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This Song Makes me Weep

20 Jul 10 - 03:17 PM (#2948493)
Subject: This Song Makes me Weep
From: Crow Sister (off with the fairies)

I think there are other threads addressing the problem of weeping. This is for those songs that you can't help weeping tio..

For some reason King Orfeo hits me in that place. Here are the versions I know on YouToube:
'Cynewulf'
"Alva"
I think Sedayne does it too, but I'm not sure where!

What songs make you weep?


20 Jul 10 - 03:48 PM (#2948512)
Subject: RE: This Song Makes me Weep
From: GUEST,Les from Darlo

Harvey Andrews singing 'Margarita'   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2BxdlI9_qlU   always brings a tear to my eyes. I lost an uncle in WWI, blown to bits somewhere in France but never forgotten.


20 Jul 10 - 04:08 PM (#2948527)
Subject: RE: This Song Makes me Weep
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray

The only song guaranteed to make me weep: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ylOCIP54PIQ

As for folk, I remember a floor singer singing The Plains of Waterloo at the Bay Hotel Folk Club in Cullercoats in the early 1980s; don't know who he was, but I was gutted! Some songs I can't through for blubbing - Danny Deever and Banks of Sicily come to mind.


20 Jul 10 - 04:09 PM (#2948528)
Subject: RE: This Song Makes me Weep
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray

PS - My latest version of King Orfeo is on my Myspace Page - track 6, just voice & singing bowl.


20 Jul 10 - 04:21 PM (#2948539)
Subject: RE: This Song Makes me Weep
From: Georgiansilver

The Balance by The Moody Blues... gets me every time....

There are several songs that have some emotional attachment for me but this one with its vid gets me every time.


20 Jul 10 - 04:41 PM (#2948545)
Subject: RE: This Song Makes me Weep
From: GUEST,Gail

This made me stop dead and listen when I first heard it. Now it makes me cry for lots of reasons, the main one being:

like a break in the battle, was your part
in the wretched life of a lonely heart

Back on the Chain Gang


In folk music I cry at almost everything my little brother plays. When we discovered he was deaf we could not have imagined that he would grow up to play exquisite music bringing joy to him, us, and many others.


20 Jul 10 - 04:41 PM (#2948546)
Subject: RE: This Song Makes me Weep
From: GUEST,kendall

The Wheelhouse Door.


20 Jul 10 - 04:46 PM (#2948550)
Subject: RE: This Song Makes me Weep
From: MickyMan

For some reason, this die hard folkie falls apart when he hears John Coltrane do "My Favorite Things" by Oscar and Hammerstein. There is something about that raw jazz tone juxtaposed with that cornball song. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iQsvMf8X0FY


20 Jul 10 - 04:46 PM (#2948551)
Subject: RE: This Song Makes me Weep
From: PHJim

The first time I ever heard The Band Played Waltzing Matilda, about thirty years ago, I was in my car. I think it was sung by Margaret Chrystal(sp?). I had to pull over to the shoulder till I recovered.
When I got home I told my wife,"I just heard the greatest anti-war song in the world."
She said,"You mean you've never heard that song before. Everyone knows it."
I still love that song.


20 Jul 10 - 07:04 PM (#2948611)
Subject: RE: This Song Makes me Weep
From: sharyn

"The Granemore Hare" as sung by Dick Gaughan.


20 Jul 10 - 07:11 PM (#2948617)
Subject: RE: This Song Makes me Weep
From: GUEST,kendall

The Band Played Waltzing Matilda still grabs me too.


20 Jul 10 - 07:29 PM (#2948624)
Subject: RE: This Song Makes me Weep
From: Ref

I love Christmas In The Trenches, but I can't sing it without choking up. Same for Small Victory.


20 Jul 10 - 07:45 PM (#2948631)
Subject: RE: This Song Makes me Weep
From: GUEST,silvamayflower

I am currently having problems with Dave Webber's parting song - such a beautiful song, but too many absent friends associated with it. It made me weep even before that, but I'm determined to be able to sing it again. Also, Close the Coalhouse Door - so powerful.


20 Jul 10 - 07:47 PM (#2948632)
Subject: RE: This Song Makes me Weep
From: GUEST,silvamayflower

Also - morning town ride - the seekers - but then its partly judith durhams voice that does it...


