Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Music that makes you cry
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Niminypiminy
Shipmate
# 15489
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Posted
A tangent from the favourite/overrated classical composers thread. (Probably it's been done millions of times already but I like hearing about music that moves people.) What music makes you cry?
Here is a random sample of mine:
Dido's Lament The end of the last movement of Sibelius's fifth symphony The Crucifixus from Bach's Mass in B Minor Elgar's Cello Concerto
-------------------- Lives of the Saints: songs by The Unequal Struggle http://www.theunequalstruggle.com/
Posts: 776 | From: Edge of the Fens | Registered: Feb 2010
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South Coast Kevin
Shipmate
# 16130
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Posted
Oh, good thread idea! I'm coming more from the pop music end of things so here are a couple of mine:
Paper Forest by Emmy the Great Galaxies by Laura Veirs
-------------------- My blog - wondering about Christianity in the 21st century, chess, music, politics and other bits and bobs.
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la vie en rouge
Parisienne
# 10688
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Posted
There are a couple of factors in what makes me cry.
The first is the sheer beauty of the music - the second movement of the Emperor Concerto gets me this way, especially for some reason the chords at the end before it romps off into the third movement.
OTOH, I also sob at music that is superhumanly difficult to perform - I find it incredibly moving to listen to absurdly talented people doing the impossible. My most recent trip to the opera was to see the Magic Flute and it was a big effort not to sob audibly during the Queen of the Night aria (I managed it, but it was hard work, and I'm English for goodness sakes and therefore allergic to squishing in public). It amazes me just how gifted people can be. Brava bravissima!
-------------------- Rent my holiday home in the South of France
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Adeodatus
Shipmate
# 4992
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Posted
This - the coda to the third movement of Bruckner's 8th symphony. I find it unbearably sad. It sounds like loneliness.
-------------------- "What is broken, repair with gold."
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Lothiriel
Shipmate
# 15561
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Posted
Arvo Part's "Spiegel im Spiegel"
Knut Nystedt's "O crux"
Morten Lauridsen's "O nata lux" from "Lux aeterna" (all of "Lux aeterna", really)
Franz Biebl's "Ave Maria"
Peter Vaskis's "Dona nobis pacem"
-------------------- If you want to build a ship, don't drum up the men to gather wood, divide the work and give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea. St-Exupery
my blog
Posts: 538 | From: Toronto, Canada | Registered: Mar 2010
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Aravis
Shipmate
# 13824
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Posted
The final chorale of Bach's St John Passion (not the final chorus which precedes it, though that is more emotional).
Brahms' German Requiem - particularly "Behold, all flesh is as the grass".
"O Love that will not let me go" - a hymn my aunt chose for her funeral, for personal reasons which she'd told me about a year before and hadn't told anyone else.
"Nearer my God to Thee" - because of Titanic! I don't find the main love story at all moving, but this hymn is being played in the background when some of the other people realise they're going to die - the captain of the ship, the elderly couple on the bed, the string quartet...
"Nkosi sikelele Africa".
I listen to plenty of non-classical and non-religious music, but it doesn't normally make me cry.
Posts: 689 | From: S Wales | Registered: Jun 2008
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mark_in_manchester
not waving, but...
# 15978
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Posted
Fairground organs - oddly - whatever the material.
There's something monumentally and heroically irrelevant about rebuilding an enormous, hugely temperamental and utterly obsolete piece of technology which once wowed people, but now performs badly arranged jaunty airs to general indifference, and perhaps bored incomprehension.
I think its doomed heroism moves me in that it reminds me of faith.
-------------------- "We are punished by our sins, not for them" - Elbert Hubbard (so good, I wanted to see it after my posts and not only after those of shipmate JBohn from whom I stole it)
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Macrina
Shipmate
# 8807
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Posted
I cry at 'Into the West' by Annie Lennox, because it reminds me of someone whose death still affects me due to its swiftness and their relative youth.
