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Songs You Can't Sing for Crying
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Subject: RE: Songs You Can't Sing for Crying From: Tattie Bogle Date: 29 Jul 13 - 03:16 PM There are some that reached me through family and personal events: when my mother was in her final downward spiral through dementia, there was one of Tommy Sands' songs in which he described his own mother's struggle with it. Also "The Joy of Living" got to me then, and still does to some extent. After she died in 2002, it was Eric Bogle's "Belle of Broughton": I couldn't sing it for at least a couple of years after. Then when my Dad died on Christmas Day 2010, we chose "Crossing the Bar" - Alfred Lord Tennyson's last poem, set to music by Rani Arbo, Craig Morgan and Robson's recording, for his funeral as he had been in the Royal Navy. The nautical imagery just seemed to fit. I'm still struggling to sing it myself, much as I love it. On a less "close to home" note, but yet something everyone in the world felt, Tom Paxton's "The Bravest" for 9/11. |
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Subject: Lyr Add: ENOLA GAY (Utah Phillips) From: Bill D Date: 29 Jul 13 - 12:21 PM I have posted several times in the last several years to this thread... and I can't imagine how I left out this one: (hearing Bruce Phillips sing it is... um... an experience. ENOLA GAY (Utah Phillips) As recorded by Utah Phillips on "I've Got to Know" (1991)
1. Look out, look out from your schoolroom window.
2. It's many a mile from the Utah desert
3. High above the clouds in the sunlit silence,
4. What is that sound high above my city?
5. What will I say when my children ask me,
6. Look out, look out from your schoolroom window.
7. I turn to see the fireball rising.
8. Look out, look out from your schoolroom window. |
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Subject: RE: Songs You Can't Sing for Crying From: GUEST Date: 29 Jul 13 - 12:18 PM Joe Peel for me, as well as He was Good with His Hands and Leader of the Band. Anyone else for Joe Peel? Or is it just me? |
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Subject: RE: Songs You Can't Sing for Crying From: GUEST Date: 29 Jul 13 - 12:11 PM David Francey's powerful remembrance of sacrificed soldiers, in Flowers of Saskatchewan. Love the song, took a long time to present it without breaking down. It reminded me of my own father who was a Canadian soldier away in Europe for 4 years in WW2....I met him for the first time when I was four years old. |
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Subject: RE: Songs You Can't Sing for Crying From: Goodboyshep Date: 29 Jul 13 - 11:41 AM I know it's the folk club equivalent of Stairway to Heaven, but "The band played WM" - I actually used to be unable to get through to the end. I'm more insensitive nowadays. |
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Subject: RE: Songs You Can't Sing for Crying From: GUEST,eldergirl Date: 29 Jul 13 - 10:46 AM Have just read thru this thread, sniffling as I go.. Songs I doubt I could get through. Quite a few, but for starters; Home, lads, home Mollymauk (I LOVE it tho') Anderson's coast (ditto) Jonny and Vicki singing Follow Me Home. Pete Ryder's 'Where the Lion Stands'. But oddly enough I can sing right through the song I know as 'I come and stand at every door'. Nowt so queer as folk, eh? |
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Subject: RE: Songs You Can't Sing for Crying From: GUEST Date: 06 Oct 12 - 02:12 AM The flowers of Manchester. A song written in 1958 about Manchester United's Munich air crash |
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Subject: RE: Songs You Can't Sing for Crying From: GUEST Date: 05 Oct 12 - 05:18 PM Rats! The post on Oct.5 at 5:12 P.M. is from me, Topical Tom. I lost my cookie again. |
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Subject: RE: Songs You Can't Sing for Crying From: GUEST Date: 05 Oct 12 - 05:12 PM "When the Roses Bloom Again Beside the River" has always brought a tear to my eye. I'm unsure about the title but it involves a love between a young lass and her soldier lover who does not return home from the war. Another one is "Will the flowers Bloom in Heaven?" and a third one is "Put my Little Shoes Away." Strange as it may seem, I love to sing (or try to!) these tear jerker songs. |
