It doesn't help that it was used in a Tear Jeaker movie (Moon Child). Equally tear-inducing is the [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Px54VIdUikw live version]] with all the characters from the movie except one very important one.
* Jonathan Coulton is better known for awesomely geeky songs, but [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ANKT2PMoAQ When You Go]] is a very simple song about love and loss. Set to a memorial video for a fan's pet hedgehog, it's so sad and sweet.
** This troper first heard it recently. He cried. Since you beat him to the punch, we also have [[http://www.jonathancoulton.com/mp3/Big%20Bad%20World%20One.mp3 Big Bad World One]].
*** [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zsV-qozMz9A Oh lord why]].
****DAMN YOU, I HAD JUST GOTTEN OVER THAT ONE. I used to be made of STONE, man.
*** I Crush Everything. "This one's about a self-loathing giant squid." Sounds hilarious, don't it? ''Wrong.''
*** "You Ruined Everything." The title makes it sound like a [[NonIndicativeTitle particularly bitter break-up song.]] The actual lyrics?
---->''Youshould know''
---->''How great things were before you''
---->''Even so, they're better still today''
---->''I can't think of who I was before''
---->''You ruined everything''
---->''In the nicest way.''
*** This troper hates you all for making her cry like a little bitch.
** [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zsV-qozMz9A Space Doggity]] is a song about Laika, the first [[strike:dog]] Earthling in space. Not recommended for dog owners, cat owners, human beings, anyone who craves individuality and defies the unfair system, or anyone who has ever looked into the stairs and wanted to be up there. The part that always gets to me is the line ''I don't think I want to be a good dog anymore...''
* The jazz standard "Send In the Clowns".
* [[http://threefingeredguy.revsoft.org/SMKN/asthefootstepsdieoutforever.mp3 Tomas Kalnoky's "As The Footsteps Die Out Forever"]]
* [[http://www.lyricsmania.com/lyrics/walter_hawkins_lyrics_4142/love_alive_1_lyrics_12588/goin_up_yonder_lyrics_146300.html "Goin' Up Yonder"]], originally by Walter Hawkins. This troper first heard it as a choral piece, performed by the graduating seniors in her high school choir every May. Five years later, it can still make me cry.
*Empty Chairs At Empty Tables from ''LesMiserables''. (Anything related to the barricade boys makes this troper sob like an idiot.)
**This troper occasionally skips that song on the soundtrack to avoid getting sniffly in public.
**The finale to Les Mis tends to make this troper sob, too.
*** Specifically, the moment's pause just after the perfect three part harmony of Eponine, Fantine and Javert's 'To love another person is to see the face of God....' (choking up NOW!)... and then that soft ghost reprise of "Do You Hear The People Sing?" starts....
**"Do You Hear the People Sing?" is depressing not in the song itself, but if you know what happens after this optimistic anthem...
**This Troper has a solo in "Turning" and can't get over how horribly depressing that song is, especially the line:
--->They were schoolboys, never held a gun
--->Fighting for a new world that would rise up like the sun
---> Where's that new world, now the fighting's done?
** Drink With Me never fails to get this trooper somewhat choked up, especially Grantaire's solo illustrating the futility of it all
--->Drink with me to days gone by
--->Can it be you fear to die
--->Will the world remember you when you fall
--->Could it be your death means nothing at all
--->Is your life just one more lie
* For me (and the audience) "Empty Chairs at Empty Tables" just destroyed us. But then, it was only February 2002 (my first trip to New York, yay).
** The Les Mis song that really got this troper was probably Javert's [[spoiler: Suicide]]. Sure, he's the antagonist, but you have to feel sorry for him with lyrics like
---> I am reaching, but I fall
---> And the [[IronicEcho stars]] are black and cold
---> As I stare into the void
---> Of a world that cannot hold
---> I'll escape now from that world, from the world of Jean Valjean
---> There is nowhere I can turn, there is no way to go on...
** What, nobody mentioned "Little Fall of Rain" yet? Good lord, when/if this troper gets to see Les Mis on the stage, she's sure she's going to lose it with that song. Makes me get bleary-eyed just listening to the London recording...
* The theme music for Lemuria of GoldenSun is generally melancholy in-game, but this troper found [[http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=8_K5V_CByas this]] rendition on piano just heart-wrenching.
* The ending to "Billy, Don't Be a Hero." Also the rest of the song to some degree, but especially the ending.
*"Nantes" by Barbara. It helps if you understand French, but subtitles will probably do it. The teacher played it in this troper's French class, multiple times, and nearly everyone was crying by the time the musical gauntlet was run.
* "Same Old Lang Syne" by Dan Fogelberg makes this troper want to cry every time he hears it.
* "Two Daughters and a Beautiful Wife" by Drive-By Truckers seems at its surface to be a bouncy alt country song about a man realizing the importance of his family after he's died unexpectedly, but the entire tone of the song is changed once you discover that actually it's about the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006_Richmond_spree_murders grisly murders of Bryan Harvey (the lead singer of the indie rock band House of Freaks) and his family]].
* "Mistakes We Knew We Were Making" by Mae. This song is about a couple preparing to have their first child and how scared they both are. Beautiful lyrics and a beautiful voice. Doesn't help that this troper doesn't really let lyrics sink in until a few times after she decides she likes how the song sounds. So when it finally sank in... yeah. I broke down.