I also cry at 'Simply the Best'. It's pretty much the song that reminds me why it's important, life or death important, for me to do my job well. I sang a kareoke of it with a person on a ward when I was a student. They died soon afterwards. I think of them everytime I hear it.
Posts: 535 | From: Christchurch, New Zealand | Registered: Nov 2004
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BalddudePeekskill
Shipmate
# 12152
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Posted
Pop Music: "Two out of three ain't Bad" by Meatloaf
Classical Music: Schubert's Serenade (first piece I learned by Memory )
Sacred Music: Abide with Me
-------------------- Christos Aneste
Posts: 308 | From: Peekskill, NY | Registered: Dec 2006
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Niminypiminy
Shipmate
# 15489
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Posted
Thinking over my choices, I realise I often cry over music I don't like that much (not always, but often). Is it, as Noel Coward said, the potency of cheap music? Is there something particular about tearjerking cadences?
-------------------- Lives of the Saints: songs by The Unequal Struggle http://www.theunequalstruggle.com/
Posts: 776 | From: Edge of the Fens | Registered: Feb 2010
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Mudfrog
Shipmate
# 8116
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Posted
THIS from the Queen Symphony. So sweet, so painful: Who wants to live forever?
-------------------- "The point of having an open mind, like having an open mouth, is to close it on something solid." G.K. Chesterton
Posts: 8237 | From: North Yorkshire, UK | Registered: Jul 2004
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molopata
The Ship's jack
# 9933
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Posted
Truly a beautiful piece. Thank you for that. One piece which greatly enthrals me (although without ever quite being moved to tears) is Vaughan William's A Lark Ascending. It works with similar tensions between extreme high and low notes acted out between the violin soloist and the accompanying orchestra.
-------------------- ... The Respectable
Posts: 1718 | From: the abode of my w@ndering mind | Registered: Aug 2005
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South Coast Kevin
Shipmate
# 16130
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Posted
quote: Originally posted by mark_in_manchester: Fairground organs - oddly - whatever the material... badly arranged jaunty airs... I think its doomed heroism moves me in that it reminds me of faith.
Hmm, that's rather profound - I like it, and shall pay much more attention to fairground organ music in future! quote: Originally posted by Macrina: I cry at 'Into the West' by Annie Lennox, because it reminds me of someone whose death still affects me due to its swiftness and their relative youth.
Another good one. I have no such emotional connection to 'Into the West' but I find it very moving, just from its place in the Lord of the Rings film.
-------------------- My blog - wondering about Christianity in the 21st century, chess, music, politics and other bits and bobs.
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Angel Wrestler
Ship's Hipster
# 13673
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Posted
Randall Thompson's "Alleluia." Never above a mezzo forte, and mezzo piano for most of it. What an amazing word painter he was. You really get his message, quietly singing alleluia at a time of war until insisting Alleluia! and then coming to a resolution and acceptance, and maybe even belief ... alleluia. (my interpretation)
-------------------- The fact that no one understands you does not make you an artist. (unknown)
Posts: 2767 | From: half-way up the ladder | Registered: May 2008
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Angel Wrestler
Ship's Hipster
# 13673
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Posted
Alleluia
I came back because I'm not sure how well-known this would be on the other side of the pond.
I hear a bit too much of one soprano, but otherwise a good recording, IMNSHO.
-------------------- The fact that no one understands you does not make you an artist. (unknown)
Posts: 2767 | From: half-way up the ladder | Registered: May 2008
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Palimpsest
Shipmate
# 16772
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Posted
Scenes From Childhood.. of Far off Places. Probably because I remember hearing my mother play it when I was 4 or 5.
Eleanor Rigby
Chopin Nocturnes
Posts: 2990 | From: Seattle WA. US | Registered: Nov 2011
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PD
Shipmate
# 12436
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Posted
Most of mine are classical music:
The coda of the third movement of Bruckner's 8th Symphony. I am glad to find out that I am not the only one who gets teary over that one.