20 Jul 10 - 08:13 PM (#2948643)
Subject: RE: This Song Makes me Weep
From: McGrath of Harlow

Dancing at Whitsun - especially the verse


Down from the green farmlands and from their loved ones
Marched husbands and brothers and fathers and sons.
There's a fine roll of honor where the Maypole once stood,
And the ladies go dancing at Whitsun.

And Home Lads Home, of course, with

Dead lads and shadowy horses, I see them all the same,
I see them and I know them and I call them each by name,
Riding down from harvest, when all the west's aglow
And the lads all sitting sideways and singing as they go


I remember in a song session where the singer commented that it was a pretty unique song, because where instead of the chorus getting stronger as the song went on, singers tended to drop out because they were feeling choked-up. Which is what always happens to me at that verse.


20 Jul 10 - 09:00 PM (#2948658)
Subject: RE: This Song Makes me Weep
From: bobad

The nostalgia of earlier days and earlier loves stirred up by Jesse Winchester's Sham-A-Ling-Dong-Ding never fails to bring a tear to my eye.


20 Jul 10 - 09:14 PM (#2948663)
Subject: RE: This Song Makes me Weep
From: MARINER

"Kilkelly " gets to me. Also "The Dimming of the Day",


20 Jul 10 - 10:49 PM (#2948700)
Subject: RE: This Song Makes me Weep
From: katlaughing

Me, too, The Band Played Waltzing Matilda, esp. as sung by our own Kendall. Also Christmas in the Trenches.

I cannot listen, without sobbing, to Jerry Rasmussen's song, Handful of Songs, when it is done by Rick Fielding. It's just too sad. I can still listen to Art Thieme's rendition without needing a whole box of tissues, though.

There are lots of old cow songs which make me sad; they remind me of my dad and his renditions of them...Billy Venero, Little Joe the Wrangler and others.


21 Jul 10 - 05:59 AM (#2948838)
Subject: RE: This Song Makes me Weep
From: GUEST,Patsy Warren

Brahms Lullabuy makes me cry. It reminds me of a teddy bear that I had when I was small and it played the tune. I always get taken back to a time when I was at home happy without a care in the world.


21 Jul 10 - 06:02 AM (#2948840)
Subject: RE: This Song Makes me Weep
From: kendall

Thanks, Kat, I really appreciate that.
Killkelly gets to me too, and Dancing at Whitsun.


21 Jul 10 - 06:13 AM (#2948848)
Subject: RE: This Song Makes me Weep
From: Rob Naylor

Ewan MacColl's "Joy of Living" gets me. As a climber/ mountaineer I'm familiar with all the places mentioned. It'll be played at my funeral.

I played it for the first time in ages on a compilation CD in the car, about 4 years ago, en-route to a climbing weekend in Wales. I had to pull over into a lay-by on the A5. Fortunately I was transporting a car full of climbing women...if it'd been 3 gnarly blokes I'd never have heard the last of it in the pub, but even after several years, none of the girls have ever said owt!


21 Jul 10 - 07:58 AM (#2948919)
Subject: RE: This Song Makes me Weep
From: GUEST,KP

Ever since I became a father I've become a lot more sentimental/sensitive/maudlin (?) and this song of Martin Simpson always brings tears to my eyes.

Never Any Good with Money

Sometimes just his introduction on this video gets me going, but if not, its the last verse

'you taught me how to love a song, and all you knew of nature's ways,
the greatest gifts I've ever known, and I use them every day'

Rats, now you've started me....


21 Jul 10 - 08:00 AM (#2948920)
Subject: RE: This Song Makes me Weep
From: GUEST,HughM

Christmas 1914 (Mike Harding), An Ataireachd Ard, and Caledonia.


21 Jul 10 - 08:13 AM (#2948933)
Subject: RE: This Song Makes me Weep
From: alanabit

I guess songs affect us all differently. For me, Jerry Rasmussen's "Handful of Songs" is a celebration of the circle of life and death and how we all have something we can pass on. I get a very positive message from it, whether I hear Jerry or Rick's version.
For some reason The Hooters' song "Dancing on the Edge" is tinged with unbearable sadness. On one level it is a raucous celebration of total immersion in passion, but on another there is a sombre hint that the singer knows that this is transient and will leave him desolate. "You lose yourself every time you trip inside" is one of the most terse and evocative lines about that sort of passion which I have ever heard. I am being very subjective of course. That song would not even appear on most folks' radar.


