History TearJerker / CountryMusic

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* "[[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vgsnNKQvAhw Feed Jake]]".
-->Winos passed out on the sidewalk.
-->Doesn't anybody care?
-->Some say, "He's worthless, just let him be".
-->I, for one, would have to disagree...
-->[[spoiler:And so would their mamas]].
** Also notable for being a country song containing a GayAesop released in ''1990''.

* "[[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FiOBtOUUukM When You Leave That Way You Can Never Go Back]]" by Confederate Railroad. The narrator realizes far too late that he's screwed up his life by poor decisions (estranging his dad, leaving a bride-to-be at the altar and kiling a man), and wishing he could go back and do it all over again.
** Also from the same band, "Jesus and Mama" (similar idea, but instead he cleans up because he knows that Jesus and mama always love him) and "Daddy Never Was the Cadillac Kind" (his father tells him not to put too much pride in material things, and as he dies, he's [[spoiler:[[{{Irony}} driven away in a Cadillac]]). It's the humility in both that keeps them from going into narm territory.

* "Raymond" by Brett Eldredge. At first, it's just a song about a nursing home worker who plays along sympathetically with an old woman's Alzheimer's-fueled insistence that he's her son... but in the second verse, he says that he wishes he were indeed Raymond. ''Then'' in the bridge, it's revealed that Raymond actually died in Vietnam, and the narrator wishes to "fill in the best [he] can".

* "Daddy's Hands" by Holly Dunn. If you ever lost a father, this song will tear out your heart.

* "Every Friday Afternoon" by Craig Morgan. The narrator is horribly split over seeing his son after a divorce, because he really wants to be there but can't.

*** While we're on the subject, try listening to Rosanne Cash's "Black Cadillac" album and especially the song "I Was Watching You".

!!!''Unorganized''
* Doug Supernaw's "I Don't Call Him Daddy", in which a divorced man thinks about his son and the new father in his life.
** "Highway 20 Ride" by the ZacBrownBand has a similar topic, minus the new father. Lines like "And a part of you might hate me, but son, please don't mistake me / For a man who didn't care at all" get this troper every time.
* "I'll be waiting on the far-side banks of Jordan/ I'll be sitting, drawing pictures in the sand..."
* [[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" by Heartland.
** Chuck Wicks' "Stealing Cinderella."
* Suzy Bogguss' "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 ConwayTwitty.
** Oh Jesus...[[{{Willbyr}} this troper]] can't even hear "That's My Job" in his ''head'' without getting choked up.
* For those who despised Big & Rich for their goofy country-rock novelty songs such as "Save a Horse (Ride a Cowboy)," I recommend [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4dXLC1butGc "Holy Water."]] It'll hit you even harder once you realize it was written about Big Kenny's sister, a victim of domestic abuse.
** And in a similar vein, compare Cowboy Troy's [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zIWpd3yJcD0 "If You Don't Wanna Love Me"]] to the rest of his career. So what if the song's a rap; it's still got some killer lyrics.

*** While we're on the subject, try listening to Roseanne Cash's "Black Cadillac" album and especially the song "I Was Watching You".
* Kenny Chesney's ''Who You'd Be Today''. Only natural, since it's a song directed to a deceased lover.

* [[{{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!

* "Traveling Soldier" by the Dixie Chicks is debatable one of these. {{Narm}} in [[VietnamWar 'Nam]] notwithstanding.

* "One Last Time" by Dusty Drake (this troper can't find a video of it). It starts out sounding like an ordinary (but incredibly emotional) breakup song, until you get to the last verse. He never sings that final word, just letting the song end abruptly and really driving home the point:

* "Mama Tried" by Merle Haggard. It was played at this troper's grandma's funeral. I haven't been able to listen to it without bawling ever since.

* "Hero" by Enrique Iglesias-the guy sounds like he's an inch from tears throughout the entire song

* "He Stopped Loving Her Today" by George Jones is one of the saddest songs in country music, which is really saying something.

* "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.
** "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'')

* 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."

* Rascal Flatts has a couple: "Skin (Sarabeth)" and "Ellsworth."

* Randy Travis's "Three Wooden Crosses."

* 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.

** "Highway 20 Ride" by the Zac Brown Band has a similar topic, minus the new father. Lines like "And a part of you might hate me, but son, please don't mistake me / For a man who didn't care at all" get this troper every time.

** Same goes for "That's My Job" by Conway Twitty.

* For me it's "Tough Little Boys" by Gary Allen, about a man who watched his little girl grow up and get married. What gets me is the line "I know one day/I'll give you away/But I'm gonna stand there and smile. But when I get home/and I'm all alone/Well, I'll sit in your room for a while." Always makes this troper break out in not-so-manly tears.

