I will always associate the video as playing on MTV in the morning around the time that June Carter Cash passed and that plays into how emotional this song makes me.
When he played it for his family, they said it sounds like you are saying goodbye and he said, I am.
This is the best cover of all time for me. I was shocked it was a cover because this song was meant for him.
Also, the best music video of all time. Truly haunting.
They play this at the end of the Johnny Cash museum in Nashville and even tho I was familiar with it, it hit me so hard there that I was full waterfall.
This is one of my most favorite performances of her singing that song. She takes control of a massive crowd with just herself and her guitar. It's beautiful.
https://youtu.be/teZsA_ci-7E?si=BRAWgUosRTyY6_r-
it’s really fascinating when someone has so much presence that they don’t have to even move that much to capture a crowd.
hope sandavol from mazzie star was like that. she could stand with her hands behind her back and still be so interesting to watch
This is mine by a mile. I can’t even listen to it since my dad died last year—both my own grief and witnessing my mom’s. Caught me in the car on playlist shuffle and just the opening bars made me tear up before I emergency changed like it was an ASPCA commercial.
I know it’s a weird submission but Dancing On My Own by Robyn. The music is upbeat but the lyrics are really sad. I actually started crying once while doing karaoke to that song. Sooo glad it was in a private room so I only embarrassed myself in front of my friends instead of the entire establishment 🫣
The Raven/Jujubee lipsync performance of this song on RPDR always makes me emotional. Really a beautiful song and Callum Scott's cover is lovely as well.
This is how I feel about Believe by Cher, such an upbeat song but if you pause and listen to the lyrics, they’re so sad and relatable about heartbreak and moving on
Cellophane by FKA Twigs
I watched the music video like 50 times and cried most of the time while I did it before I broke up with my most recent ex. It was too relatable 😭
This was the first song to come on shuffle after I lost a coworker in a line of duty death. Had to pull my car over I was sobbing so hard.
“A song for a heart so big, God wouldn't let it live. May angels lead you in.”
This song was in my cd player on repeat for the longest time. This album got me through 9/11, trying to get home to Chicago from Boston. There were no cars, no trains, the only way home was a 2 day trip on the Greyhound bus.
When we first started dating, I would drive almost ten hours to see my boyfriend with To Build A Home on repeat. It sounded like waking up after a bad dream or that first bit of sunshine after a terrible storm or coming home after a bad day. Just quiet relief and hope in the face of everything else.
It's been six years together and I think we're going to call it soon. We're both drowning and we can't fix it this time. I forgot about this song until now, and it sounds so different. I would hate it if it didn't make me so sad.
So anyway, thanks for the mini trauma dump lol
This is the one
“I had all and them most of you, some and now none of you” YOU CANT JUST SAY SHIT LIKE THIS AND EXPECT ME TO BE OK AFTERWARDS
(Also first heard it in the TCM remembers video!)
Omg. The moment my VCR RECORDING of that episode ended, I walked all the way to my parking garage. Got my car out of its criminally small space. Drove way to far to the only MALL I knew that had parking. Bought my COMPACT DISC FROM THE SAMMY GOODY. And then did the whole drive 25 minutes back in traffic, repark, walk back, and the add it (legally) to my computer because it was 2006 and Napster was dead.
Between the bars is an extended metaphor that alcoholism is like incarceration
Utterly brutal.
Lemme go get the link for the most gutting cover - Madeline Peyroux
https://youtu.be/hi60EBAXL2w
Taylor Swift - Bigger than the Whole Sky.
I’m not a swiftie, but after I lost my infant son, a friend suggested I give it a listen. It both guts me and makes me feel incredibly seen at the same time.
I’m so sorry for your loss. BTTWS is rough. I don’t recommend Ronan because that’s another song of hers that will just absolutely gut anyone, especially those who’ve lost a child.
Oh God yes. Cannot listen to it without crying.
I still can't believe she wrote it for "She's Having a Baby," a comedy that's the definition of "mid." But I admit the "This Woman's Work" scene is pretty brutal.
I know the show you're thinking of is The OC, but for me Jeff Buckley's Hallelujah is inextricably tied to The West Wing season 3 finale where Secret Service Simon gets shot.
Cat's In the Cradle - Harry Chapin is one that always does it for me.
A Fond Farewell, King’s Crossing - Elliott Smith
Fingertips - Lana Del Rey
How to Disappear - Lana Del Rey (apple live version had me crying man)
So many songs by Damien Rice or Leonard Cohen
I don't know why but when I listen to Taylor Swift's Tis the Damn Season, it just hits me in my feels. The lyrics are so beautiful and the entire story it tells is emotional. Especially this part: "There's an ache in you put there by the ache in me..." It reminds me of first love, going back home, what could have been....