Elgar Cello Concerto
Final Movement of Mahler's Resurrection Symphony
Vaughan Williams' Fantasia on a theme of Thomas Tallis gets to me as well.
The second Grail scene from Wagner's 'Parsifal'
Several passages from Bach's St John Passion
However, there are a couple from elsewhere. One is ABBA 'The day before you came.' There are also a couple on the Irish/Scottish folk rep. 'She moves through the Fair' being one, and another is 'The Siege of Wexford.'
PD [ 27. March 2012, 06:04: Message edited by: PD ]
-------------------- Roadkill on the Information Super Highway!
My Assorted Rantings - http://www.theoldhighchurchman.blogspot.com
Posts: 4431 | From: Between a Rock and a Hard Place | Registered: Mar 2007
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Latchkey Kid
Shipmate
# 12444
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Posted
quote: Originally posted by PD: Vaughan Williams' Fantasia on a theme of Thomas Tallis gets to me as well.
It is one of may favourite pieces as well. I can lose myself in it but it does not make me sad
Barber's Adagio for strings can give me a morose mood, I heard it played a lot in association with the sadness that arose from the massacre in Srebrenica.
-------------------- 'You must never give way for an answer. An answer is always the stretch of road that's behind you. Only a question can point the way forward.' Mika; in Hello? Is Anybody There?, Jostein Gaardner
Posts: 2592 | From: The wizardest little town in Oz | Registered: Mar 2007
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Pigwidgeon
Ship's Owl
# 10192
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Posted
Górecki's Symphony No. 3 ("Symphony of Sorrowful Songs")
John Adams' "On the Transmigration of Souls"
-------------------- "...that is generally a matter for Pigwidgeon, several other consenting adults, a bottle of cheap Gin and the odd giraffe." ~Tortuf
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JFBEagle
Apprentice
# 10763
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Posted
The slow movement from Mahler's 5th. I can only ever picture the closing sequence of Death in Venice, as the sweat of Dirk Bogarde's fever makes his make up starts running down face as he sits in his deck chair and dies. I never really understood the film but that scene was so moving and the music so right that any time I hear it I see the picture again in my mind and it makes me weep again.
Posts: 27 | From: The Fylde | Registered: Dec 2005
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Mudfrog
Shipmate
# 8116
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Posted
Something a little more 'popular':
The death of Fantine from Les Miserables.
I think it's the though of a mother knowing she's dying and leaving her daughter behind that is so poignant. [ 27. March 2012, 15:21: Message edited by: Mudfrog ]
-------------------- "The point of having an open mind, like having an open mouth, is to close it on something solid." G.K. Chesterton
Posts: 8237 | From: North Yorkshire, UK | Registered: Jul 2004
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HCH
Shipmate
# 14313
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Posted
Also in a more popular vein: "Isle of Hope, Isle of Tears", sung by Celtic Women. I find it moving, although none of my ancestors came through Ellis Island.
Posts: 1540 | From: Illinois, USA | Registered: Nov 2008
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daisymay
St Elmo's Fire
# 1480
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Posted
I at times get very sad and cry quietly, when I hear and see what my husband sang, and played, since he has died, and I also sometimes enjoy to hear it again - and when the family were with me recently we sang together at least and hour and I felt happy and sad at the same time; one e.g. we sang was "Our Father who are in heaven" and my son played and I led that one, missing my husband.
-------------------- London Flickr fotos
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cattyish
Wuss in Boots
# 7829
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Posted
was used to advertise baked beans, which was inconvenient to me because it makes me cry like a baby for reasons completely unknown.
-------------------- ...to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived, this is to have succeeded. Ralph Waldo Emerson
Posts: 1794 | From: Scotland | Registered: Jul 2004
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cattyish
Wuss in Boots
# 7829
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Posted
Sorry, This Ladysmith Black Mambaza track
BTW, Niminy Piminy, are you a Japanese young man? Or am I barking up the wrong operetta?