* "She Misses Him" by Tim Rushlow, former lead singer for the group Little Texas. 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.

** 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.

* [[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]].

* "I Don't Call Him Daddy", in which a divorced man thinks about his son and the new father in his life.

* 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.
** Rascal Flatts has a song with that as the [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KbT-MbDEnWA pun]].
** 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."

* "I Loved Her First" by Heartland 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.
** And the other one is ''probably'' Chuck Wicks' "Stealing Cinderella."
* 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.

** That would be Suzy Bogguss who sings it, and this troper also resembles Niagara Falls when she hears it.

** "The Good Stuff". The narrator has a big fight with his wife and goes to drink at a bar. He tells the bartender he wants "the good stuff". The bartender doesn't pour him a drink, and tells him "the good stuff" can't be found in a bottle. They drink milk and talk about all the great moments in their lives, and how that's the real "good stuff".

*** For this Troper, the song "This One's for the Girls" is a true tearjerker, especially the words, "You're beautiful the way you are". Having had body image problems since childhood, those six words always make her tear up from the knowledge that someone will love her for who she is.
*** Oh god, Broken Wing, a song about a woman whose abusive husband tells her she will never amount to anything, and she eventually commits suicide. ''"Man, you oughta see her fly..."''
**** If it makes you feel any better, WordOfGod [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Broken_Wing states that the last verse could also be interpreted as she left him, not that she jumped.]]
** 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.

* 'A Couple More Years' by Willie Nelson.

** And in a similar vein, compare Cowboy Troy's [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zIWpd3yJcD0 "If You Don't Wanna Love Me"]] to the rest of his career. So what if the song's a rap; it's still got some killer lyrics.

* "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!"
* "Mama Tried". It was played at this troper's grandma's funeral. I haven't been able to listen to it without bawling ever since.

* "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

* 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.]]
* Another song that's the inverse; Chuck Wicks' Man of the House. It's about a ten-year-old boy taking on the burden of being the titular man because his father's in the military. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gxYBEfqIKkA).[[spoiler: The worst part is when the little boy, Bobby, overhears a news report about the war, and then runs up to his room before he breaks down in tears - because he doesn't want his mother to see him cry.]]
* [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wbmbr7ZCDrE The Little Girl]]. This troper broke down when she first heard it.

* "He Stopped Loving Her Today" is one of the saddest songs in country music, which is really saying something.

* "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.

* [[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.
** This troper would like to add that after listening to both Christmas Shoes and this song for the first time, the former has '''nothing''' on the latter. And this is coming from someone who did not find the former {{narm}} and doesn't even particularly like country.
* [[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]].

* 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.]]
* [[{{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!
* "Hero" by Enrique Iglesias-the guy sounds like he's an inch from tears throughout the entire song

* 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.

* 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.
* Vern 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.

* This troper dares you to make it through [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YK3zs7EV6Tk The Call]] without crying, the first time you hear it.
** This troper spent several weeks afraid to have the radio on when she was driving for fear she'd hear that song and lose it.
* "Love, Me" by Collin Raye always gets me the last time through the chorus. Even though that chorus has already been heard once, the final verse changes the meaning of it completely. Very well done. (The credit should go to Skip Ewing, who wrote the song.)
* "Big Bad John" always gets me at the end when Jimmy Dean reads the inscription. And both the original and bowdlerized versions have the same impact.

* "[[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wm7BvwlJh6A Hurry Home]]" by Jason Michael Carroll. Wow. Way to go, Jason. Only five songs into your career and two of them are tear-jerkers.

* "Angels in Waiting" by Tammy Cochran -- but only after I saw the video and found out who the song is about.