--->[[spoiler:''What can now be said, oh little one on the other side?]]
--->[[spoiler:Dance until the band stops playing,]]
--->[[spoiler:Sing with all your might.'']]
* The soundtrack of ''BrokebackMountain'', especially the beautiful instrumental tracks and "A Love That Will Never Grow Old", sung by Emmylou Harris. It was sad when the film originally came out, but it's even more heartbreaking now because film is a FunnyAneurysmMoment.
* "Everything You Want" by Vertical Horizon. It sounds like standard relationship advice at first, but the last chorus changed the pronouns and pushed it from "a little bit sad" to full-blown TearJerker. "I am everything you want, I am everything you need / I am everything inside of you that you wish you could be / I say all the right things at exactly the right time / But I mean nothing to you and I don't know why." [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=68W597NyhRE This Kingdom Hearts video]] in particular made it even worse.
* Shadows Fall is not really a band you'd expect this from. However, "Another Hero Lost" is just heartwrenching. There was this one Captain America tribute on Youtube with the song....oh dear....
* ''Monster'' by Meg & Dia deserves its own page. At first, it seems like it's just a song about rape (which is tear-jerker material ''by itself''). But if you read the lyrics, you realize that it's really about how society's "monsters" have suffered just as much as their victims...
** Also, Meg & Dia's "Yellow Butterfly." So far everyone this troper's known who has heard it has cried.
* ''Long Long Ago 20th Century'', {{Kamen Rider}} Black's ending theme is a real tearjerker, especially when it plays [[spoiler: during the final struggle between Kotaro/BLACK and Nobuhiko(his own brother)/Shadowmoon.]]
* "Boundless Oceans, Vast Skies" & "Glorious Years", two songs by the Hong Kong rock band Beyond. The latter is a beautiful song which talks about Mr. Nelson Mandela and his struggle and final triumph in apartheid South Africa; the former is a song of sorrow and regret, but most notably it was the final song of Beyond's singer, who died a short time later due to a stage accident. ThisTroper can still sing both songs after nearly 15 years. See [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beyond_(band) the other Wiki]] for details.
* "Encounter", the ending song to the original Gundam movie trilogy. ThisTroper also can sing (most of) this song.
*I'd like to nominate "Some Fantastic Place" by Squeeze. I can rarely make it to the guitar solo without breaking down and crying.
* "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" by Israel Kamakawiwo'ole.
**Back when Wizard of Oz was a once a year event on television, this troper's father would break into tears every single time they advertised it with the shot of Judy Garland singing the song.
* There's an old soldiers' song, recorded by various folk artists including Coope Boyes and Simpson and John Tams. The chorus goes:
-->''Only remembered, only remembered,
-->only remembered for what we have done.
-->Shall we at last be united in glory?
-->Only remembered for what we have done.''
:::When Tams performs it live, he likes to make the audience sing along with the above-quoted chorus. This troper cries, in public, every single time.
* "Star" by Bryan Adams. Especially since it's played at the beginning and end at the RobinWilliams TearJerker film ''Jack''.
** To say nothing of "Sound the Bugle". This troper always loses it at the line "remember who you are".
* This troper first encountered ''Castles In The Sky'' (as in, Ian Van Dahl) in the context of an incredibly TearJerker ''RevolutionaryGirlUtena'' AMV. Now mind you I don't even like Revolutionary Girl Utena. That song is the ideal way to make me start to cry.
* Jay Foreman, "Martin Was A Monkey". It's about a monkey who wants to go skiing. And it's ''heartbreaking''.
-->But that's the way life was\\
And there was nothing he could do,\\
It seemed that all things had a place\\
And his was in the zoo.
* [[EddieVanHelsing This troper]] cannot listen to [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QgA9mdpgOVU "Not What You See"]] from Savatage's ''Dead Winter Dead'' album in public. His eyes mist over as soon as this lyric kicks in:
-->''And I'm out here - waiting
-->I don't understand what you want me to be
-->It's the dark you're hating
-->It's not who I am, but I know that it's all that you see''
* Taps. Short, simple, and so very sad, due to the association with funerals.
* "[[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ew6z_I-77GQ&fmt=35 Kokoro]]". The song is sad enough, but combining it with the video pushes it way past the "jerker" phase.
** Speaking of Vocaloid, the Kagamine twins seem to be the masters of this, with songs like the aforementioned Kokoro, the follow-up, Kokoro/Kiseki, and things like Servant of Evil, Regret Message, Prisoner and follow-up Paper Plane, Recycle Bin and the sequel, Salvage. Special mention goes to [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iPijoSzlQGQ&feature=related Proof of Life and Soundless Voice]].
* Like the troper with the Jennifer Hudson song above, this troper was listening to Jeff Buckley's "Lover, You Should Have Come Over" when it suddenly hit her what the lyrics were at the beginning:
-->"Looking out the door I see the rain fall upon the funeral mourners
-->Parading in a wake of sad relations as their shoes fill up with water."
::She pictured the scene the lyrics were describing. This was a mistake.
* Also notable for making this troper burst into uncontrollable weeping is Neko Case's "[[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9nBt_e9tzdQ Furnace Room Lullaby]]".
* This troper can't listen to "Proud to be an American" after getting ahold of a version laced with vocal clips of world leaders (specifically Blair and Bush) responding to the events of 9/11, because tears will flow like rain.