21 Jul 10 - 09:37 AM (#2948994)
Subject: RE: This Song Makes me Weep
From: kendall

Many years ago Utah Phillips told me that he and Joanna were listening to my recording of his song, Phoebe Snow, and Ashes on the Sea,he had to pull over and weep. What a compliment!
Then I got a letter from Eric Bogle thanking me for my rendition of The Band Played Waltzing Matilda. He said I sang it just as he intended it to be sung.
I have had so many lucky breaks, how can I complain?


21 Jul 10 - 09:44 AM (#2949001)
Subject: RE: This Song Makes me Weep
From: olddude

John Prine "Hello in There"
guess I grew up with so many elderly folks around me that it hits home


21 Jul 10 - 10:37 AM (#2949051)
Subject: RE: This Song Makes me Weep
From: CheshireCat

I agree with several of these, especially Martin Simpson's excellent Never Any Good. The Band Played Waltzing Matilda used to do it for me, although I've probably just heard it done by too many people in too many clubs now. Anyone have any views on Richard Thompson's bittersweet lament Waltzing's For Dreamers? So very simple, so very sad.


21 Jul 10 - 10:48 AM (#2949054)
Subject: RE: This Song Makes me Weep
From: katlaughing

You're most welcome, Kendall.

alanabit, I get that from Handfull of Songs, too...it's not negative, just sad for me to listen to it...makes me miss Rick.


21 Jul 10 - 11:08 AM (#2949067)
Subject: RE: This Song Makes me Weep
From: alanabit

For sure Kat. All people are irreplaceable, but Rick left a very big hole around here.


21 Jul 10 - 03:04 PM (#2949233)
Subject: RE: This Song Makes me Weep
From: Paul Burke

Close the Coalhouse Door will always cause a reaction in those of us old enough to remember Aberfan. There's bairns beneath the mountainside.


21 Jul 10 - 03:37 PM (#2949260)
Subject: RE: This Song Makes me Weep
From: GUEST,Shimrod

There's no doubt that 'The Band Played Waltzing Matilda' is an excellent and emotionally shattering song ... the first few times that you hear it. Unfortunately, it's beginning to get a bit hackneyed now - after the umpty-billionth performance. It's even filtered down to the 'exercise book' merchants. I heard one the other day say, "I can't sing, so I'll recite it" - he then went on to demonstrate that, in addition to his lack of singing prowess, he couldn't even recite from a book without stumbling over the words!
I think that, from now on, anyone who wants to sing (or recite) that song should have to apply for a licence. In order to qualify for such a licence they would have pass a strict exam in which they would be required to demonstrate musical ability and emotional maturity. The licence would only entitle them to sing the song, at the most, about twice a year.

Two of Ewan MacColl's songs (which have not yet become hackneyed) are the song about his mother called 'Nobody Knew She Was There' and the one about the 'Universal-Working-Class-Hero-and-Dogsbody' called 'Kilroy Was Here'. These two songs probably sum up the day-to-day experiences of the vast majority of ordinary people during the 20th century. They both make me blub every time I hear them.


21 Jul 10 - 03:39 PM (#2949262)
Subject: ADD: Broken Glass (Claudia Schmidt)
From: Roger in Baltimore

I can listen to this song, now. I still cannot play it. Having worked with emotionally disturbed adolescents, I find it brings back sad memories. There are a number of references to this song by others, but no lyrics except the first verse. I will also post a lyrics add for the DT.

BROKEN GLASS
(Claudia Schmidt)

I was walking through the broken glass last night and thought of you,
and I wondered where your reckless ways had brought you to?

My memories of you whorled me back to boilin' blood and wrath,
and I wonder if you've stumbled on a lighter path?

Did you go out to the desert with the sun hot overhead?
Did the dry and the dusty heat make you wish you were dead?
Or, did the stark and the open spaces ease your urge to roam?
Did it make you feel at last like you were home?

Or, did you go out to the woods where the silver poplars sing?
Did the quiet rustlin' take away the city's sting?
Did the white birds like suspended lightning strike the autumn glow,
and touch your heart with tenderness so you could grow?

I was walking through the broken glass last night and thought of you,
and I wondered where your reckless ways had brought you to?

A fiery mass of untapped power surgin' in your breast,
I hope it found its way outside so you could rest!

Or, did you go up to the mountains where the air is clear and cold?
Did they give you back your tears; save you from growing old?
As hands and feet fought gravity all up the ancient wall,
I wonder, did you lose your ancient urge to fall?