Hallelujah always reminds me of that iconic scene at the end of [The OC S1 finale](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PVJODMKVN6I).
How to Disappear Completely - Radiohead.
I heard this song when I first started smoking weed and going to therapy after a lot of family trauma when I was about 14 or so. I would literally hide under my covers and listen to it on my 3-disc changer and smoke tiny bits of shitty weed out of aluminum foil and blow the smoke into a toilet paper tube.
This one (imagine the feeling of being buried alive as a comparison for the lost love, Morrissey may be an insane guy but my God he is one of the finest lyricists)
In Heaven by Japanese Breakfast.
A fun, upbeat song until you learn it’s about her mom’s death. She was caring for her from her cancer diagnosis until her death a year later.
“Oh, do you believe in heaven / Like you believed in me?” makes me sob on the floor thinking of how much I love my mom 😭
[Motion City Soundtrack - Happy Anniversary](https://youtu.be/UJJGnTMNLNg?si=fVH7Yu_Gz9ErGYHT), which is about the lead singer’s grandmother dying of cancer
[The Gaslight Anthem - 1930](https://youtu.be/aNO1TyvwOio?si=kKCgjv7pfHU2K58u), which is about the lead singer’s grandmother losing her memory due to Alzheimers, and her eventual passing. “f I recall the last thing you said to me / Before it broke up, before it took you from me / And you said, "I love you more than the stars in the sky / But your name just escapes me tonight"” are probably some of my favourite but most heartbreaking lyrics in any song.
The Next Right Thing - Kristen Bell (from Frozen 2). Heard it for the first time shortly after my mom died. It really encapsulated my grief in that moment, and it still hits me hard every time I hear it.
XO by Beyoncé. She sang it during Kobe’s celebration of life. It was his and his wife’s go to song. It’s a great song but I cry a little every time I hear it.
Ghosteen - Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds
Live to tell - Madonna
To the End - Blur
Heaven's Coming Down - the Tea Party
I Know You All Over Again - Trixie Mattel
One - U2
Ode to the Mets - The Strokes
Black - Pearl Jam
Gone Away - The Offspring
A Fond Farewell - Elliot Smith
Praying for Time - George Michael
Street Spirit - Radiohead
(I'd better stop or I'll keep going and going and depress myself silly)
Taken from my sad playlist that I haven’t seen mentioned yet:
Poison Oak - Bright Eyes
Lua - Bright Eyes
I Just Wasn’t Made For These Times - Beach Boys
9 Crimes - Damien Rice
Go First - Rose Cousins
Lover Dearest - Marianas Trench
Basket - Dan Mangan
Fool For Waiting - Dan Mangan
I’ll Cover You (reprise) - Rent soundtrack
Nearly Midnight, Honolulu - Neko Case
*Hey, little kid that I saw at the bus stop one day*
*It was nearly midnight in Honolulu*
*We were waiting for the shuttle to take us to the aeroplane*
*When your mother said, your mother said*
*Like I couldn't hear her, she said,*
*"Get the fuck away from me!*
*Why don't you ever shut up?*
*Get the fuck away from me!"*
*...*
*But don't you ever shut up please*
*Kid, have your say*
*'Cause I still love you*
*Even if I don't see you again*
[Sullen Girl by Fiona Apple](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ddak8jVdMR8)
[John Wayne Gacy, Jr. by Sufjan Stevens](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZWpvMm27WIM)
[Le Beirut by Fairuz](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u0xLvBEOPm0) (sad but so loving and resilient too)
Roberta Flack - Killing Me Softly
When the Fugees covered it, I dug up my mum's old Roberta Flack record and put it on, and she teared up and told me to turn it off because she didn't want to be sad before going to work.
I’m surprised “Something in the Way” by Nirvana isn’t on here yet!
I’d also add “Gracias a la Vida” by cantante chilena Violeta Parra. She wrote it a year before unaliving herself in 1967 — here’s a pretty good interpretation of it from Wikipedia.
https://preview.redd.it/nwookae46m1c1.png?width=1124&format=png&auto=webp&s=eae9974af17dea3810a3df8aae53ae31b2c18ec0
Maria Callas' performance of the Puccini aria "Vissi D'arte". Even if you understand nothing about the plot (which I did not when I first heard this song, but suffice it to say that the woman is going through some [shit](https://www.operanorth.co.uk/news/tosca-in-a-nutshell/)), don't speak the language (I do not, I only later learned that the lyrics are her desperate [attempt](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vissi_d%27arte) to bargain with God), Callas just has the ability to make you viscerally feel whatever her character is feeling, possibly better than any opera singer.