-------------------- ...to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived, this is to have succeeded. Ralph Waldo Emerson
Posts: 1794 | From: Scotland | Registered: Jul 2004
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mark_in_manchester
not waving, but...
# 15978
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Posted
SCK, no-one accuses ME of profundity...care to step outside?
Pamlimpsest said
quote: Chopin Nocturnes
I know nothing about proper music at all, and I wouldn't know a nocturne if I met one in broad daylight...but I do have an old LP of Chopin preludes (same kind of thing? Or not?). The Cm one is an especial tear jerker.
-------------------- "We are punished by our sins, not for them" - Elbert Hubbard (so good, I wanted to see it after my posts and not only after those of shipmate JBohn from whom I stole it)
Posts: 1596 | Registered: Oct 2010
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Metapelagius
Shipmate
# 9453
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Posted
Bist du bei mir (whoever composed it) from the Anna Magdalena Bach notebook.
I can understand, too, Aravis's feelings about the hymn she mentioned - as much the tune as the words.
-------------------- Rec a archaw e nim naccer. y rof a duv. dagnouet. Am bo forth. y porth riet. Crist ny buv e trist yth orsset.
Posts: 1032 | From: Hereabouts | Registered: May 2005
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Adeodatus
Shipmate
# 4992
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Posted
The last few minutes of Mahler's 3rd symphony, if it catches me in a slightly wistful or nostalgic mood, has the power to shred my emotions. Look here - skip forwards to 4:45. (There are a couple of pops and clicks at about 5:40 - ignore those, you haven't got to the good bit yet.) There's a part right near the end (from about 7:05 to 8:00) where the strings are going full pelt, higher and higher till you think they're going to break. They don't, but your heart does.
-------------------- "What is broken, repair with gold."
Posts: 9779 | From: Manchester | Registered: Sep 2003
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Saviour Tortoise
Shipmate
# 4660
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Posted
In no particular order:
Vaughan Williams "Fantasia on a theme by Thomas Tallis" Elgar "Dream of Gerontius" - "Praise to the holiest" as Gerontius enters the heavenly court. James MacMillan "Seven Last Words from the Cross", particularly "Verily, I say unto you..." REM "Nightswimming" Barenaked Ladies "Tonight is the night I fell asleep at the wheel" Lauridson "O magnum mysterium" (although that's probably so overdone now that I've become immune, unfortunately) David Willocks arrangement of "The infant king" Gerald Finzi "Serenade for Strings" Howells Gloucester Service at the "as it was in the beginning" - the first time I heard that my knees genuinely buckled.
I'm sure there are loads more.
I'm a right softy and pretty much anything will get me blubbing if I'm in the right mood!
[ETA the Howells] [ 28. March 2012, 17:49: Message edited by: Saviour Tortoise ]
-------------------- Baptised not Lobotomised
Posts: 745 | From: Bath, UK | Registered: Jun 2003
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Pine Marten
Shipmate
# 11068
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Posted
quote: Originally posted by JFBEagle: The slow movement from Mahler's 5th. I can only ever picture the closing sequence of Death in Venice, as the sweat of Dirk Bogarde's fever makes his make up starts running down face as he sits in his deck chair and dies. I never really understood the film but that scene was so moving and the music so right that any time I hear it I see the picture again in my mind and it makes me weep again.
Yes, oh yes
Also Wir setzen uns from Bach's St Matthew Passion (not played too fast, please); Martin Carthy's The Wind that Shakes the Barley here ; almost any slow blues...