The last time I saw you, you were strung dangerously high.
All your movements stiff and frightened and you could not cry;
suspicious of an honest mile, and looking for a fight;
the lonesome street your home, your only friend the night.

Now, wherever you may be tonight, I hope you're pleased and calm;
that the air around you soothes you like a holy balm;
that your lonely anger hasn't turned your insides inside out;
that you found the place some of us still dream about.

I was dancing through the broken glass last night and thought of you,
and I wondered where your reckless ways had brought you to?
All my memories of you whorled me back to boilin' blood and wrath,
and I wonder if you've stumbled on a lighter path?

Oh I hope, perhaps, you have stumbled on a lighter path!

Roger in Baltimore
    Hi, Roger - in general, it's best to post a song only once. No need to start a new "lyrics ADD" thread. Posting it here would have been sufficient.
    -Joe Offer-


21 Jul 10 - 03:54 PM (#2949273)
Subject: RE: This Song Makes me Weep
From: kendall

Rick Fielding singing Old Time River Man. Great song, well done.


21 Jul 10 - 04:02 PM (#2949284)
Subject: RE: This Song Makes me Weep
From: MickyMan

Ahhh! Roger, Broken Glass is indeed a tear producing song of the highest magnitude.

A few minutes ago I was thinking of this thread on the way home as I shed a few tears while listening to Ian Tyson's song .... "Someday Soon".
"Someday soon, goin' with him, someday soon"

So many thoughts come to mind about the perils and joys of young love, and I happen to have had a personal experience where the hearing of a well done live performance of this song at a town carnival when I was about 13 turned this young rock and roller on to the power of country music. It's one of those crossovers that opened up a previously ignored genre to many people.
Gawd!, That song makes me cry when the girl sings of how her father won't accept her rodeo boy lover ... "probably 'cause he was just as wild, in his younger days". The whole circle of life just flashes before me in that one line!
What is it that separates a wonderfully effective tearjerker from a schlocky "wanna be"? It's often just a subtle turn of the phrase or a well placed word!


21 Jul 10 - 04:04 PM (#2949288)
Subject: RE: This Song Makes me Weep
From: gnu

There are a few, but...

Hands down.


21 Jul 10 - 06:07 PM (#2949373)
Subject: RE: This Song Makes me Weep
From: Joe_F

San Carlos just showed up here. I've never heard it, but I can't get past the line "Que gatito grande!" without sobbing.


21 Jul 10 - 06:38 PM (#2949394)
Subject: RE: This Song Makes me Weep
From: Jim Carroll

MacColl's, Joy of Living gets me that way too Robb, but nowadays I'm not sure that that's not because it's arrived at number one on the funeral 'hit charts' and I only hear it when a friend has died. MacColl's funeral was reduced to melting butter as his voice came over the speakers singing it.
Two other of his songs affected me in this way, The Ballad of Sharpville reduces me to frustrated anger, and for some reason I still can't get through 'Ballad of the Carpenter' without choking up.
One of the most emotional pieces of singing I ever heard was recorded when Bert Lloyd was working with a collecting team in (I think) Albania. Word came through that there had been a tragedy in the next village and one of the team said he had to go as it was a neighbour who had died.
The team drove to a peasant's house to find a wake in progress, the victim being a young boy who had drowned. They had sent for the village singer, a young woman, who was the victim's sister, to formally sing a lament over the boy who had been laid out on the kitchen table, as was the local custom. It was the most emotianally charged piece of singing I've ever heard
Surprisingly, the family agreed to let the team record the proceedings, and it was included in a two programme series entitled 'The Lament' about funeral songs.
Still brings a lump to the throat.
Jim Carroll


21 Jul 10 - 06:49 PM (#2949408)
Subject: RE: This Song Makes me Weep
From: Tattie Bogle

Yes "Joy of Living" does it for me too.
In my mother's final days and for while after, Eric Bogle's "Belle of Broughton", as well as one of Tommy Sands' songs decribing his own mother's later problems with dementia.
And "Crossing the Bar" - as sung by Craig Morgan and Robson.(Ear-marked for my father's funeral if/when that comes: no sign yet at 93+!)


22 Jul 10 - 04:38 AM (#2949573)
Subject: RE: This Song Makes me Weep
From: GUEST

Donovan's 'Catch the Wind' beautiful lyrics. I've always rated him more than Bob Dylan despite the hype. Bob Dylan was a fraud who made a fortune out of singing about other people's suffering.


