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Do any unlikely songs make you cry?
"Youth" by Glass Animals and "Yulia" by Wolf Parade simply gut me. They're not associated with anyone in my life; I'm just extremely susceptible to their emotional content. Got any music like that? Do you seek out the listening experiences for the catharsis?
I'm going to stray a bit from the specific question of "which songs do this to me" because I have what I've concluded must be an unusual trait in this regard. Pretty much any piece of music, any movie, or even most written media has the capacity to make me "get shivers" or even cry.
I hear from other people that it usually takes something especially relatable or impactful to induce reactions like this, but I promise I'm not exaggerating. It's embarrassing to watch a movie or listen earnestly to music with anybody else around because I'll tear up at the stupidest things. If an orchestra swells even a bit, I'll get shivers. If a chorus comes back in full swing, I'll have goosebumps every time. Doesn't matter at all if I like the song or the message. Something as mild as a child losing their toy during a disaster in movie trope fashion will have tears running down my face. Reading an impassioned speech put down in writing will do it too. There is a lot of music that I have to turn off if I'm not in the mood to get emotional.
I don't think I've met others who complain about this (or maybe they wisely just keep it to themselves), but a better question for me would be "what songs can't make me cry?"
This is me and I'm glad I'm not alone. Music has this incredible tangibility effect on me that I can't grasp. I feel it and it's overwhelming. It can be a song or just 10 seconds of a song. This goes for everything from a cheesy pop song to avant-garde french melodic death metal. For some years now I have become more aware of the lyrics surrounding these instances combined with the music. Not really the meaning or connotation of the words but more the literal sound of the words and how the fit in the moment. If that combination is there for me my body almost shakes. It's really hard to explain. It doesn't really have to make sense on the surface emotionally it's the feeling it creates. I'm almost crying writing this because it's so fucking great and frustrating at the same time because I can't pinpoint why this is so emotional to me. It's not nostalgia, taking me back or reminding me of something it just is.
So here are to very different examples to exemplify that genre isn't important to me. I have a lot more but these just popped up.
Daniel Bedingfield - If you're not the one (at 2:23)
Pretty standard pop song and lyrics...the way he sing "I hope I love you all my life" just before the chorus here just completely floors me. It's like a complete surrendering to vulnerability, reality and the unknown and it's overwhelming to me. Here the meaning of lyrics actually play a part contrary to what I said earlier. Also the level of control of the falsetto gets me.
Bloodred Hourglass - The Greatest Time of Change (starts at 9:23 and peaks at 9:38)
in the greatest
time of the changes
we’re falling in hollow
that won’t fade away
this is just a ghost of me
just a ghost of you
into the wind we fly
Now these lyrics don't really mean anything to me and I looked them up after years of listening to this song many times. But after reading them they contribute to the feeling I get just by word association. The harrowing screams/growl feels almost like a exhaust of bottled up emotions that can finally be released. One ultimate outburst and the cathartic feeling that comes with it. This is best felt if you listen to the whole song that's about 10 minutes because it's a journey with a huge payoff.
The single greatest thing about being this way is that genre, opinions and other outside influences have no power here and that means my musical taste is endless.
Both of these stories (yours and @bub's) remind me of Oliver Sack's Musicophilia. Oliver Sacks was a neurologist who often handled extremely odd cases. The movie Awakenings with Robin Williams was about him and his earlier work with comatose patients.
In Musicophilia, he discusses several cases of people with ailments related to music. I haven't read the book myself, but have heard several interviews with the author about it. If I recall there was one man for whom music was a fairly normal part of his life until one day he was struck by lightning. After that he couldn't stop thinking about and listening to music. He'd become super emotional listening to just about any music. Eventually he buys a piano and starts playing and I think he made it his career after that.
Very interesting! I needed a new book for my walks so this is perfect.
Thank you for this response. I can relate, to a degree. Do you ever find your reactivity to be beneficial? Since it sounds like a social complication, is there recompense for the trouble? Are you ever glad to be this responsive to art and rhetoric?
Into the West - Annie Lennox. First heard in the end credits of The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King. It makes me think tearfully of a long-lost time and place. Home fades, indeed.
At different times in my life I've cried to Sawdust and Diamonds by Joanna Newsom (the ending "Desire, desire, desire" bit) and Oh My Sweet Carolina by Ryan Adams ("the sweetest winds they blow across the South" -- this is less "unlikely," since it's about homesickness, but I'm including it anyway).
A few years ago I was cleaning out my bookmarks and I had this bookmark simply titled as "best song ever", this one was added around 2010.
I was curious, weird bookmark title (usually I use very solid descriptors), and within the first thirty seconds I burst into tears and I don't know why. I'm not even a big fan of this song or genre (it's not even that good of a song, truth be told). But something about it just calls back to something visceral. I don't think I had ever listened to that in any meaningful way prior to or on purpose.
I didn't tell you the song so you can get a sense to how weird it is to find, But -
to future proof this comment here's what it is
In case that link ever goes dead, it's to Alanis Morissette's "Hand in my pocket", a really low quality youtube upload with just a title card from windows movie maker (white text, big font, blue background) followed by a close up picture of someone with their hand in their back pocket that remains for the entirety of the video. The video title says it has "w/ lyrics" but there are no lyrics to be found in the video - but they are in the description, so points I guess.By golly, I never expected that.
I forget where I was directed to this (probably /r/listentothis), but this Chewing on Tinfoil song made me cry in a deeper way than I ever have before. It put perspective on my own troubles, and reminds me that nothing in my life is quite that bad.