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Subject: RE: Songs You Can't Sing for Crying From: Musket Date: 05 Oct 12 - 07:33 AM On Xmas Eve, my step Dad used to get in from the club and once sat in his chair with a whisky, for some reason always starting crooning out "Old Shep" As a teenager with a few beers in me too, I used to go all melancholy and not look forward to the final verses. "Oh no, not the gun!" I used to pretend I was taking the piss, but looking back, I used to get upset.... These days, I like to think I don't get upset by music. However, my Mum used to love listening to Jim Reeves and a few weeks ago, "Welcome to my World" came on BBC Radio 2. Sobbed my bloody heart out. Rather amazed I just shared that... |
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Subject: RE: Songs You Can't Sing for Crying From: GUEST,jood Date: 04 Oct 12 - 07:12 PM Across the evening sky, all the birds are leaving But how can they know it's time for them to go? Before the winter fire, I will still be dreaming I have no thought of time For who knows where the time goes? Who knows where the time goes? Sad, deserted shore, your fickle friends are leaving Ah, but then you know it's time for them to go But I will still be here, I have no thought of leaving I do not count the time For who knows where the time goes? Who knows where the time goes? And I am not alone while my love is near me I know it will be so until it's time to go So come the storms of winter and then the birds in spring again I have no fear of time For who knows how my love grows? And who knows where the time goes? No contest! |
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Subject: RE: Songs You Can't Sing for Crying From: GUEST,PatrickH Date: 04 Oct 12 - 12:00 PM Hamish Henderson's John MacLean March |
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Subject: RE: Songs You Can't Sing for Crying From: Phil Edwards Date: 04 Oct 12 - 03:32 AM Tiger - "Not sad, but teary anyway" is an interesting category. I find I'm much more likely to cry at an uplifting song like The Mary Ellen Carter than an ostensibly sad one. Add the effects of over-exposure (and I find some songs get over-exposed quite quickly) and an awful lot of the songs on your list leave me dry-eyed. Lal Waterson's Child among the Weeds has me in bits if I ever try to sing it, even around the house. Sydney Carter's Every Star Shall Sing a Carol likewise, not to mention Friday Morning with its devastating chorus/punchline - "It's God they ought to crucify instead of you and me," I said to the carpenter, hanging on the tree Peter Bellamy's Us Poor Fellows and The Leaves in the Woodland both need a few run-throughs before I can complete them. Traditional songs don't affect me like that when I come to sing them. There are some powerfully affecting lines in some of them - Send for the doctor although it's too late Had I lived I might have been clever And every stitch she put in it, the tears came trinkling down I have lost a sheath and knife that I'll never see again But they don't hang about - you sing the line, you tell the story, and then you move on to the next line and the next bit of the story. When I sing The Unfortunate Lass or The Trees They Do Grow High I'm in the song, with no chance to reflect on it until it's finished; I don't find that to be the case with contemporary songs. |
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Subject: RE: Songs You Can't Sing for Crying From: Beer Date: 03 Oct 12 - 11:34 PM That is some list Tiger. Two which I have difficulty with are "Coat of Many Colors" and the second one I just can't sing is "Old Shep". One that is not on your list which I have a very difficult time with is a Garnet Rogers song titled "Stars in Their Crown". Adrien P.S. Good thread Suibhne O'Piobaireachd |
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Subject: RE: Songs You Can't Sing for Crying From: Tiger Date: 03 Oct 12 - 04:51 PM My life has, fortunately, been free of hardship, despair and tragedy. It's just that music really gets to me, and a good percentage of my repertoire is sentimental or sad. But, I'm not (sad, anyway). |
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Subject: RE: Songs You Can't Sing for Crying From: GUEST,999 Date: 03 Oct 12 - 03:09 PM We must have had similar things get to us all through life. At least half your list resonates with me, and I laughed at the end where you listed teen tragedy songs. The only one I haven't heard and angst-ed over is Ebony Eyes. |