-------------------- Keep love in your heart. A life without it is like a sunless garden when the flowers are dead. - Oscar Wilde
Posts: 1731 | From: Isle of Albion | Registered: Feb 2006
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Saviour Tortoise
Shipmate
# 4660
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Posted
I forgot this recent addition to the long list of things that make me weep:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lwxhg2CNb0o
"Home lad, home" sung by Belshazzar's Feast. This pair can segue straight from a silly comic number into something like this that just rips your heart out.
-------------------- Baptised not Lobotomised
Posts: 745 | From: Bath, UK | Registered: Jun 2003
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St Everild
Shipmate
# 3626
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Posted
It all depends what mood I am in to start with...
The slow movement of the Elgar Cello Concerto (esp the du Pre recording)
Enya - The Celts
"That" Rachmaninov Piano concerto...
The Spirituals from A Child of Our Time by William Walton...
as I said, almost any music can move me to tears providing I am in a susceptible mood...
Posts: 1782 | From: Bethnei | Registered: Dec 2002
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Saviour Tortoise
Shipmate
# 4660
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Posted
quote: Originally posted by St Everild: The Spirituals from A Child of Our Time by William Walton...
[pedantry]Michael Tippett not William Walton[/pedantry]
-------------------- Baptised not Lobotomised
Posts: 745 | From: Bath, UK | Registered: Jun 2003
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St Everild
Shipmate
# 3626
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Posted
Ach, soddit, I'm having One of Those Days. But yeah, him.
Posts: 1782 | From: Bethnei | Registered: Dec 2002
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Beethoven
Ship's deaf genius
# 114
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Posted
I very rarely get moved to tears by music, but Ruht Wohl from the end of whichever Bach Passion it is (John?) gets me every time - very inconvenient when I'm singing!
And I suspect that if I hear Hugo Alfen's Midsommar any time soon that'll have a similar effect, no matter that the music itself is rather jolly...
-------------------- Who wants to be a rock anyway?
toujours gai!
Posts: 1309 | From: Here (and occasionally there) | Registered: May 2001
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Melisande
Shipmate
# 4177
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Posted
Stan Rogers, "Turnaround."
-------------------- The door itself makes no promises. It is only a door. -- Adrienne Rich
Posts: 302 | From: The western Main Line | Registered: Feb 2003
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
"Old City Bar" from the first Trans-Siberian Orchestra album.
Is it okay to put popular music? The posts seem to be mostly about classical pieces but there are a couple of other posts about pop songs. [ 30. March 2012, 05:44: Message edited by: mousethief ]
-------------------- This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
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guinness girl
Ship's Barmaid
# 4391
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Posted
Fields Of Gold - either version. The Cross by Phatfish.
-------------------- supplying people with laughs at my expense since 1982!
Posts: 463 | From: Leeds, England | Registered: Apr 2003
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South Coast Kevin
Shipmate
# 16130
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Posted
Oh my, Fields of Gold - yes! Not heard that for a while, so let's correct that. Click here...
-------------------- My blog - wondering about Christianity in the 21st century, chess, music, politics and other bits and bobs.
Posts: 3309 | From: The south coast (of England) | Registered: Jan 2011
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Siegfried
Ship's ferret
# 29
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Posted
"How Great Thou Art"--was sung at my grandmother's funeral
"Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas"--Judy Garland version only--due to the context of the song within the film "Meet Me in Saint Louis"
"Somewhere" (from West Side Story)--same reason as for HYaMLC
"Puff the Magic Dragon"--I start tearing up at the line "A dragon lives forever, but not so little boys..."
-------------------- Siegfried Life is just a bowl of cherries!
Posts: 5592 | From: Tallahassee, FL USA | Registered: May 2001
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balaam
Making an ass of myself
# 4543
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Posted
The Cars Drive. It always reminds me of the video they showed of the Ethiopian famine during Live Aid.
U2 Stuck in a moment you can't get out of. I made a suicide attempt and never managed to get over it for years. This song helped.