** Ditto the 9/11 remix of Nickelback's "Hero", which uses the same technique (quotes played over the music).
* Speaking of rain, Rain City by Turin Brakes chokes me up every time. Such a gentle and loving acoustic number. Ironically, the fact that it was played as the background music to a sad scene in The OC ruined it somewhat for this troper.
* Aaron Copland. In life he was on [=McCarthy=]'s Hollywood blacklist, not for being a Communist (he was a political conservative), but for being gay. Today he is probably the single most universally beloved American Classical composer and his music is played at every Presidential inauguration. Oh yeah, and it's seriously all-time great music, too.
*Personally, this troper can't listen to Love You To Death by Kamelot, a song about the singer's wife dying, without crying. Roy (the singer) even cried on stage performing it. Despite it's supposedly happy tone, Anthem by the same band has the same reaction.
** And weirdly enough, Lethe by the death metal band Dark Tranquility is another song that can bring tears, depending on when it plays.
*"Where Have All The Flowers Gone?" gets progressively more beautiful and more depressing as it goes on. And this troper has to sing it in her choir. She hasn't gotten over it yet. Paraphrased, the song goes as thus: [[spoiler: All the flowers are picked by girls, all the girls take husbands, all the husbands leave to be soldiers, all the soldiers go to graveyards, all the graveyards become covered with flowers.]]
** Presented for your approval: [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f_ptqXqjsZw Marlene Dietrich singing the same]]. Very, very late in the career of a woman who'd been personally affected by both world wars, at a time when she'd started to suffer catastrophic health problems...
*The song "Come in from the Firefly Darkness" has left this troper on the verge of tears in choir class. She penciled in Fenslerfilm GIJoe quotes in the blank spaces between the measures to give herself happy thoughts as she sang it so she wouldn't start crying.
* "Living next door to Alice". I don't even know who I feel more sorry for - the guy telling the tale or Sally, who is calling him. At one point in the song, she's basically confessing her feelings for him and the very next line is "and the big limousine disappeared". So, he is so crushed by Alice leaving, so busy looking at the disappearing car, that he basically doesn't even register a love confession. Call me a softie, but while listening to the song, I'm always on the verge of crying.
*The first time this troper heard Kelly Rowland's "Stole", he was moved to tears by the story of young students having dreams and then their lives being taken away from them by carelessness and negative thoughts. The music video, which accentuates the story, was then put into rotation on MTV, and even now, seven years after the song's release, it still has that effect on me.
* Also, "I'm not in love" by 10cc. The lyrics of the song should speak for themselves, and they're just the start.
* "A Little Fall of Rain" from the musical of {{Les Miserables}}. Never fails to make this troper sob uncontrollably if she's alone or attempt to muffle said sobbing if she's in public.
* Harry Chapin's "W.O.L.D." always does it for this troper.
* Mike Oldfield's [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1_g-gTcohSQ "On Horseback"]] strikes this troper with tears everytime. It's not as sad as it is nostalgic and beautiful, though.
* The ending theme to ViolinistOfHameln 's DirectToVideo half-hour movie, ''Ame no Chi Hareruya'' (a linguistic pun that can both mean "After the rain, hallellujah" and "After the rain the sky clears"). The movie itself is a majorly plotless funny sidequest (as opposed to the Wangsty and overly serious [[AdaptationDecay TV series]]), but the ending tune is just about perfect and true to the manga's spirit, talking about how people should have fun even in rainy days, and in every painful moment, they should hold hands and sing. Then the pre-chorus really kicks it in by going "''See, the faraway sky is getting brighter''..." Anyone who has read as far as the 15 volume will break down, and the rest of the series only adds to it. This troper has tried to translate the lyrics, but apart from fearing not doing it justice without the original kanji transcript, well... the tears just start sliding out. It's like a Hope overload.
* "The '59 Sound" by the Gaslight Anthem. Its about the narrator's theoretical conversation with a dead friend, asking him questions such as if he heard his favorite song one more time before he died.
* The Reindeer Section's "Will You Please Be There For Me" never fails to grab this troper's heart and ''yank'' real hard. Also, The Boy Least Likely To's "My Tiger My Heart." Summary: Calvin's growing up and frightened he's going to lose Hobbes.
-->My tiger my friend\\
My little godsend\\
I know someday we'll be happy again...
* [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hIb-49ePFII This particular song]] from the Fleischer Brothers' "GulliversTravels" always brings a tear to this troper's eye. It doesn't help that it's preceded by [[spoiler:the HeroicSacrifice of the most lovable character in the film.]]
* Not neccessarily the song itself, but this troper is paricularly vulnerable to Andrea Bocelli's original recording of "Con te partiro". Looking out an airplane window while listening to this is among the saddest thing this troper has ever done.
* Buffalo, NY band Hussalonia recently came to [[TrumpyCanDoMagicThings this troper's]] attention due to releasing an EP into the public domain. Furthermore, all of their releases since 2005 have been placed free-of-charge for download on their official website, www.hussalonia.com. Their latest release, "The Somewhat Surprising Return of the Hussalonia Robot Singers" is made up of songs sung by synthetic robot voices. The first track is hilarious, the second one is hilarious bordering on creepy, and all subsequent tracks are either TearJerkers or at least very disturbing. Special mention goes to "I Can Still Wave," which features the most Woobie-ish robot since [[TheHitchhikersGuideToTheGalaxy Marvin The Paranoid Android]] and "You Owe Me No Apologies, Maryann," which makes some of the best use of found-audio (a really old home-recorded track from an unknown family) this troper has ever heard.
