JeremyC - yes, I agree that it's very often the actual performance that moves me, and the whole ambiance and context in which it takes place. I was trying to think, after I'd posted, which songs or tunes had made me cry, and it was always individual performances that came to mind. For this reason, I wouldn't list the songs, but for the most part they are very simple, direct songs, full of feeling but devoid of sentimentality.

In a newspaper article recently, a journalist wrote: "Sentimentality is the tribute that indifference pays to feeling. It is to compassion what clichés are to thought." That's how I see it too.

I can't find myself moved to do anything but laugh, or groan, or throw up at most of the suggestions in this thread. I know a few of them are tongue-in-cheek, but most seem to be offered in all seriousness. I still think there's something in the American culture or temperament that I just don't get.

Marje