22 Jul 10 - 08:36 AM (#2949715)
Subject: RE: This Song Makes me Weep
From: GUEST,moira(flyingcat)

for me there are many songs that make me weep but Ewan McColl's joy of living always does it. One of the others is Sylvia Barnes singing Prince Heathen, the visual images are so powerful and she sings it with such feeling. You can't fail to be affected by it, especially when she performs it live.


22 Jul 10 - 09:04 AM (#2949739)
Subject: RE: This Song Makes me Weep
From: Arthur_itus

I have a very moving version of Alan Taylor's Roll On The Day. Allan's version brings tears to my eyes, but this one brings even more tears to my eyes.

I was given this version when I was in Holland visiting a shanty festival in a small village there.

It is a CD of Shanty's and Seasongs from different dutch choirs.

Anyway one of the tracks is Roll On The Day and is performed by a dutch choir called Together W. FR. I never thought much about who the lead singer was.

I found it real spooky to find out it was the late great John Wright singing with this choir. The song is in English.

I have just played it and by god it is a powerful and emotive version.

John Blanks does a beautiful version of this as well.

I brings back the memory of my dad in his last couple of weeks on this planet.


22 Jul 10 - 11:16 AM (#2949839)
Subject: RE: This Song Makes me Weep
From: PHJim

I learned My Buddy on the day my dad died. It's not a tear jerker for everyone, but I associate it with my dad.


Nights are long since you went away,
I think about you all through the day,
My buddy, my buddy, no buddy quite so true.
Miss your voice, the touch of your hand,
Just long to know that you understand,
My buddy, my buddy, your buddy misses you.


22 Jul 10 - 06:00 PM (#2950142)
Subject: RE: This Song Makes me Weep
From: Joe_F

The Song Goes On (by Mick Ryan for Cyril Tawney)


23 Jul 10 - 12:20 AM (#2950385)
Subject: RE: This Song Makes me Weep
From: MGM·Lion

The Band Played Waltzing Matilda clearly has the most votes on this thread ~~ &, in all seriousness, most deservedly surely. I record another vote for it.

Peter Bellamy's Farewell To The Land does it for me also ~~ I quoted this verse in my obit of Pete in The Guardian:

Now I raise my sons in a small caravan
For the cottage where my roots were put down
Has been sold by the farmer to a rich city man
Where he spends a few weekends from Town.

Truly heartbreaking.

~Michael~


23 Jul 10 - 08:36 AM (#2950573)
Subject: RE: This Song Makes me Weep
From: kendall

The problem with songs such as the Band played...is, too many people sing it because it is popular, and some have no feeling for the song.
It took me 20 years to be able to sing that song without coming all Untogether as they say in West bygod Virginia.


23 Jul 10 - 08:56 AM (#2950588)
Subject: RE: This Song Makes me Weep
From: Will Fly

Anyone have any views on Richard Thompson's bittersweet lament Waltzing's For Dreamers? So very simple, so very sad.

I love this song, as sung by Linda Thompson - as I do most of Richard Thompson's work - and play it regularly. Luckily, I can keep a dry eye while I'm performing it!

However, Linda singing "The Dimming Of The Day" gets me every time.


23 Jul 10 - 09:13 AM (#2950601)
Subject: RE: This Song Makes me Weep
From: Rob Naylor

Kendall: The problem with songs such as the Band played...is, too many people sing it because it is popular, and some have no feeling for the song.
It took me 20 years to be able to sing that song without coming all Untogether as they say in West bygod Virginia.


As someone very new to performing in public (and, TBH, not very good) I can identify with that. The first song I chose to sing unaccompanied in public was Sam Starrett's "John Condon". It took me almost 3 months of daily singing it in private before I could sing it in public without becoming "unglued"....and that despite the fact that early on I discovered that John Condon was 19, not 14, when he died and that the body in his grave is almost certainly that of a 35 year old from another unit.

Despite its probable historical inaccuracy, the song *as a song* "speaks" to me deep down and singing it is very emotional for me.


23 Jul 10 - 10:55 AM (#2950673)
Subject: RE: This Song Makes me Weep
From: Keith A of Hertford

Most of mine have been covered.
Joy Of Living. Like others I have some great memories of times on those same mountains.
Home Lads Home. You musn't do it too often. I save it for November time. Dancing At Whitsun, Whitsun and November. Xmas in the Trenches.
Band Played W.M., but too long and sad for the singarounds I mostly do.
A first mention for The Tinkerman's Daughter by Michael McConnel.
@displaysong.cfm?SongID=7047
Or is it just me?