* "Butterfly Kisses" by Bob Carlisle. As this troper doesn't see or talk to her father very much, listening to a song about a father watching his daughter growing up and then finally marrying her away, it always makes her eyes moisten.
* This troper tends to tear up whenever he hears certain songs by Antony and the Johnsons, namely the title track from the "Fell in Love with a Dead Boy" EP, as well as "Hope There's Someone", "What Can I Do?", and "Bird Gerhl" from 'I Am a Bird Now'. Antony Hegarty's beautifully mournful voice really sells the songs and their themes of embrace towards transgendered life, and their repercussions.
* Every Rose Has Its Thorn. Full stop.
** Even better/Worse: Something To Believe In. Even as a little girl, the video reduced me to tears more than once.
* The song "Jueves", by the Spanish band La Oreja de Van Gogh; a hauntingly beautiful song about a girl confessing her love to a man she saw every day when they took the train together, only to find that he loved her back. This troper originally just felt a warm feeling when he heard the song... a feeling that became rather depressive once he learnt the song was in rememberance to the deaths caused in the 11 March 2004 Madrid train bombings.
* Backstreet Boys's Show Me the Meaning of Being Lonely. The video doesn't help matters, either.
** Neither does the fact that it's apparently dedicated to Howie D's [[DeadLittleSister deceased older sister]]
*** Oh God, that just makes it ''worse''.
* Say what you will about the DisneyChannel stars, but Demi Lovato's "Don't Forget" needs to be listed. It helps that [[FroggoFan64 this troper]] listened to it after putting up with the bad news of ''TheFairlyOddparents'' "Wishology" special [[ShipSinking taking a dump on]] the [[FanPreferredCouple Timmy/Tootie ship]]; even though the song and the show have no actual connection, I think it pretty much describes how Tootie feels now.
* Any band involving singer-songwriter Mark Kozelek, specifically Red House Painter and/or Sun Kil Moon, is almost scientifically engineered to be depressing.
* The David Ball song [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q0gX-bipodU ''Ridin' With Private Malone'']] gets me every time in the last bits, Narmy or not
* Thrice's [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SwB32L6n2xQ ''Daedalus'']]. I mean, I know how the story goes, but the fact that the song's written from Daedalus's point-of-view, and thus has lines like "But son, please keep a steady wing/And know you're the only one that means anything to me", really, REALLY gets me. The last verse doesn't help, either:
-->Oh Gods!\\
Why is this happening to me?\\
All I wanted was new life for my son to grow up free\\
And now you took the only thing that meant anything to me\\
I'll never fly again, I'll hang up my wings...
* "Zog Nit Keynmol (The Partisans' Song)", a Yiddish song written in 1943 by Hirsh Glick, who was a Jewish inmate of the Vilna Ghetto.
* ''SilentHill'': Tear-jerking musics include "Only You", "Not Tomorrow", "Promise Reprise", "Magdelene", "True", "Theme of Laura Reprise", "Dance with Night Wind", "Please Love Me Once More", and "Room of Angel".
* "It's So Hard To Say Goodbye to Yesterday". Supposedly dedicated to the singer's [[DeadLittleSister dead little brother]].
* The video of [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HUO0gd7cr9o Winter Song]] by Sara Bareilles and Ingrid Michaelson pulled this on this troper about 3:30 in, just because it became so hopeful.
* The part of the end theme from ''We Were Soldiers'' [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_WDrbbtaO0E called "Mansions of the Lord"]] (sung by the United States Military Academy Glee Club). If you don't bawl like a baby when you hear it (especially the a capella version), you have no soul. Oh, and by the way, it's such a heartrending piece that the U.S. Army decided to make it ''THE official song to be performed at military funerals'' after the movie came out. Top that.
* [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jv4woavn00U&feature=related The Wind That Shakes the Barley]]
* The only song to ''ever'' make this troper tear up: [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UyQyH4RoDbw&feature=related Silent Night 9/11]]. I don't care if you think it's narmic or silly, I really don't. It still gets to me.
* ''The Tracks Of My Tears'': "So take a good look at my face/You'll see my smile looks out of place/If you look closer it easy to trace/The tracks of my tears". Any version can do this, but Billy Bragg's solo version hits [[BringTheNoise This Troper]] hardest.
* Red by Daniel Merriweather gets to this troper. Especially the live version.
* ''LegendOfZelda'': The "[[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=POhGCEC4gN4 Last End]]" music, which plays when there's only six hours until doomsday in ''Majora's Mask''.
** The first time this troper heard ''A Link to the Past'''s [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJh3D_zX0To credits music]], he teared up a little. It hasn't been remixed in any subsequent games, and really, there's no reason to, even if it's only 16-bit.
*The womens' chorus version of "I Thank You God" as soon as you realize it was arranged for a dead mother.
* Probably one of the more odd tracks listed here, but [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wM0puiA4c3w Just For Today]] by Hybrid brought this troper to tears once. Despite being instrumental, It gives this troper the feeling of a HopelessWar and a LastStand, Despite never being used in any soundtrack (Though the band does do these kind of songs often). But YourMileageMayVary for most of you out there.