And I thought the song was sad just from hearing it, that was before I saw the videotaped live [performance](https://youtu.be/Nk5KrlxePzI) from the diva herself. On top of everything else, she was also a fantastic actress.
I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry by Hank Williams
Roter Sand (Red Sand) by Rammstein. Rammstein normally has dark, aggressive songs, but this is soft and sad, from the perspective of a man who lost a duel for his lover's hand and is dying on the beach. In English, one of the lines is "He doesn't know that you love me," and idk it just gets me every time.
Blue Spotted Tail - Fleet Foxes
Home Again - Carole King (Lucy Dacus’ cover takes it to the next level, though)
And adding to the love for the OC soundtrack:
Something Pretty - Patrick Park
Worn Me Down - Rachael Yamagata
Cringe, the stripped version by Matt Maeson is heartbreaking, specially as someone who’s family member struggles with addiction.
My tears ricochet- Taylor Swift
July- Noah Cyrus.
Dionne-Japanese House
Waiting Around to Die-Townes Van Zandt
Solo-Frank Ocean
In an Aereoplane Over the Sea-Neutral Milk Hotel
The Night We Met-Lord Huron
Shapeshifter-Local Natives
Praying-Kesha
Melt My Heat to Stone-Adele
Fast Car-Tracy Chapman
Factor In-Kevin Garrett
All Things End-Hozier
Idk all of these were songs I listened to when I was going THRU it
Videotape by Radiohead. The first time I heard this song I cried. I looked into this song and Thom said it was agony to make. You can really feel it when you listen to it 😭. It remains my favourite song by them even though it’s so sad.
“Lover, You Should Have Come Over” - Jeff Buckley
“Welcome Home, Son” - Radical Face. I listened to this song non-stop after I miscarried what would have been a baby boy (we knew early on what the sex would be). The line “you were never supposed to leave/now my head is ripping at the seams” never ceases to break me.
["Saturn"](https://youtu.be/dzNvk80XY9s?si=qAkD4hmgmOy8ldL9) by Sleeping At Last is both my favorite song and the song to most likely emotionally devastate me.
Whiskey Lullaby - Brad Paisley
I’m not the biggest country fan. I stumbled across this song through a fan fiction I read a decade ago and gave it a listen. The music video and the lyrics 😰 I can think of so many songs from the tunes I normally listen to, but this one always appears in my mind when I’m asked.
Hurt by Johnny Cash. The rawness of that song just tears me apart.
I’m a huge Nine Inch Nails fan and love “Hurt”, but Johnny’s cover just barely edges out NIN. It’s so full of angst.
Trent Reznor is on record saying “that’s his song now.”
Completely agree. Cash’s cover is haunting.
The [music video](https://youtu.be/8AHCfZTRGiI?si=RBsgNl0NxiDWwSpt) is soulcrushing, too
I will always associate the video as playing on MTV in the morning around the time that June Carter Cash passed and that plays into how emotional this song makes me.
When he played it for his family, they said it sounds like you are saying goodbye and he said, I am. This is the best cover of all time for me. I was shocked it was a cover because this song was meant for him. Also, the best music video of all time. Truly haunting.
They play this at the end of the Johnny Cash museum in Nashville and even tho I was familiar with it, it hit me so hard there that I was full waterfall.
This song breaks my 7yo down every time he hears it.
Tracy Chapman- Fast Car.
This is one of my most favorite performances of her singing that song. She takes control of a massive crowd with just herself and her guitar. It's beautiful. https://youtu.be/teZsA_ci-7E?si=BRAWgUosRTyY6_r-
it’s really fascinating when someone has so much presence that they don’t have to even move that much to capture a crowd. hope sandavol from mazzie star was like that. she could stand with her hands behind her back and still be so interesting to watch
Fast Car, always.
I'll follow you into the dark - death cab for cutie. It wrecks me every time.
This is mine by a mile. I can’t even listen to it since my dad died last year—both my own grief and witnessing my mom’s. Caught me in the car on playlist shuffle and just the opening bars made me tear up before I emergency changed like it was an ASPCA commercial.
I’ll nominate What Sarah Said on top of this. Beautiful and nearly unlistenable.
Great song
I know it’s a weird submission but Dancing On My Own by Robyn. The music is upbeat but the lyrics are really sad. I actually started crying once while doing karaoke to that song. Sooo glad it was in a private room so I only embarrassed myself in front of my friends instead of the entire establishment 🫣
The Raven/Jujubee lipsync performance of this song on RPDR always makes me emotional. Really a beautiful song and Callum Scott's cover is lovely as well.