* "One Last Time" by Dusty Drake (this troper can't find a video of it). It starts out sounding like an ordinary (but incredibly emotional) breakup song, until you get to the last verse. He never sings that final word, just letting the song end abruptly and really driving home the point:
--> He said, "Honey, I've gotta go"
--> She said, "Don't you dare hang up
--> There's so many things I need to say
--> I love you so much"
--> It was almost like she felt him leave
--> She cried out, "Can you still hear me?"
--> She fell down on the kitchen floor
--> When the signal died
--> As the pilot tried to pull out of the dive
--> One... last...
** This troper will admit, when he first read that, he was confused. A few seconds later, the meaning clicked. Cue waterworks.
* "Old Coyote Town" by Don Williams. If the poignant opening notes on the piano don't get you, the wistfully nostalgic lyrics about the slow death of the singer's home town will.
* StevieWonder's "Overjoyed" seems to have the opposite effect given the title. It makes this troper cry tears of sorrow.
* "The Space Between" Dave Matthews Band. Sweet, somewhat bittersweet, longing words.
* "[[http://new.music.yahoo.com/rachel-proctor/videos/view/me-and-emily--2170565 Me and Emily]]" by Rachel Proctor. It gets you once the little girl starts asking if she has a daddy, then really drives home the point with "it would kill me if he ever raised his hand to her." Then you can hear the relief in her voice when she gets to the end: "it's a brand new day / it's a second chance / Yesterday is just a memory / For me and Emily."
* "That's Something To Be Proud Of" by Montgomery Gentry. It starts with kids listening to their grandfather tell war stories, and leads into the narrator finding his wife and having a family, but he has a crummy job and they don't have much. He wonders if he's let his father down, and if he's ashamed of how things turned out. His dad tells him "If all you're really doing is the best you can, you did it, man. That's something to be proud of."
* "Where Were You (When The World Stopped Turning) by Alan Jackson. Come on, if you're American, you cried when you heard that for the first time.
* "Monday Morning Church" by Alan Jackson. The narrator's faith is shaken to the point where he can't stand the sight of a Bible sitting on the nightstand. You think it's about a breakup until the end, where it's revealed his wife actually died. She was a woman of faith, and praying to God only reminds him of her memory.
* "Waitin' On A Woman" by Brad Paisley. A young guy waits on his girlfriend/wife(?) in a mall, and sits down next to an old man who tells him about all the times he's had to wait on his wife over the years. It was worth it.
* "The Good Stuff" by Kenny Chesney. The narrator has a big fight with his wife and goes to drink at a bar. He tells the bartender he wants "the good stuff". The bartender doesn't pour him a drink, and tells him "the good stuff" can't be found in a bottle. They drink milk and talk about all the great moments in their lives, and how that's the real "good stuff".
* "He Stopped Loving Her Today" is one of the saddest songs in country music, which is really saying something.
* 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)
*** Adkins's "You're Gonna Miss This." The song was played at the graduation ceremony for This Troper's class of 2010 seniors...and even if I'm a stoic individual, watching my senior friends walk off the stage to this song without tearing up (seeing as I am in the band, and I had to keep a pokerfaced appearance) was one of the hardest things she ever had to do.
* Go listen to [[JennetteMcCurdy Jennette [=McCurdy=]]]'s "Not That Far Away" and think about when you moved away from home. Now try not to sob.
** Even better. Try listening to ''Homeless Heart'' after that song. I dare you to try not to cry waterfalls.
* If you'd told this troper that a song by one of TheMonkees could make him cry, he would have laughed in your face...that is, until he heard Michael Nesmith's solo tune "[[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ydNvjQTRSlU Joanne]]".

** Martina [=McBride=] has a few songs that do that. For instance, the music video to "Independence Day".
** "God's Will." Her song about a kind-hearted disabled boy who may or may not live brings tears to this hard-hearted troper.
*** For this Troper, the song "This One's for the Girls" is a true tearjerker, especially the words, "You're beautiful the way you are". Having had body image problems since childhood, those six words always make her tear up from the knowledge that someone will love her for who she is.
*** Oh god, Broken Wing, a song about a woman whose abusive husband tells her she will never amount to anything, and she eventually commits suicide. ''"Man, you oughta see her fly..."''
**** If it makes you feel any better, WordOfGod [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Broken_Wing states that the last verse could also be interpreted as she left him, not that she jumped.]]

* Already mentioned above, but, "I Wonder" by Kellie Pickler. It broke my heart, because I could hear myself saying those same lines, especially "'Cause I look in the mirror/And all I see/Are your brown eyes lookin' back at me". It was my father, not my mother, who left, but it's the same sort of pain - and I have my father's brown eyes.

* "Traveling Soldier" by the Dixie Chicks is debatable 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.



* 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.
** "Jesus Take The Wheel". It's about a woman who's driving home for Christmas, with her kid in the backseat. Then she loses control of the wheel. It's depressing to say the least.
* Randy Travis's "Three Wooden Crosses."

* 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.

* If you'd told this troper that a song by one of TheMonkees could make him cry, he would have laughed in your face...that is, until he heard Michael Nesmith's solo tune "[[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ydNvjQTRSlU Joanne]]".
* 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''.
** The song is about child abuse. The music video shows the funeral of the child being sung about and how she goes to a happier place with the other children with similar fates.
*** This troper watched the video to another TearJerker song, Jason Michael Carroll's "[[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VlE2J9Yj7U4&feature=related Alyssa Lies]]." It made her tear the hell up, and almost start full out crying. Right afterward, she saw the music video for Concrete Angel in the 'related videos' section, and decided to watch it. Bad idea; she was seriously sobbing by the end of it, and is quite glad her mother was out at the time.

