The best thing about a sad song is that it can come at you unexpectedly. I smiled when I read (about sixty emails back) that someone else used to cry at Puff, the Magic Dragon -- I couldn't get through that song as a boy.

Songs that have back-doored me in the last eight years:

George Jones: Good Year for the Roses Jules Shear: First Freeze After the Fall (the album with this song is one sad song after another). Bob Dylan: Lay, Lady, Lay (this is what I'm talking about since most people wouldn't even consider this to BE a sad song -- one time I was listening to this song and the line "I long to see you in the morning light / I long to reach for you, in the night" just struck me as achingly melancholy. I don't think it's ever struck me quite that way again, but I haven't forgotten. Roberta Flack: If Ever I See You Again