The Tear Jerker Thread (songs)

Subject: RE: The Tear Jerker Thread
From: Bert
Date: 13 Jun 07 - 06:13 PM

Actually Lin, I'd be more amazed to find a song that Bill doesn't know!!!

Subject: RE: The Tear Jerker Thread
From: GUEST,Young Buchan
Date: 14 Jun 07 - 11:30 AM

Enough of the practical. Let's move on to the delights of theory.
At what point does a sad song become a tearjerker?

a) He looked at me. No word he said.
   And then I knew my love was dead.
   'He's drowned in lowland seas' they said;
   The rushy reeds are now his bed.


b) There's

Subject: RE: The Tear Jerker Thread
From: GUEST,Young Buchan
Date: 14 Jun 07 - 11:58 AM

My apologies. I was interrupted by a person from Porlock and pressed Submit in a moment of panic. I will return ( as McArthur said on being interrupted by the Japanese in the 21st verse of Lord Bateman).

Subject: Lyr Add: JUST BEFORE THE BATTLE MOTHER
From: GUEST,edthefolkie
Date: 14 Jun 07 - 12:10 PM

Have we had this one yet? American, Civil War period.

A version used to be performed by Mike Clifton and John Watcham (Mr. Gladstone's Bag) around London in the 1970s. They did it complete with actions, putting great emphasis on the "beneath the sod" line.

Just before the battle, Mother,
I am thinking most of you,
While upon the field we're watching
With the enemy in view.
Comrades brave are 'round me lying,
Filled with thoughts of home and God
For well they know that on the morrow,
Some will sleep beneath the sod.
CHORUS:
Farewell, Mother, you may never
Press me to your breast again,
But, oh, you'll not forget me, Mother,
If I'm numbered with the slain.
Oh, I long to see you, Mother,
And the loving ones at home,
But I'll never leave our banner,
Till in honor I can come.
Tell the traitors all around you
That their cruel words we know,
In every battle kill our soldiers
By the help they give the foe.
Hark! I hear the bugles sounding,
'Tis the signal for the fight,
Now, may God protect us, Mother,
As He ever does the right.
Hear the "Battle-Cry of Freedom,"
How it swells upon the air,
Oh, yes, we'll rally 'round the standard,
Or we'll perish nobly there.

Subject: RE: The Tear Jerker Thread
From: GUEST,Art Thieme
Date: 15 Jun 07 - 10:41 AM

There is an amazing thread here called RECITATIONS. It's filled with these tear jerker songs too.

There was a Recitations 2 thread also, but I can't find it using the orum Search.

Try 'em, you'll like 'em!

Art

Subject: RE: The Tear Jerker Thread
From: George Papavgeris
Date: 15 Jun 07 - 11:00 AM

Nothing beats "Cats in the Cradle" by Harry Chapin, for me. Heard it on the car radio just last week and just had to stop the car, for safety's sake.

Subject: RE: The Tear Jerker Thread
From: GUEST,jackdad
Date: 15 Jun 07 - 04:20 PM

How about this tale of a poor unfortunate lass?

She is More to be Pitied than Censured':
At the old concert hall on the Bowery
'Round the table were seated one night
A crowd of young fellows carousing,
With them life seemed cheerfull and bright.
At the very next table was seated
A girl who had fallen to shame;
And the young fellows jeered at her weakness,
Till they heard an old woman exclaim:
She is more to be pitied than censured,
She is more to be helped than despised,
She is only a lassie who ventured
On life's stormy path, ill advised.
Do not scorn her with words fierce and bitter,
Do not laugh at her shame and downfall;
For a moment just stop and consider
That a man was the cause of it all.

Subject: RE: The Tear Jerker Thread
From: Lucius
Date: 15 Jun 07 - 09:16 PM

A week before the battle of Bull Run Sullivan Ballou, a Major in the 2nd
Rhode Island Volunteers, wrote home to his wife in Smithfield.

July 14,1861
Camp Clark, Washington DC

Dear Sarah:

The indications are very strong that we shall move in a few days - perhaps tomorrow. And lest I should not be able to write you again I feel impelled to write a few lines that may fall under your eye when I am no more.

I have no misgivings about, or lack of confidence in the cause in which I am engaged, and my courage does not halt or falter. I know how American Civilization now leans upon the triumph of the government and how great a debt we owe to those who went before us through the blood and suffering of the Revolution. And I am willing - perfectly willing - to lay down all my joys in this life, to help maintain this government, and to pay that debt.