* The music video [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FzSR_TFMirs Okkusenman]], the first time, I didn't cry that much, but when I put perspective into it, I cried when the main character in the video [[spoiler: met a girl he knew in his childhood aboard the train]]. But there where other instances I cried at, though.
** And somebody made an awesome 3D music video of Megaman 2 right [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QKmUy8inBiU here]], but at the points around 1:54 and 2:15, he fights the robot masters who finally seem to have respect for him, and he takes their power and it's kind of heartwarmingly sad.
* Jigsaw's "Sky High", and its Eurodance cover by Newton.
* Orbital's "One Perfect Sunrise", their swan song. Features OneWomanWail vocals over an otherwise bright instrumental melody, creating MoodDissonance.
* Young Fire's "The Shattered Heart". The group has done plenty of sad songs, but this one is [[SoBadItsHorrible so depressing it's unbearable.]]
* Converge's fifth album ''Jane Doe'' begins with their trademark blend of hardcore punk and thrash (with some bloody demented vocals), but the music just gets more and more powerful and emotional as the album goes along, culminating in the impossibly moving 12-minute long title track. This troper could not speak for some time after hearing the album for the first time.
* Rie Fu's ''Life Is Like A Boat'' is remarkably touching. [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ik8J9L5rJnc Really, just listen.]] Just typing her personal favorite bit gets the waterworks going for this troper:
-->And every time I see your face\\
The oceans heave up to my heart\\
You make me wanna strain at the oars\\
And soon, I can see the shore
* ''ResidentEvil''. "There was a friendly but naive king..."
* Seether's "Rise Above This". While an awesome song, the music video is heart tearing for the fact that it's about a band member's brother comitting suicide and how it affects his family. If that's not a TearJerker, nothing is.
** The full story is that Eugene Welgemoed, the brother of the band's singer, Shaun Morgan, jumped from the window of his room on the 10th story of the hotel the band was staying at while on tour. Shaun was actually there when they pronounced Eugene dead. During the taping of the video for "Rise Above This" they had to stop several times because Shaun kept bursting into tears (if you watch the video closely you can see his eyes tearing up at certain points).
* ThisTroper is utterly amazed that Chage and Aska's [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Osk15iH-eMk On Your Mark]] isn't on here. The song itself is so sadly nostalgic, just the lyrics are making me tear up... but the video... oh God.. ''you can do it, angel girl! Be free!'' *bawww*
* Hootie and the Blowfish, "Innocence." "I want you to know, and to feel in your soul, that someone has come and gone." It may not be intended to be about that, but for me it takes me back to the first awful loss of someone far too young to die, and the ensuing sense of rootlessness in a very scary world.
* [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sLOr_FrJJWA ''Skinny Love'']] by Bon Iver. "I told you to be patient/I told you to be fine/I told you to be balanced/I told you to be kind/Now all your love is wasted?/Then who the hell was I?/Now I'm breaking at the britches/And at the end of all your lines" Actually, that entire album is this trope.
* "Cradle of the Ivory Moon" from the SoulNomadAndTheWorldEaters soundtrack. Not helped by the fact that it's the credits theme to one of the saddest endings in any Nippon Ichi game. (and that's saying ''[[{{Disgaea}} a]] [[MakaiKingdom lot]].'')
* [[http://www.loc.gov/today/cyberlc/feature_wdesc.php?rec=3852 The Holocaust Cantata]]. Especially "The Train," where the male soloist sings a last farewell to his love as she is being taken to a concentration camp.
** ''Already rolling, puffing and blowing/Already hearing the clatter taking her away...''
** This troper's church choir, in which she sings, has performed the Holocaust Cantata several times. The first time this troper sang in it, her choir directer hit her with "The Train" ''as the first song in the first rehearsal.'' She went home crying and numb.
* [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_bXYSmgpErI ''The War Was In Color'']] by Carbon Leaf. Seriously one of the saddest songs about war this troper has ever heard.
* ''Under Your Tree'' by Sonata Arctica, makes this dog-lover tear up every time.
* [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NNo8LvdOwSk "Skipper Dan"]], amid the theater and Disney references, is a surprisingly sad tale of a man whose dreams of success and fame were shattered by reality, leaving him in an endless rut working day to day to pay the bills and deal with his depression. Not nearly as tragic as other examples on this list, but far more likely to hit close to home... and it definitely comes from out of nowhere, considering it's a song by ''WeirdAlYankovic''.
* [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rnHCVZdJdJw "OK"]] by Farin Urlaub. The song itself sounds like a fairly standard BreakupSong - until you see the video and realize what's really going on here is that the person addressed "left" by ''dying''.
* "Cut" by Plumb. It ends on a positive note, but this troper was still sad after listening to it.
** "Damaged" by the same artist.
* [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kpq-CsqLsGU "Nadia's Theme"]] Oh, sweet Jesus.
* When I was a kid, I was always touched by Elton John's "Someone Saved My Life Tonight". I love it even more knowing the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Someone_Saved_My_Life_Tonight story behind the lyrics]]. If it doesn't affect you then...
* Anything by Good Charlotte... "Emotionless" and the hidden track at the end of "Meet My Maker" get to me...