-------------------- Last ever sig ...
blog
Posts: 9049 | From: Hen Ogledd | Registered: May 2003
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churchgeek
Have candles, will pray
# 5557
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Posted
I never could understand the idea of music making you sad until I heard Lou Reed's album, Magic and Loss. It took a long time before I could listen to the whole thing without feeling kinda gutted. Beautiful work, though. I imagine it's more the words than the music, though.
All of the other music that people find depressing actually makes me feel better when I am depressed.
-------------------- I reserve the right to change my mind.
My article on the Virgin of Vladimir
Posts: 7773 | From: Detroit | Registered: Feb 2004
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churchgeek
Have candles, will pray
# 5557
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Posted
But in other unexpected emotions, I stupidly bought (a used CD of) the Caberet soundtrack because I'd seen the musical a few times and really loved it. I can't listen to it without feeling completely nauseous from knowing what it's all about. But why didn't it have quite that effect on me in the theater? Watching the musical made me feel sad, among other things, but not this nauseating sense of dread I get from just listening to the soundtrack.
-------------------- I reserve the right to change my mind.
My article on the Virgin of Vladimir
Posts: 7773 | From: Detroit | Registered: Feb 2004
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Amanda B. Reckondwythe
Dressed for Church
# 5521
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Posted
My choral group is including a number in their spring concert called Waitin' for the Dawn of Peace. It's a compilation of two old Civil War songs that are linked by the word "morning", which becomes "mourning" in the second song. The two together are a poignant cry for peace in a world that has seen far too much war. Listen carefully to the words. I can't listen to this number, let alone sing it, without crying.
-------------------- "I take prayer too seriously to use it as an excuse for avoiding work and responsibility." -- The Revd Martin Luther King Jr.
Posts: 10542 | From: The Great Southwest | Registered: Feb 2004
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Piglet
Islander
# 11803
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Posted
Although I've only lived here for eight years, whenever I sing O Canada and the Ode to Newfoundland I get a bit lumpy round the throat.
Things that have a similar effect:
Nimrod from the Enigma Variations The hymn Be still, my soul to the tune Finlandia I have a song to sing, O from The Yeomen of the Guard
Mudfrog, I can see your point about the Queen piece - I remember it being broadcast on Top of the Pops just after it had been announced that Freddie was dying of AIDS, and there was much tear-jerking.
-------------------- I may not be on an island any more, but I'm still an islander. alto n a soprano who can read music
Posts: 20272 | From: Fredericton, NB, on a rather larger piece of rock | Registered: Sep 2006
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cliffdweller
Shipmate
# 13338
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Posted
If I'm alone for any extended period of time, listening to In the Winter by Janis Ian can pretty much drive me to the brink.
-------------------- "Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don't be afraid." -Frederick Buechner
Posts: 11242 | From: a small canyon overlooking the city | Registered: Jan 2008
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balaam
Making an ass of myself
# 4543
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Posted
Interesting list of music. But there has to be a reason why music can make someone cry, or for that matter be joyful.
The first thing is the music itself. Music works on a subconscious level. It bypasses the intellect and goes straight to the emotions. Music on its own can do this. But other things can add to the effect.
Second. Add an emotive lyric to this and the effect is much larger than the words alone. Words which may otherwise have not made any impression on their own can have floods of tears happening when delivered to music.
Third. It's personal. We have all had sad experiences, music, by going straight to the emotions can tap into this.
Which is why I like the Blues. It is so positive. Even in the bad times there is a ray of light - Magic Sam singing "I've been down so long, but I'm on my way up again," (Out Of Bad Luck) is a great way of lifting the spirits.
-------------------- Last ever sig ...
blog
Posts: 9049 | From: Hen Ogledd | Registered: May 2003
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Edgeman
Shipmate
# 12867
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Posted
Only This song. It was sung at my Father's, my sister's, and my grandmother's funerals. I can't listen to it at all nowadays, but it used to be my favorite gospel song.
-------------------- http://sacristyxrat.tumblr.com/
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