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Subject: RE: Songs You Can't Sing for Crying From: Tiger Date: 03 Oct 12 - 01:44 PM I guess I wouldn't have gotten so carried away with this list if you hadn't hit my soft spot - this kind of song has always suckered me in. I'm really a happy guy, though. These are ones from my collection. There are probably lots more, but if they grab me, I grab 'em. The 1 to 5 scale is how they hit me - I'd be interested in your comments. Tearfully.......Tiger The Randall Knife - Guy Clark I put this in a special category, 'cause so many people have mentioned it. This song must be heard live to be properly awed, although the CD version is fine. Guy unplugs his guitar and moves to the front of the stage (or whatever) to sing solo, as close to the audience as he can get. You'll not hear a footfall or a tinkling ice cube during this song, I gar-own-tee it. It's difficult to express the feelings (maybe 'thunderstruck'?). Industrial Strength Tear-jerkers (4 Stars) And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda No Man's Land The Old Man The Massacre of Glencoe The Wind that Shakes the Barley Deportee 3-Star Lachrymators Old Shep The Dutchman The Faded Coat of Blue Tecumseh Valley Annie's Going to Sing Her Song There Were Roses I Think I Can, I Think I Can (2 Stars) Cornflower Blue Ballad of Springhill Urge for Going Another Time and Place I Wonder if They Ever Think of Me He Was a Friend of Mine Lili Marlene The Rose Cindy's Cryin' Fort Worth Blues For the Sake of the Song The Town that I Loved So Well Streets of London Vincent Old Uncle Ned Danny Boy I Get Misty (1 Star) Loch Tay Boat Song Till We Meet Again Lovely Derry On The Banks Of The Foyle Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald Long, Long Time Seven Spanish Angels Just a Country Dream Macushla Mother Machree On the Banks of the Wabash, Far Away Me and Bobby McGee Green Green Grass of Home Shifting Whispering Sands Ballad of Ira Hayes Adelita Turning Toward the Morning Three Score and Ten Coward of the County Bird on a Wire Coat of Many Colors Darling Nelly Gray What's Your Mamma's Name Where the River Shannon Flows Wild Montana Skies Not sad, but teary anyway Christian Island Amazing Grace Battle Hymn of the Republic Morning Has Broken Song for the Mira Roseville Fair Island in the Sun The Mary Ellen Carter Just can't leave out my teen tragedy medley Ebony Eyes Teen Angel Patches Tell Laura I Love Her Running Bear |
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Subject: Lyr Add: CRANES OVER HIROSHIMA (Fred Small) From: saulgoldie Date: 03 Oct 12 - 11:09 AM "Cranes Over Hiroshima" by Fred Small I heard it done by a duo called "Two of a Kind" Cranes Over Hiroshima By Fred Small The baby blinks her eye, as the sun falls from the sky, She feels the sting of a thousand fires, as the city around her dies. Some sleep beneath the rubble, some wake to a different world, From the crying babe will grow a laughing girl. Ten summers fade to Autumn, ten winters' snows have passed, She's a child of dreams and dances, she's a racer strong and fast. But the headaches come ever more often, and the dizziness always returns, And the word she hears is leukemia, and it burns. chorus: Cranes over Hiroshima, white and red and gold, Flicker in the sunlight, like a million vanished souls. I will fold the cranes of paper, to a thousand one by one. And I'll fly away, when I am done. Her ancestors knew the legend, if you make a thousand cranes. From squares of colored paper, it will take away the pain. With loving hands she folds them, 644 Till the morning her trembling hands can't fold anymore. cho. Her friend did not forget her, crane after crane they made, Until they reached a thousand, and they laid them on her grave. People from everywhere gathered, and together a prayer they said, And they wrote the words in granite so none may forget. This is our cry, this is our prayer, peace in the world. Still working on getting alltheway through it. Perseverance, my boy. Saul |
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Subject: RE: Songs You Can't Sing for Crying From: kendall Date: 02 Oct 12 - 02:14 PM I was finally able to get through reciting "Carrying Nelson Home" at the Getaway. |