23 Jul 10 - 11:09 AM (#2950678)
Subject: RE: This Song Makes me Weep
From: Joe Offer

The trouble with many of these songs, is that I get choked up and can't sing 'em. I have to sing a song over and over again until I can get past that - and by then, the song has lost some of its impact for me. Sometimes, I think it's better to just sing through the tears and not worry too much about losing composure.

-Joe, an old Schmaltz-


23 Jul 10 - 11:57 AM (#2950705)
Subject: RE: This Song Makes me Weep
From: sharyn

I second you on "Home, Lads, Home" Keith -- the last chorus gets me. And "The Tinkerman's Daughter" is a lovely song (but it doesn't make me cry.

Joe, I just let myself cry.


23 Jul 10 - 12:07 PM (#2950714)
Subject: RE: This Song Makes me Weep
From: meself

"There's a Bridle Hanging on the Wall" (or whatever the title is).

I haven't heard it or cried to it since my mother sang it with me on her knee - but I have no doubt my reaction would be the same if I did hear it again.


23 Jul 10 - 12:13 PM (#2950721)
Subject: RE: This Song Makes me Weep
From: Lonesome EJ

I have tried several times to get through I Come and Stand at Every Door and can't play it without tearing up and having my voice choke.


23 Jul 10 - 01:56 PM (#2950807)
Subject: RE: This Song Makes me Weep
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray

Just listened to this & blubbed like a baby:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lhWer8AcppQ

The singer is the late, great Johnny Mizo Dyani, one of the finest double bass players of all time who described this music always as Folk.


23 Jul 10 - 04:34 PM (#2950925)
Subject: RE: This Song Makes me Weep
From: kendall

What bunch of softies!


24 Jul 10 - 12:24 AM (#2951149)
Subject: RE: This Song Makes me Weep
From: LadyJean

My prep school alma mater, and damned if I know why. I wasn't THAT fond of the place and it includes lines like "We 'vere the glory of thy name the ardor of thy youth. We sing our praises to thy fame, thy faith thy hope thy truth." By the time we have reached "vere the glory", I will be choking.


24 Jul 10 - 12:28 AM (#2951150)
Subject: RE: This Song Makes me Weep
From: LadyJean

So, I tried to remember the second verse to the thing, which I hadn't thought of in a couple of decades and the last line came back to me, "May we be faithful to thy trust and worthy of thy past. That we may honor ______ school as long as time shall last." and started to tear up. Damned if I know why.


24 Jul 10 - 12:51 AM (#2951164)
Subject: RE: This Song Makes me Weep
From: Joe Offer

A bunch of softies? Look who's talkin', Kendall. If somebody sings a sentimental dog song, how do you think you'll respond?

Hey, I like dogs, too.

...He's gone where the good doggies go.....


-Joe-


24 Jul 10 - 01:08 PM (#2951423)
Subject: RE: This Song Makes me Weep
From: GUEST

..then someone found him dead beneath a table in a pub with a collar and a chain clutched in his hand...Old Gilbert, saddest dog song I know.
Gilbert was drunk and his dog was loose and unlicensed. While he was boozing they impounded his dog and he spent the rest of his life searching for his old track mate. sniff


24 Jul 10 - 04:35 PM (#2951523)
Subject: RE: This Song Makes me Weep
From: kendall

Sorry, that was me. I keep dropping my cookie.


25 Jul 10 - 04:57 AM (#2951740)
Subject: RE: This Song Makes me Weep
From: alanabit

I never thought you had it in you Kendall! There is enough material there for a real turkey of a song!


25 Jul 10 - 05:04 AM (#2951744)
Subject: RE: This Song Makes me Weep
From: kendall

You should hear the whole song before you condemn it.

Mt the GM, your CD is on its way to Old Blighty. Thanks for your order.


25 Jul 10 - 09:38 AM (#2951811)
Subject: RE: This Song Makes me Weep
From: MGM·Lion

M any thanks Kendall ~~ greatly look forward to it.

~Michael~


25 Jul 10 - 10:11 AM (#2951830)
Subject: RE: This Song Makes me Weep
From: alanabit

Now I ain't condemning the song Kendall. I have a sort of grudging admiration for folks who can sing - let alone write - stuff like "Old Shep" and the rest with a straight face. I am reminded of Oscar Wilde's comment, "You would have to have a heart of stone to read of the death of Little Nell without laughing".