Sarah, my love for you is deathless, it seems to bind me with mighty cables that nothing but omnipotence can break; and yet my love of Country comes over me like a strong wind and bears me irresistibly with all those chains to the battlefield. The memory of all the blissful moments I have enjoyed with you come crowding over me, and I feel most deeply grateful to God and you, that I have enjoyed them for so long. And how hard it is for me to give them up and burn to ashes the hopes and future years, when, God willing, we might still have lived and loved together, and see our boys grown up to honorable manhood around us.

If I do not return, my dear Sarah, never forget how much I loved you, nor that when my last breath escapes me on the battle field, it will whisper your name...

Forgive my many faults, and the many pains I have caused you. How thoughtless, how foolish I have sometimes been!...

But, 0 Sarah, if the dead can come back to this earth and flit unseen around those they love, I shall always be with you, in the brightest day and in the darkest night... always, always. And when the soft breeze fans your cheek, it shall be my breath, or the cool air your throbbing temple, it shall be my spirit passing by.

Sarah do not mourn me dead; think I am gone and wait for me, for we shall meet again...

Sullivan Ballou was killed a week later at the 1st Battle of Bull Run.

You know the music.

Subject: RE: The Tear Jerker Thread
From: George Papavgeris
Date: 16 Jun 07 - 02:32 AM

Very moving, Lucius. And Les Sullivan in Bishops Stortford (UK) has put the words of this letter to a most touching song, "Sullivan's Farewell".

Subject: RE: The Tear Jerker Thread
From: Lin in Kansas
Date: 16 Jun 07 - 05:45 AM

And that reminds me: Last Letter Home, by Kim C on the Plum CD of the Mudcat CDs, is a beautiful (and similar) song.

Lin

Subject: RE: The Tear Jerker Thread
From: GUEST,Kerry 27/female
Date: 19 Jun 07 - 01:37 AM

Okay, I know that some of these songs are oldies...but they still stick out in my mind as the ALL-TIME "tear-jerker" songs:

1.) "Chiseled in Stone" by Vern Gosdin
2.) "Ghost in this House" by Shanendoah
3.) "The Little Girl" by John Michael Montgomery

You should pull these songs up and check them out. Most effective when you listen to the actual song, but these songs are powerful enough that you could actually just pull up the lyrics and that alone is moving enough.

Subject: RE: The Tear Jerker Thread
From: GUEST,Young Buchan
Date: 19 Jun 07 - 12:25 PM

As I was saying ….

a) He looked at me. No word he said.
And then I knew my love was dead.
'He's drowned in lowland seas' they said;
The rushy reeds are now his bed.
Trad Lowlands

b) There's many a horse is gone now, as there's many a lad gone too
Of all the lads and horses in the old fields I once knew.
For Dick fell at Givenchy and Prince beside the guns
On that red road to glory a mile or two from Mons.
Cicely Fox-Smith Home Lads Home

c) If those lips could only speak, if those eyes could only see;
If those beautiful golden tresses, were here in reality;
Could I only take your hand, as I did when you took my name -
But it's only a beautiful picture, in a beautiful golden frame.
Charles Ridgewell and William Godwin If Those Lips Could Only Speak


d) One night as she lay in her cold attic chamber
She dreamt that her own darling truelove was there.
But it was the Angel of Death that so softly came by her
And took away Ethna from this sad world of care.
Trad Derry So Fair

e) There fell a deep hush, as the song of the thrush was heard by that motley throng;
Many a rough fellow's eyes grew dim as the notes rang out clear and strong.
Eyes lighted up with a bright yearning look, as the bird trilled its beautiful lay;
It brought to their minds dear old England at home thousands of miles away.
Walter Hastings and George Le Brun The Song of the Thrush

f) Shall I never see you more, sweet Fanny Adams?
You're the daughter I so dearly did love.
You were killed and cut to pieces by a villain.
But now you're in heaven up above.
Trad Sweet Fanny Adams

Your challenge, should you wish to accept it, is to say which of these are tear jerkers and why.
In the interests of not using up too much space, I have forborne to print the whole of each song, and I am sympathetic to those who say it is impossible to answer the question by reference to just one verse, without having the context of the full song; but I guess that most who may wish to answer the question will be familiar with the majority of these six songs.

For what it is worth, I feel that to qualify as tearjerkers there needs to be a positive intention on the part of the writer to make the hearer cry, and it must be artfully written to that end; a very Victorian phenomenon, I think, though it has lived on! So I would put c) and e) in there, but not b) which has higher ambitions. The problems come when we look at the works of Mr Trad. f) is so badly written that it is hard to judge intention, but I think I would put it down as a tear jerker; a) not. d) is the most difficult – definitely maudlin, as are most emigration ballads, but I think there is a genuineness there, which makes me feel it a real descriptive product, and not simply a device.
Over to you ….