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Subject: RE: Songs You Can't Sing for Crying From: Rob Naylor Date: 02 Oct 12 - 12:25 PM BillD: Thanks. I hope it doesn't spoil it for you! The rest of that verse is about the fact that the weavers were on piece-work, so nobody could *afford* to "heed" anyone who was injured, or to help carry them out. You got hit and you either got yourself "off t' floor" to get the injury seen to, or if knocked out you lay there until you either came to, or there was a shift change or break, or, if you were lucky, a tuner came to help you between jobs. When my mum was hit on the head, she was lucky. She had 4 sisters working at adjacent looms and Gracie, the youngest, shut down and went to help her. They were all still at home at that time and there was enough coming in that they could afford to lose an hour of one sister's production time. A scary thing as youngsters was that all my aunts on both sides of the family could lip-read perfectly, from great distances. They had to learn due to the noise, and could hold long, complicated, but silent, conversations. Family "dos" could be quite entertaining, with the older womenfolk chattering away silently to each other without the men or we kids having a clue what they were saying! The downside was that if we swore in the street, for instance, even 20 yards away from the window, they might "hear" and give us a clip round the ear when we got in. |
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Subject: RE: Songs You Can't Sing for Crying From: Bill D Date: 02 Oct 12 - 11:57 AM Rob Naylor... I occasionally sing "Poverty Knock", (though local Mudcatter Carly does it better than I). I will never hear it again without the poignancy of your memories reminding me just how real those images were. |
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Subject: RE: Songs You Can't Sing for Crying From: Fred Maslan Date: 02 Oct 12 - 11:03 AM Jutland The Streets of london |
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Subject: RE: Songs You Can't Sing for Crying From: ranger1 Date: 02 Oct 12 - 10:01 AM Dave Carter's "When I Go", I sang it when we waked my dad and I can't sing that last verse without tears. |
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Subject: RE: Songs You Can't Sing for Crying From: GUEST Date: 02 Oct 12 - 09:49 AM Garnet Rogers' "Jenny Bryce" "Harris and the Mare" As Garnet would tell you, "Jenny Bryce was written by James Keelaghan and "Harris and the Mare" by Stan Rogers. |
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Subject: RE: Songs You Can't Sing for Crying From: mayomick Date: 02 Oct 12 - 09:20 AM The Ugly Duckling makes me very weepy as well. And Little White Bull by Tommy Steele of course .Both compositions are tragic in their different ways, but at the same time they both deal with eternal themes: trial ,redemption and renewal . |
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Subject: RE: Songs You Can't Sing for Crying From: Shimbo Darktree Date: 02 Oct 12 - 08:50 AM Top of the list: Eric Bogle's "The Enigma" Also "The Letter Edged in Black", although I've done it enough to become used to it. Other songs from around that time also get me, like "I Want a Pardon for Daddy" and "The Lightning Express". Kevin Baker's "Snowy River Men" is sometimes a problem. -Shimbo |
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Subject: RE: Songs You Can't Sing for Crying From: theleveller Date: 02 Oct 12 - 03:56 AM "theleveller, I didn't know your friend, but that is a lovely song." Thanks, KT, he was a lovely man and his two books, 'Waterlog' and 'Wildwood' are a joy. |
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Subject: RE: Songs You Can't Sing for Crying From: Rob Naylor Date: 02 Oct 12 - 03:40 AM One that gets me every time is MacColl's "The Joy Of Living". It'll be sung at my funeral but I've never been able to sing it myself without choking up. Sometimes I can't even hear it. A friend I was travelling up to Wales with to climb Glyder Fach put it on my car's CD (I think she thought the lyrics would be "appropriate"!). I was driving along with tears streaming and eventually had to pull over and stop. She was astounded as she'd never considered me as someone who might cry "in public". Another one that gets me (I can sing it but have to be very careful not to choke up) is "Poverty Knock"...in particular the verse "Sometimes a shuttle flies aht, and gi's sum poor woman a claht". My mum, a former mill girl, used to sing this to me when I was a toddler, way before it was "released" as a recording. She had a huge scar on her head where she'd been hit by a shuttle, another one on her arm and 2 badly set fingers that had also been broken by an escaping shuttle. |