25 Jul 10 - 01:12 PM (#2951912)
Subject: RE: This Song Makes me Weep
From: kendall

Little Nell doesn't move me either.


25 Jul 10 - 02:02 PM (#2951952)
Subject: RE: This Song Makes me Weep
From: GUEST,Southport grump

Somewhere over the rainbow.

By the late Eva Cassidy - never fails.


25 Jul 10 - 02:23 PM (#2951962)
Subject: RE: This Song Makes me Weep
From: GUEST,TedM

Steve Goodman's My Old Man


25 Jul 10 - 06:00 PM (#2952088)
Subject: RE: This Song Makes me Weep
From: GUEST,Maggie O

I can't believe no ones mentioned the other great Eric Bogle song, The Green Fields of France.
Finbar Fury made me cry singing it (twice), but strangely enough Bogle himself didn't.

I just quote the last verse:

And I can't help but wonder, young Willie McBride,
Do all those who lie here know why they died?
Did you really believe them when they told you "The Cause?"
Did you really believe that this war would end wars?
Well the suffering, the sorrow, the glory, the shame
The killing, the dying, it was all done in vain,
For Willie McBride, it all happened again,
And again, and again, and again, and again.


26 Jul 10 - 05:58 AM (#2952314)
Subject: RE: This Song Makes me Weep
From: GUEST,kendall

Maggie that verse gets to me too.


26 Jul 10 - 06:54 AM (#2952342)
Subject: RE: This Song Makes me Weep
From: howbe on

Hello,My first posting on this site

Agree with the tear inducing qualities of many of the songs already mentioned and would like to add a song called Joe Peel which I think was written by Pete Bond, but please correct me if I'm wrong.
I first heard it sung by June Tabor and have sung it many times myself but still have trouble getting through the last verse without my voice begining to crack up with the emotion of it all.Often wondered if the song is based on a real persons life or an anthem for the passing of working culture and industry( maybe thats just me though ) Either way a beautifully sad song.


26 Jul 10 - 07:12 AM (#2952350)
Subject: RE: This Song Makes me Weep
From: GUEST,frogette

tried to read the thread but there are so many. Did anybody mention Les Sullivan at Bude Folk Festival sang No Tengo Mas Que Dar Te (video on the web from the Eric Bogle concert) followed by his new song Sands of Time and the place was awash. Won him the Ron Bader award for best performance too


26 Jul 10 - 11:29 AM (#2952497)
Subject: RE: This Song Makes me Weep
From: ClaireBear

What is it about world war? "Dancing at Whitsun," both "No Man's Land" and "The Band Played Waltzing Mathilda," and "Christmas in the Trenches" have all made me cry. So does Dave Webber's beautiful, painful "Normandy Orchards":

"They say you can still hear the village-hall band,
Grey, ghostly couples still glide round the floor,
But Normandy orchards were waiting to welcome
New partners for death in the mad dance of war."

There's one song not war related that always makes me weepy in a good way: "The King of Rome" -- a sentimental favorite, though I don't think I've ever heard a rendition that does the song justice..


26 Jul 10 - 04:48 PM (#2952697)
Subject: RE: This Song Makes me Weep
From: BrooklynJay

I will add my vote to "And The Band Played Waltzing Matilda" - and mention that the first recording of it that I ever heard was many years ago by an excellent group called Clam Chowder. Still affects me.

There is also "Les Vieux" by Jacques Brel, which in its English translation is known as "The Song of Old Lovers." I find the version recorded years ago by Judy Collins difficult to listen to, even to this day.

But, the song at the top of my list isn't a folk song, but Bette Midler's "The Wind Beneath My Wings." My dear wife passed four years ago; she liked Bette Midler and this song always reminds me of her. If I hear it, I will leave the room. Even thinking about it is quite difficult.


27 Jul 10 - 12:01 AM (#2952943)
Subject: RE: This Song Makes me Weep
From: LadyJean

Peter S. Beagle, author of "The Last Unicorn" and "A Fine and Private Place" was filking guest of honor at the local science fiction convention last weekend. I got to hear him sing. When he sang a song he'd written about his stepdaughter, Victoria, he choked up, as did quite a few of us in the audience.
He did ask us not to tell Victoria, but there's every chance she doesn't mudcat.