* For me it's "Tough Little Boys" by Gary Allen, about a man who watched his little girl grow up and get married. What gets me is the line "I know one day/I'll give you away/But I'm gonna stand there and smile. But when I get home/and I'm all alone/Well, I'll sit in your room for a while." Always makes this troper break out in not-so-manly tears.
* Danny Gokey, [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FNyk6ema5AM&ob=av2e "I Will Not Say Goodbye".]] ESPECIALLY the video.
* John Prine's "Sam Stone" is about a ShellShockedVeteran slowly killing himself with heroin. Which would be bad enough if it didn't have a [[LyricalDissonance bouncy, singalongable chorus]] shifting the story to his kids' POV and hinting that he's just passing his inability to deal with life on to them.
-->There's a hole in Daddy's arm where all the money goes
-->Jesus Christ died for nothin', I suppose
-->Li'l pitchers have big ears
-->Don't stop to count the years
-->Sweet songs never last too long on broken radios...
** Kellie Pickler burst out crying, as she sang "I Wonder" at the CMA's.
* Jason Meadows's [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j9VwYXrbiVM 18 Video Tapes]]. A man learns he is terminally ill just as he and his wife are expecting a child. To ensure his son has all the knowledge he needs while growing, the man makes a series of tapes instructing the boy how to do certain things. The final tape tells the son to be there for his own children, even if he has to do it from beyond the grave too.


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<<|TearJerker|>>
<<|MusicTropes|>>
<<|UsefulNotes|>>

** 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...

* 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...

* Rascal Flatts has a couple: "Skin (Sarabeth)" and "Ellsworth."
** "What Hurts The Most" always does it for this Troper. Made even more tearjerking when Danny Goekey did a [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kh8SVPQ2zgE beautiful rendition]] on American Idol to pay tribute to his recently deceased wife. You can hear the heartbreak in his voice.
*** "Why?" is a song asking a friend why they called themselves. Also, "Here Comes Goodbye" is fairly sad in and of itself, but considering the video shows a dead child telling a recently deceased man, "It's not bad, there's no more goodbyes here" ...
* 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.

* 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.

* 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'')

* Already mentioned above, but, "I Wonder" by Kellie Pickler. It broke my heart, because I could hear myself saying those same lines, especially "'Cause I look in the mirror/And all I see/Are your brown eyes lookin' back at me". It was my father, not my mother, who left, but it's the same sort of pain - and I have my father's brown eyes.

* "I Don't Call Him Daddy", in which a divorced man thinks about his son and the new father in his life.
** "Highway 20 Ride" by the Zac Brown Band has a similar topic, minus the new father. Lines like "And a part of you might hate me, but son, please don't mistake me / For a man who didn't care at all" get this troper every time.
* "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!"

* "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.
* 'A Couple More Years' by Willie Nelson
* 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.

* "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.
* "Mama Tried". It was played at this troper's grandma's funeral. I haven't been able to listen to it without bawling ever since.
* "Traveling Soldier" by the Dixie Chicks is debatable 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."
** "What Hurts The Most" always does it for this Troper. Made even more tearjerking when Danny Goekey did a [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kh8SVPQ2zgE beautiful rendition]] on American Idol to pay tribute to his recently deceased wife. You can hear the heartbreak in his voice.
*** "Why?" is a song asking a friend why they called themselves. Also, "Here Comes Goodbye" is fairly sad in and of itself, but considering the video shows a dead child telling a recently deceased man, "It's not bad, there's no more goodbyes here" ...
* 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.

* 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.

** Martina [=McBride=] has a few songs that do that. For instance, the music video to "Independence Day".
** "God's Will." Her song about a kind-hearted disabled boy who may or may not live brings tears to this hard-hearted troper.
*** For this Troper, the song "This One's for the Girls" is a true tearjerker, especially the words, "You're beautiful the way you are". Having had body image problems since childhood, those six words always make her tear up from the knowledge that someone will love her for who she is.
*** Oh god, Broken Wing, a song about a woman whose abusive husband tells her she will never amount to anything, and she eventually commits suicide. ''"Man, you oughta see her fly..."''
**** If it makes you feel any better, WordOfGod [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Broken_Wing states that the last verse could also be interpreted as she left him, not that she jumped.]]

* Pick a song by Townes Van Zandt. Any song. But maybe especially "Tecumseh Valley."
* What? No love for Miranda Lambert's "The House That Built Me"? "You leave home/You move on/And you do the best you can/I got lost in this old world and forgot/ Who I am..." This line plus the chorus gets me every time.