Subject: Lyr Add: NO SCHOOL BUS IN HEAVEN (Stanley Brothers
From: fumblefingers
Date: 20 Jun 07 - 02:29 AM

No School bus in heaven
Stanley Brothers

On route 23 down in eastern Kentucky,
A school bus wrecked there in the county of Floyd.
It left many parents a weepin' and moanin'.
It took away the lives of their little girls and boys.

These little school children have gone on to glory.
No lessons to study, no worries or cares.
They're now rejoicin' and walkin' with Jesus.
They won't have to ride on a school bus up there.

God please watch over these heart broken families.
Give them the courage to go on alone.
Show them the right way that leads us to heaven.
Where once more these families will be all at home.

These little school children have gone on to glory.
No lessons to study, no worries or cares.
They're now rejoicin' and walkin' with Jesus.
They won't have to ride on a school bus up there.

Subject: RE: The Tear Jerker Thread
From: SINSULL
Date: 18 Nov 10 - 10:47 PM

Hello Central, give me Heaven
For my Mommy's there
You will find her with the angels
On the golden stairs.
She'll be glad it's me who's calling
Hurry will you please
For I want to surely tell her
We're so lonely here.

Subject: RE: The Tear Jerker Thread
From: Amergin
Date: 18 Nov 10 - 11:51 PM

I just heard a great song by Ted Egan called Old Ned....it's about a drover who's too old to ride anymore.

Subject: RE: The Tear Jerker Thread
From: Allen in Oz
Date: 19 Nov 10 - 12:15 AM

" O My Papa" by the late and much married Eddie Fisher

Subject: Lyr Add: AS IF HE KNOWS (Eric Bogle)
From: eddie1
Date: 19 Nov 10 - 03:20 AM

I can listen to real "tear jerkers" of the over-sentimentalised type and remain pretty unmoved beyond the urge to smile.
Leading up to Remembrance Sunday I played several anti-war, pro peace songs on my radio show and certainly found some that were difficult to handle but this one, which I included in another thread some time ago, never fails to really get to me.

Copied from As If He Knows

Here are the lyrics of a song by Eric Bogle. It is about the horses of the Australian Light Horse in World War 1. The below is about the song as Eric Bogle describes.
The story is as follows:
The song is of course about the horses sent overseas during WW1 to serve in the various theatres of war. Of the approximately 53000 horses Australia sent overseas during WW1, only one ever returned to Australia after the war (this horse belonged to a general). At the end of the war the Anzacs were ordered to get rid of their horses, the authorities did not want them returning to Australia and perhaps bringing in anthrax or TB or suchlike back into the country. Most of the horses were sold or given away, but in Palestine the Light Horsemen refused to give or sell their horses to the Arab population of Palestine, and chose instead to shoot them all. I based the song on an actual Light Horseman called Elijah Conn who had a horse in Palestine called Banjo. Elijah never forgot Banjo and for the rest of his life could not talk about him without tears coming to his eyes.


AS IF HE KNOWS

It's as if he knows
He's standing close to me
His breath warm on my sleeve
His head hung low
It's as if he knows
What the dawn will bring
The end of everything
For my old Banjo

And all along the picket lines beneath the desert sky
The Light Horsemen move amongst their mates to say one last goodbye
And the horses stand so quietly
Row on silent row
It's as if they know

Time after time
We rode through shot and shell
We rode in and out of Hell
On their strong backs
Time after time
They brought us safely through
By their swift sure hooves
And their brave hearts

Tomorrow we will form up ranks and march down to the quay
And sail back to our loved ones in that dear land across the sea
While our loyal and true companions
Who asked so little and gave so much
Will lie dead in the dust.

For the orders came
No horses to return
We were to abandon them
To be slaves
After all we'd shared
And all that we'd been through
A Nation's gratitude
Was a dusty grave

For we can't leave them to the people here, we'd rather see them dead
So each man will take his best mate's horse with a bullet through the head
For the people here are like their land
Wild and cruel and hard
So Banjo, here's your reward.

It's as if he knows, he standing close to me,
His breath warm on my sleeve, his head hung low.
As he if he knew.
Copyright Eric Bogle July 2001

Eddie

Subject: Lyr Add: THE ANGELS REJOICED LAST NIGHT (Louvin)
From: GUEST,GPF
Date: 19 Nov 10 - 12:54 PM

THE ANGELS REJOICED LAST NIGHT
The Louvin Brothers

A house not a home was the picture Satan painted
For sweet little sister and me. Our daddy would frown
While mother was prayin', his heart was so hardened
That he would not believe.

In anger he'd swear, his voice cold and loud.
His Sunday's were spent out with the gamblin' crowd.
I'd never seen my daddy inside the house of God
For Satan held his hand down the path of sin he trod.

Not long ago our circle was broken
As God called on mother in a voice sweet and low.
Her last words were spoken asking our daddy
To raise her children right.