27 Jul 10 - 08:40 PM (#2953543)
Subject: RE: This Song Makes me Weep
From: GUEST,Carolin

I think it is a lot to do with the person singing, and for me it was Arthur Howard in his 80' singing 'Merry Mountain Child'.


28 Jul 10 - 02:49 PM (#2953943)
Subject: RE: This Song Makes me Weep
From: GUEST

"There Were Roses," by Tommy Sands (i think)
"Murder in the City" by the Avett Brothers


28 Jul 10 - 03:22 PM (#2953972)
Subject: RE: This Song Makes me Weep
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity

olddude's 'Hello in there' by John Prine I used to do, when I disciplined myself not to get choked up.

and this ......
This one is a good one for that!...make it to the end

this works for some, too


GfS


28 Jul 10 - 06:16 PM (#2954079)
Subject: RE: This Song Makes me Weep
From: Joe_F

"I Wish You Were Here" by Malvina Reynolds.


28 Jul 10 - 08:15 PM (#2954147)
Subject: RE: This Song Makes me Weep
From: Crowhugger

Yet another blubberer here when I hear (forget trying to sing) 'Christmas In the Trenches' and 'The Band Played Waltzing Matilda' and many others already mentioned.

I'll add 'Un Canadien Errant' to the list, maybe partly because I have a soft spot for that bad time of Quebec history which was echoed in Ontario about the same time--farmers, labourer et al. going hungry, Family Compact & friends getting richer, good old taxation without representation at work. And violence to keep down the protests of course. I choke up every darn time I sing it.

~CH


29 Jul 10 - 05:14 PM (#2954731)
Subject: RE: This Song Makes me Weep
From: GUEST,Tinker from Chicago

Michael Smith's "I Brought My Father With Me."


30 Jul 10 - 01:07 AM (#2954946)
Subject: RE: This Song Makes me Weep
From: raredance

This one by Connie Kaldor

DOWN TO A RIVER (ALAN'S SONG)
dedicated to the memory of Alan Stein

There are dinners, there is music
There is laughter, there are tears
There are memories that go back
Over the years

There are marks made in a life
Like only good friends do
Now I must choose to make a mark
For the things I loved in you

I'll go down to a river
And plant a tree
Something strong, wild and living
Those are my memories
And I'll go up to a mountain
And sing to the stars
Can you hear me
Wherever you are

And there's phone calls and there's crying
And there's clutching to the chest
And there's singing songs and throwing dirt
And laying down to rest
And there's carving words on stone
And making church bells ring
But the river, when it freezes over
Still thaws and runs each spring

So I will go down to a river
And plant a tree
Something strong, wild and living
Those are my memories
And I'll go up to a mountain
And sing to the stars
Can you hear me
Can you hear me
Can you hear me
Wherever you are

Do you hear the ones who loved you
Who were glad they knew you well
Do the hearts you left that miss you
Ring like a bell

I will go down to a river
And plant a tree
Strong, wild and living
Those are my memories
And I'll go up to a mountain
And sing to the stars
Can you hear me
Can you hear me
Can you hear me
Wherever you are

Can you hear me
Can you hear me
Can you hear me
Wherever you are


from Small Cafe
©1996 Word of Mouth Music


30 Jul 10 - 07:02 AM (#2955058)
Subject: RE: This Song Makes me Weep
From: GUEST,Kit Griffiths

"Hey, Sandy" by Harvey Andrews -gets me every time!


30 Jul 10 - 07:20 AM (#2955066)
Subject: RE: This Song Makes me Weep
From: mikesamwild

Jamie Foyers, sung by Dick Gaughan, because my Dad was also a machinegunner in the British battalion and wounded at Jarama and he survived whereas so many of his comrades didn't . I'm only here because he was lucky and tough.


30 Jul 10 - 09:23 AM (#2955119)
Subject: RE: This Song Makes me Weep
From: GUEST,Dave Hunt

Bill Caddick's King Sun. Fareweel Regality, Several sung by Martyn Wyndham-Read eg Eldorado, Sleepy Lagoon


30 Jul 10 - 09:24 AM (#2955120)
Subject: RE: This Song Makes me Weep
From: GUEST

sorry - should have been 'Reedy Lagoon'


30 Jul 10 - 10:24 AM (#2955143)
Subject: RE: This Song Makes me Weep
From: MMario

Grace