* Badly Drawn Boy's "Minor Incident", especially in the context of the film, really gets to me. It sounds like a suicide note to her son.
* How is Paul McCartney's "Here Today" not on here? That song friggin' kills me.
* Moxy Früvous is half a peppy, quirky, Canadian folk band. The other half of their songs will rip your heart out. For instance, "The Drinking Song", apparently about a friend who drank himself to death:
-->''Till the end, he passed out on the sundeck that morning\\
Quietly saying goodbye\\
But I was so hammered I sputtered and stammered\\
Told him he couldn't just die\\
He was a rock, went straight for his own armageddon\\
Face froze in a grin\\
Ambulence flyin' in, I never drank again\\
Can't really call that a loss or a win\\
\\
And the band played on...''
* This troper ''bawls'' every time she hears Craig Morgan's [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MtqxY3t74To ''Almost Home'']].
* Daddy's Little Girl by Frankie J gets this troper in tears every time. The [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IC0FqEE55Yw official video]] makes it even worse.
* [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xNWgTmkbgtw "Someday"]], by Celtic Woman. Perhaps this troper just remembers this song vaguely from her childhood, but for some reason she simply disintegrates when she hears it.
*"We'll Meet Again" as performed by Vera Lynn. Not only can the lyrical content be construed as depressing (considering that it's a World War II song, it's implied that the place that "we'll" meet again is heaven), but it's the song that plays at the end of the Futurama episode "Jurassic Bark," an incredible tearjerker in its own right.
** Kudos to all the funny people behind Futurama for making their audiences cry.
* This troper is affected by a number of tracks on "So Long, Astoria" by The Ataris. See [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zt0cRlaiFhE&feature=related "Unopened Letter to the World"]], [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W40E1_mndro&feature=related "The Hero Dies in this One"]], among others. Ohhh, the nostalgia.
* This video of [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_xtEy951Dic "The Disappearance of Hatsune Miku"]] is really very heartwrenching.
* [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DkxEUtAJ4aE&feature=related This Rahman song]] (the first minute might be a little grating to western ears). Even though It isn't necessarily sad, it makes me (and my entire family) tear up everytime. Immigrant nostalgia anyone?
* {{Queensryche}}'s album ''American Soldier'' is full of these, but by far the most powerful one is "Home Again." In a duet between vocalist Geoff Tate and his daughter Emily, it is meant to be intterpretted as a story about a soldier exchanging letters with his family as well as a message to Tate's own family.
* "Forever Young" by Alphaville can really do it for this troper. The longing for days past, it's haunting.
* 2nu's ''A Father's Day", about an old man who lived an unremarkable (but fufulling) life reflecting upon it on his deathbed, as well as "32", about a man reunited with his father in heaven (where they're both the ages of the best years of their lives, the son's being 32).
* Arcade Fire's "Crown of Love" and "Wake Up". A one-two punch in the album order. I have to be careful not to get those stuck in my head in public.
* Hammerfall's [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DwNSY_W3VbQ "If Dreams Come True"]]
* Video game music: ''KingdomHearts 358/2 Days'' - Xion's battle theme, "Dirge of the Fourteenth",turning from sorrow and sadness to confusion and rage. The beautiful sense of inner struggle in [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=97-ZJ6qEuVY the music]] and the reason behind it really got to this troper.
* Symphony X's The Odyssey does it for this troper. Particularly the last verse of the final part; 'Champion of Ithaca':
-->Seems like forever that my eyes have been denied\\
Home - I'm finally home\\
It's been twenty years away from all I ever knew\\
I have returned to make my dream come true\\
* There is no good reason, at all, why Martina McBride's "This One's For the Girls" should make this troper cry. None whatsoever. And yet, every time she hears it, she loses it. Spectacularly.
* ELP's "Lucky Man". It details a rich young man who goes to war, but he gets shot and dies.
-->No money could save him\\
So he lay down and he died
The message is pretty shallow, but it's one that gets to me all the time. Combine that with the sad acoustic guitar, and you have one sad ballad. Especially heartbreaking with [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lRFpXPu_7wE this video]], which was a tribute to the user's dad who died of cancer. "Ooh, what a lucky man he was..." *sniff*
* [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ILZfV9qMwg&NR=1 This video]] will absolutely ''slay'' any Star Trek fan, particularly those who are fans of the original series.
* [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-4wUfZD6oc A River Flows in You]] by Yiruma. Ever since Twilight fangirls got their hands on it, it's not been the same, but even so, its beauty evokes tears of awe.
*[[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L7nJZ9iqu68 Words]] by Darren Hayes. The quiet, understated music video just helps, or makes things worse.
-->But your words are like weapons\\
You'll keep them inside\\
They cut like a knife\\
And you keep it together,\\
All those feelings inside\\
There's nowhere to hide but away from me\\
And I just wanna listen...
*"Watchman, Tell Us of the Night", a beautiful, melancholy orchestral piece.
-->"A hymn for all children, Watchmen, Tell Us of the Night portrays the loneliness, loss of innocence and yet endearing hope of the survivor of child abuse." The song is dreamlike, through the eyes of a child. Beautiful is not a comparable word.\\
** [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MJf3e62-oK8 Listen to the first part.]][[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7wuDjuLvhc Listen to the second part.]] [[TearJerker I dare you not to cry.]]
*''Perfect'' by Alanis Morisette, about parents who expect perfection.