The angels rejoiced in Heaven last night;
I heard my daddy pray, "Dear God, make it right!"
He was smiling and singing with tears in his eyes
While mother with the angels rejoiced last night.
While mother with the angels rejoiced last night.

Subject: Lyr Add: A DAISY A DAY (Jud Strunk)
From: beardedbruce
Date: 19 Nov 10 - 12:59 PM

"A Daisy A Day"

(As recorded by Jud Strunk)
JUD STRUNK

He remembers the first time he met her
He remembers the first thing he said
He remembers the first time he held her
And the night that she came to his bed
He remembers her sweet way of sayin'
"Honey has something gone wrong?"
He remembers the fun and the teasin'
And the reason he wrote her this song.

I'll give you a daisy a day
Dear I'll give you a daisy a day
I'll love you until the rivers run still
And the four winds we know blow away.

They would walk down the street in the evenin'
And for years I would see them go by
And their love that was more than the clothes that they wore
Could be seen in the gleamof their eye
As a kid they would take me for candy
And I'd lvoe to go taggin' along
We'd hold hands as we'd walk to the corner
And the old man would sing her his song.

I'll give you a daisy a day
Dear I'll give you a daisy a day
I'll love you until the rivers run still
And the four winds we know blow away.

Now he walks down the street in the evenin'
And he stops by the old candy store
And I somehow beliee he's believin'
He's holdin' her hand like before
For he feels all her love walkin' with him
And he smiles at things she might say
Then the old man walks up to the hilltop
And gives her a daisy a day.

I'll give you a daisy a day
Dear I'll give you a daisy a day
I'll love you until the rivers run still
And the four winds we know blow away.

(c) Copyright 1972 by Every Little Tune, Inc./Pierre Cossette Music Co.,
3 E. 54th St., New York, N.Y.

Subject: RE: The Tear Jerker Thread
From: kendall
Date: 19 Nov 10 - 01:13 PM

Old Shep, he laid his head on my knee, I STROKED the best pal not STRUCK.

I have to get out of here, my old dog is lying at my feet and I wonder if he knows he is not long for this world?

Subject: RE: The Tear Jerker Thread
From: olddude
Date: 19 Nov 10 - 01:13 PM

The Golden Guitar

Subject: RE: The Tear Jerker Thread
From: gnu
Date: 19 Nov 10 - 01:23 PM

Ooooohhh, it's kinda lonely in the saddle since ma horse died...

Subject: RE: The Tear Jerker Thread
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 19 Nov 10 - 04:04 PM

Have you ever read the whole original lyric of the much-parodied [see an ongoing thread] It Was Christmas Day In The Workhouse? Most poignant tearjerker indeed ~~

http://lyricsplayground.com/alpha/songs/xmas/christmasdayintheworkhouse.shtml

Written by prolific Victorian author & social reformer George R Sims, it is a work by no means to be despised.

♥♫❤Michael❤♫♥

Subject: RE: The Tear Jerker Thread
From: VirginiaTam
Date: 19 Nov 10 - 05:33 PM

Past Carin'

Subject: RE: The Tear Jerker Thread
From: Joe_F
Date: 19 Nov 10 - 06:02 PM

"Please sell no more drink to my father" surely belongs here, tho IMO it is a good song.

What is the name of that one about the highschool football player who gets bawled out by his coach for being depressed during practice, but plays brilliantly in the game? Turns out he was depressed because his father was sick, but just before the game he got the news that his father, who had been blind, was now in heaven & could see him play for the first time.

Subject: TEARJERKER
From: GUEST,Stacey
Date: 12 Jan 18 - 02:14 PM

Iam trying to find an old song my dad sang from the early 1900,s maybeabout a bum who watched his wife and daughter burn in a house fire starts with Dont you think by my dress I would rob a hens nest
if any one heard this or knows what the name of it is Iwould love to get it

Subject: RE: The Tear Jerker Thread (songs)
From: GUEST,Clayton
Date: 04 Oct 19 - 05:47 PM

Special commendations to
Two little boys - Rolf Harris
Cats in the cradle - Harry Chapin
The Living Years - Mike and the mechanics

But the "Bohemian Rhapsody" of tear jerkers is .....
Daisy A Day - Jud Strunk

Subject: RE: The Tear Jerker Thread (songs)
From: Jack Campin
Date: 04 Oct 19 - 06:09 PM

Moving away from English - "Papirosn" (in Yiddish) pushes all the right buttons.

There must be a ton of them in Italian.

Subject: RE: The Tear Jerker Thread (songs)
From: Mrrzy
Date: 05 Oct 19 - 06:26 AM

Surprised no mention of Bringing Mary Home...