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Subject: RE: Songs You Can't Sing for Crying From: GUEST,999 Date: 01 Oct 12 - 07:10 PM I have difficulty with "Last Trip Home" written by Davy Steele and John McCusker. |
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Subject: RE: Songs You Can't Sing for Crying From: GUEST,Joi Date: 01 Oct 12 - 07:00 PM "Danny Boy" because it makes me so sad. I can mostly keep it together until the part where the parent is talking about if Danny should return after the parent dies and then I just burst out crying every time. This has happened all of my life. Others can sing "Danny Boy" with so much happiness and others can sing it with reverence. I sing it with tears. "Irish Lullaby" because it is so sweet. I used to sing it when I was a singing waitress at an Irish restaurant in Portland, Oregon. The customers always loved it. Whenever I sang it for sweet, elderly ladies, they always had a tear in their eyes while they smiled at me. Later on, I always taught that song in my music classes at school. I can sing it without crying, but have always held a soft spot in my heart for those little old ladies. |
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Subject: RE: Songs You Can't Sing for Crying From: KT Date: 01 Oct 12 - 05:34 PM theleveller, I didn't know your friend, but that is a lovely song. KT |
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Subject: RE: Songs You Can't Sing for Crying From: Gurney Date: 01 Oct 12 - 04:12 PM I've sung many of the songs here, but one that I'd never attempt is the English trad. 'The Life of a Man.' Funny how some get to you, isn't it. |
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Subject: RE: Songs You Can't Sing for Crying From: mayomick Date: 01 Oct 12 - 10:42 AM That song about the baby going down the plughole always gets me. |
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Subject: RE: Songs You Can't Sing for Crying From: GUEST,highlandman at work Date: 01 Oct 12 - 10:26 AM I am a bit prone to getting that awful hitch in my voice at times. But for me it's not usually the song itself, but some association I make with it. Over the years I've learned that I can, with time, get the song back. Presently I have "Parting Glass" and "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot" on my no-sing list, having sung them for a dying friend. I consider the temporary loss of a song a small price to pay for having shared those moments with him and his wife. Now, Mrs. Highlandman, while not a cold person at all, has the most amazing control of her voice and can infallibly sing through tears. In my case it's the voice that cuts out first. -Glenn |
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Subject: RE: Songs You Can't Sing for Crying From: theleveller Date: 01 Oct 12 - 06:39 AM It's almost exactly six years since I heard of the death of my old friend, author, film maker, environmentalist and wild swimmer, Roger Deakin, and wrote a song in memory of him. It took only a few minutes to write but I've never been able to sing it all the way through, so mrsleveller has to sing it: The Swimmer |
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Subject: RE: Songs You Can't Sing for Crying From: ollaimh Date: 01 Oct 12 - 12:08 AM kilkelly ireland, as sung by mick maloney, the irish american folklorist. a song based on several generations of letters from an orosh famioly to their son who immigrated to america never to return. |
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Subject: RE: Songs You Can't Sing for Crying From: Bobert Date: 30 Sep 12 - 11:17 PM Cryin'??? Not exactly but close... Blind Lemon Jefferson's song "One Kind Favor" which all but predicts how he would would die... "My heart stopped beating and my hands turned cold My heart stopped beating and my hands turned cold Now I believe what the Bible told..." Blind Lemon froze to death at age 32 on the streets of Chicago... B~ |
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Subject: RE: Songs You Can't Sing for Crying From: gnu Date: 30 Sep 12 - 10:45 PM Terry... "songs that friends sing that DO grab me." Same for me. When a buddy of mine sings "And The Band Played Waltzing Matilda" I weep. Every time. At least once a year. |