-->''"We'll love you... just the way you are... if you're perfect..."''
*''The Eighth of November'' by Big and Rich. The song's intro says it perfectly:
-->''"On November 8th, 1965, the 173rd Airborne Brigade on Operation Hump, War Zone D in Vietnam, were ambushed by over 1200 VC. 48 American soldiers lost their lives that day. Lawrence Joel, a medic, became the first living black man since the Spanish-American to receive the United States Congressional Medal of Honor for saving so many lives in the midst of battle that day. Our friend Miles Harris -the guy who gave Big Kenny his top hat- was one of the wounded who lived. This song is his story. 'Caught in action of killed or be killed, great love hath no man than to lay down his life for a friend'."''
* In Batman:TheAnimatedSeres, Clayface's {{Leitmotif}}. Just a simple set of descending chords, but so tragic. Particularly when it was used after [[spoiler:Clayface's death]] in ''Mudslide''
* Fairport Convention's [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g5ksWNvFbME Crazy Man Michael]]. Haunting lyrics + Sandy Denny's voice = Incredible TearJerker.
** "[[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cMNrVEi54yA Farewell, Farewell]]" does it for this troper.
* EmilieAutumn's "What If" does it for this troper nearly every time she listens to it. It's just so... gah
* Anything by FallOutBoy can get this troper going, but the song "What a Catch, Donnie" is amazing, particularly the following lines: ''"They say the captain goes down with the ship/So when the world ends, will God go down with it?"''
* I'm not sure if this is a cover, but Jeremy Messersmith singing [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VQkfUFmjsgY Beautiful Children]] always makes me cry. Unfortunately, this isn't the full song, but you get the idea.
* The song [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NSqus2TlcsY Bratja]] from FullMetalAlchemist (which, unsurprisingly, has its own TearJerker page). The literal translation is "Brothers", which makes this troper cry every time she heard this song in the anime as it just makes her think of the bond that Edward and Alphonse had throughout the entire series and the whole ordeal that they went through. For a double heaping of melancholy, [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rv6EKFNx3IM&feature=related Vic Mignonga]], Edward Elric's dubbed voice actor, sang it in English.
* Xenomorph's song [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=By1vzBtjViI Capitalist Infiltration]]. Most of the album it's from (Demagoguery of the Obscurants) has a similar effect, [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5VVM6UeWV2M Harbringers of Extinction]] in particular. But hey, it's dark psytrance, so it's not surprising.
* Stan Rogers' "First Christmas". This troper first heard it five years ago, and will still sob by the third verse. It's the experiences of a young man working the night shift to make ends meet, an abused teenage girl in a homeless shelter, and an old man whose family have put him in a nursing home, on their first Christmas away from home.
*Dream Academy's "Life in a Northern Town". So often dismissed as a ChorusOnlySong, yet the verses are wonderfully evocative, and the "bye bye" in the third verse gets this troper every time.
* Karine Polwart's "Light on the Shore". A painfully honest song about the inevitability of death, with not the slightest crumb of comfort. Beautiful (especially the live version), but an Awesome Moment Of Downer.
* The song [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PqumTeDDBcc Walzer Für Dich]] by the German band PUR about losing one's father brings this troper to tears every time, although her father's still alive.
*Patricia Kaas' [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I176aL2dTUw "Et s'il fallait le faire"]] gets this troper every time. Frankly songs this depressing shouldn't belong in Eurovision.
"Tha Crossroads" by Bone Thugs "N Harmony gives this troper a good cry every time they hear it.
* "He Went to Paris" by Jimmy Buffett. Buffett wrote it about a one-armed Spanish Civil War veteran he met while playing in Chicago, and it is absolutely heartbreaking. It starts out telling how he was idealistic young man who came to Paris to find himself, then travelled to England, where he met his future bride and had a son. The third verse is where your eyes begin to well up:
-->The war took his baby
-->The bombs killed his lady
-->And left him with only one eye
-->His body was battered
-->His whole world was shattered
-->And all he could do was just cry
-->While the tears were a-fallin'
-->He was recallin'
-->Answers he never found
-->So he hopped on a freighter
-->Skidded the ocean and left England
-->Without a sound
**It gets even worse during the final verse, telling how he now lives in the islands, is losing his hearing, and doesn't usually talk to anyone, but if he does like you "he'll smile and he'll say/...some of it's magic/some of it's tragic/but I had a good life all the way". Makes this troper bawl every time.
* [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LL3ZbNRH1Wc This song]] ("Edge of the Ocean" by Ivy, for the record) makes this troper cry every time.
* [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hQsoAGgrh9g How can it be? I can taste you now...]] Damn you Goldfrapp, damn you...
* [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=twnqSCKAsqE Angus and Julia Stone's ''Wasted''.]]
* "Don't Wake Me" by Skillet is, in reality, just another breakup song but for some reason it makes me tear up every time I hear it.
* [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EnJOH5PImrw "The Host of the Seraphim"]] by Dead Can Dance is incredibly haunting. Never mind its use as background music in The Mist, or accompanying the terrible scenes of abject poverty in Baraka... if you can't listen to this on its own without losing it, you have no soul.
