There must surely be a vast list of country-and-western songs that fall into this category, but for the life of me I can't think of any titles at this time. Mommas, and dogs, and weeping sweethearts and letters home from Viet Nam -- didn't Merl Haggard have such a song about a letter from a POW camp?

Any Victorian songbook would also yield up a list of dreadful tear-jerkers, but I assume the songs have to be current to qualify.

Then there are those pop "ballads" sung at weddings by earnest young ladies, usually cousins of the bride, accompanied by a somewhat out of tune piano. This might be part of the reason why I have remained a bachelor for all these years. Torture! That confounded song about a rose is heard every time two people tie the knot, and more recently, that one about being someone's hero and wind beneath the wings and whatnot. Whatever happened to good old classical sacred music, and choirs and pipe organs? If I was a priest or parson, I'd ban all such secular, AM radio caterwauling from God's House. (I've never been to a Jewish, Muslim, Hindu or Buddist wedding, so I don't know what they do.)