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Subject: RE: Songs You Can't Sing for Crying From: Leadfingers Date: 30 Sep 12 - 10:21 PM I am now old and cynical enough to get through just about anything I want to sing though there several songs that friends sing that DO grab me . My Ex sent me a birthday card "From your own Gibson Girl" just after I included Bill Caddick's song in my regular Rep that has some serious connection , and one of my uncles who was the sort of guy who would go out of his way to help a friend or neighbour is always in my mind when I sing Pete Bond's 'Joe Peel' |
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Subject: RE: Songs You Can't Sing for Crying From: Herga Kitty Date: 30 Sep 12 - 08:07 PM For me, especially while I was learning it, Jez Lowe's "The last of the widows" Kitty |
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Subject: RE: Songs You Can't Sing for Crying From: Joe_F Date: 30 Sep 12 - 05:49 PM White Squall. |
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Subject: RE: Songs You Can't Sing for Crying From: Brian May Date: 30 Sep 12 - 04:52 PM Carrying Nelson Home by Mike O'Connor and sung by Martyn Wyndham-Read. How Martyn sings that, I just don't know, I couldn't. |
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Subject: RE: Songs You Can't Sing for Crying From: Rumncoke Date: 30 Sep 12 - 04:35 PM Manchester Rambler I have seen the white hare in the gully and the curlew fly and there I get hit by such a longing for home it usually stops me dead. Anne |
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Subject: RE: Songs You Can't Sing for Crying From: John J Date: 30 Sep 12 - 02:26 PM Dancing at Whitsun Rosemary's Sister Home lads home JJ |
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Subject: RE: Songs You Can't Sing for Crying From: GUEST,Eddie1 (Still sans cookie) Date: 30 Sep 12 - 02:14 PM Been having a look through this thread and been moved to tears several times. Thanks for sharing your feelings folks. I see way back when, I posted my feelings about "Lonely One" by Finbar Furey an "Sonny's Dream". I can sing both of these without too much difficulty nowadays but one song I find it difficult to even talk about is "As If He Knows" by Eric Bogle once more. Won't tell the whole history of the song - you can look it up - but basically it's about each man in The Australian Light Horse in Palestine during WWI, shooting his best friend's horse so no-one had to shoot their own steed. I will be playing this in November for Remembrance Sunday on my radio show and I'm worried already but It's still well worth playing. Eddie |
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Subject: RE: Songs You Can't Sing for Crying From: diplocase Date: 30 Sep 12 - 01:24 PM Eric Bogle's "Since Nancy Died" Bob Dylan's "Death is not the End" Garnet Rogers' "Jenny Bryce" "Harris and the Mare" Child #106 Border Widow's Lament Mark Lowry "Mary Did You Know?" Child #233 "Mill O'Tifty's Annie" Luther Vandross "Dance with my Father" |
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Subject: RE: Songs You Can't Sing for Crying From: GUEST Date: 30 Jan 10 - 04:46 AM Having conducted literally hundreds, or probably thousands, of radio interviews, I failed miserably last week when attempting to interview a member of our local Jewish community at an Ann Frank exhibition. I finished up using a recording by Richard Dimbleby on the liberation of Belsen and wound it up with Eric Bogle singing "Never Again". I would never be able to sing that song. Eddie |
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Subject: RE: Songs You Can't Sing for Crying From: Callie Date: 30 Jan 10 - 02:45 AM I agree about that song by George P. I can't even THINK ABOUT it without feeling teary. |
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Subject: RE: Songs You Can't Sing for Crying From: GUEST,seth from Olympia Date: 30 Jan 10 - 01:50 AM every December, when I hear Joni Mitchell singing " I wish I had a river I could skate away on...." I get all wet-eyed. I know that I could never sing that song. My wife gets pretty sad when she hears "Give my Love to Rose" though I will and have sung that to a tavern full of drunks. Shut 'em up for a few minutes,too |
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Subject: RE: Songs You Can't Sing for Crying From: Bat Goddess Date: 29 Jan 10 - 08:48 AM Looks like my last post (and chorus) of a few days ago has gone missing. "Rapper to Bank" makes me pretty emotional, hearing it or trying to sing it. Linn |
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