* "Stay With Me" is one of the saddest songs I have heard...may or may not have been influenced by my first exposure being ({{Serenity}} spoilers ahead!) [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BUK7eYk4Gbg this]]
*Grey Delisle's [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4kXXTe6M1PE cover]] of Bohemian Rhapsody is possibly the most heartbreaking song this troper has ever heard. It takes on an even deeper meaning when we realize this woman also voiced Azula from ''Avatar: The Last Airbender''.
* Athlete's "Wires" is pretty bad even before you find out it's about a newborn baby in intensive care...
* Vampire Knight "Still Doll". No, I haven't seen the show. No, I don't know the in-universe "history" of this song. It's the way she is singing it... ''God damn.'' You can listen to it [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kJDgSOPMEIU here.]]
*{{Fallout}} fans unite: The Inkspots took melancholy to an art form. "Maybe", "I Don't Want to Start the World on Fire", and "If I Didn't Care". Mix and match with 50's nuclear apocalypse, art deco, underwater distortions, and objectionism. Keep a tissue handy as well.
* Go listen to Brooks & Dunn's "Cowgirls Don't Cry." Now try not to bawl. I expect you'll fail - especially if you've ever been involved with horses.

* "Virtue the Cat Explains Her Departure" the sequel to The Weakerthans "Plea from a Cat Named Virtue" is one of the most hearbreaking songs ever. It's told from the p.o.v of a lost housecat as she faces the elements and slowly starts to forget her beloved owner.
"After scrapping with the ferals and the tabby,
Let you brush my matted fur
How I'd knead into your chest while you were sleeping
Shallow breathing made me purr
But I can't remember the sound that you found for me."
* This troper's choir's accompaniast wrote "Uniamo in Amore," a love song dedicated to his wife. It's been performed in public 3 times by our chamber choir, and it's brought people to tears every time.
*This troper's high school's Women's Chorale is known for producing tear-jerking renditions of Psalm 23 (Stroope), I Thank You God, and Prayer of the Children.
*They Might Be Giants, "The End of the Tour". TMBG tunes tend to be open to interpretation, but this troper's is that the message here is 'enjoy what we have because one day, it's gone', and more specifically, 'one day we won't be partners anymore; we won't share that interest that binds us, anymore; we won't be friends anymore'. And we're never gonna tour again.*Shattered, by Trading Yesterday tends to do this for ThisTroper. It's a very personal to her since it's part of a rather depressing period of her life. At one point when things were really difficult, she ehard this on the radio, with this particular verse increasing in force and itnensity as it repeated: She heard this one day on the radio... and things kind of changed: ''Without love gone wrong/lifeless words l carry on/ but I know, all I know/ is that the ends beginning/ who I am from the start/ take my home to my heart/ let me go and I will run/ I will not be silent...''
* Noone's mentioned the credits version of "[[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8iZi9f5CEq8 Where Are You, Christmas?]]" (Don't ''watch'' the video itself, or you may end up with {{Narm}}.) Surely I'm not the only one who remembers how wonderful Christmas used to seem (and for most, how wonderful it ''actually was'') when I was a kid, and now ... what happened, indeed? [[{{Strife89}} I]] bawled when I heard the song after that revelation. :'(
* Tony Joe White & Shelby Lynne, "Can't Go Back Home": "I'm strong enough/'Cept when I'm not"
* Zero 7, "[[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5RksdQrqLNs Home]]," with vocals by Tina Dico.
* The ''{{Touhou}}'' fan game ''Concealed the Conclusion'' takes the series through a rather [[DreamApocalypse dark and tragic turn]], and the music reflects it. That final stage music, "[[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mziE9ScZy9A Blue Sea of 53 Minutes]]" proves, as one reviewer put it, that "it's hard to dodge {{danmaku}} with tears in your eyes." [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BkWSh28jIQk Tamusic's version is even worse]]. For the last boss, you get to experience the main character and her dying best friend having one final duel before the end of the world, set to the simultaneously epic and heartbreaking "[[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJqdUILsT8Q Final Dream]]." And after ''that'', you get "[[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FgQRTxhOwUM The Purest Sky and Sea]]" for credits music.
Bette Midler's Wind Beneath my Wings. 'Nuff said.
* Willie Nelson performing "America the Beautiful" at the September 11 telethon, with everybody slowly joining in- including Muhammad Ali, who stood for most of it, despite his condition. And they sang all the verses.
* James Keelaghan's "Captain Torres" is about the real-life sinking of a freighter in the Cabot Strait; conditions were so bad that there could be no rescue. The crew lined up and was given a few minutes to call home and say goodbye. The song is from the point of view of one of the wives, and if the verses don't get you, the bridge will be a punch in the gut.
--->Do I count myself lucky
--->I was home the phone was ringing
--->What of other's wives who missed it
--->Came home to red lights blinking
''OUCH''. "La mer ne pardonne pas", indeed. Then the long playout with the cello mimicking the stormy sea and the almost-audible voice breaking through every so often.
"The Wrong Child" by REM never fails to make this troper tear up. Interestingly, Michael Stipe has never actually admitted to what the song was about, but it paints a vague picture of a child who is handicapped and seperated from his peers.
* Fort Minor's "Slip out the Back", particularly the ending.
---> I didn't wanna be around just to bring you down.
---> I'm not a hero but don't think I didn't care.
* [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K2xqBP3LSa8 Lower Your Eyelids to Die with the Sun]]. It breaks everyone down. Never watch this over a sad video.
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