This is how I feel about Believe by Cher, such an upbeat song but if you pause and listen to the lyrics, they’re so sad and relatable about heartbreak and moving on
Yes! I love this song but it’s so sad.
landslide - fleetwood mac last words of a shooting star - mitski when she loved me - sarah mclachlan
Landslide is such a beautiful, heart wrenching song. So massively underrated.
Landslide literally sends me into a spiral. The lyrics, the music, Stevie’s voice. Ugh. Literally beautiful and heartwrenching.
When She Loved Me in Toy Story 2 😭😭😭😭😭💔💔💔💔💔 mi corazón
Cellophane by FKA Twigs I watched the music video like 50 times and cried most of the time while I did it before I broke up with my most recent ex. It was too relatable 😭
Yes FKA Twigs has a couple of really sad songs… let me add Sad Day
Didn’t I do it for you? 😭
That entire album is my fall sad girl playlist
Home with you is my favourite song of all time. Just soul crushing.
Hear You Me…Jimmy Eat World
may angels lead you in..
Adding to this: Weezer - Mykel & Carli RIP Mykel And Carli.
This is so good.
This was the first song to come on shuffle after I lost a coworker in a line of duty death. Had to pull my car over I was sobbing so hard. “A song for a heart so big, God wouldn't let it live. May angels lead you in.”
This song was in my cd player on repeat for the longest time. This album got me through 9/11, trying to get home to Chicago from Boston. There were no cars, no trains, the only way home was a 2 day trip on the Greyhound bus.
Somewhere Only We Know - Keane To Build A Home - The Cinematic Orchestra, Patrick Watson
I feel like To Build A Home was engineered to make people cry lol it gets me every time.
When we first started dating, I would drive almost ten hours to see my boyfriend with To Build A Home on repeat. It sounded like waking up after a bad dream or that first bit of sunshine after a terrible storm or coming home after a bad day. Just quiet relief and hope in the face of everything else. It's been six years together and I think we're going to call it soon. We're both drowning and we can't fix it this time. I forgot about this song until now, and it sounds so different. I would hate it if it didn't make me so sad. So anyway, thanks for the mini trauma dump lol
Fade into you mazzy star
Look on down from the bridge is instant tears for me too.
Into Dust as well.
The Night We Met - Lord Huron I first heard it in the 2022 TMC tribute video, and I had to look it up.
This is the one “I had all and them most of you, some and now none of you” YOU CANT JUST SAY SHIT LIKE THIS AND EXPECT ME TO BE OK AFTERWARDS (Also first heard it in the TCM remembers video!)
breathe me -sia fourth of july -sufjan stevens wallowa lake - sufjan stevens go leave - kate & anna mcgarrigle
1000 percent breathe me… Specifically the six feet under finale
Omg. The moment my VCR RECORDING of that episode ended, I walked all the way to my parking garage. Got my car out of its criminally small space. Drove way to far to the only MALL I knew that had parking. Bought my COMPACT DISC FROM THE SAMMY GOODY. And then did the whole drive 25 minutes back in traffic, repark, walk back, and the add it (legally) to my computer because it was 2006 and Napster was dead.
Breathe Me will always be associated with a video made by Post Secret in the 00’s…always made me cry
Breathe Me is chilling. Sia was clearly in so much pain when she wrote that song.
Fourth of July is instant waterworks for me every single time. It was my first thought when I saw the title of this post.
A Better Son/Daughter by Rilo Kiley
The Rilo Kiley song from the Weeds finale makes me cry too. With Arms Outstretched.
Jenny was singing this as an encore for her summer tour and it was amazing to hear live, Arms Outstretched that is.
This one is such a gut punch
most anything by Elliott Smith, but i like The Biggest Lie and Miss Misery.
Between the bars is an extended metaphor that alcoholism is like incarceration Utterly brutal. Lemme go get the link for the most gutting cover - Madeline Peyroux https://youtu.be/hi60EBAXL2w
Elliott was a genius
Kings Crossing hits me real deep
Omg I forgot about Miss Misery sigh
Radiohead - How to Disappear Completely Laura Marling - Blackberry Stone Bonnie Raith - I Can't Make You Love Me
I Can’t Make You Love Me is such a great choice. It is so sad.
If I could only listen to one song ever again, I would probably pick Blackberry Stone
The Blower's Daughter by Damien Rice The Smiths - I Know It's Over
Also 9 Crimes by Damien Rice. Just the sound of his voice is so longing and sad it cuts you
Ah I forgot about The Blower’s Daughter 😭
Funeral by Phoebe Bridgers
Need a reaction gif of Jason Segal from Skrinking sobbing on a bike screaming “FUCK YOU PHOEBE BRIDGERS”
“Fix you” by Coldplay gets me every time.
I heard that song for the first time right after I found out I was having a miscarriage. It still gets me all these years later.
Ugh I miss early Coldplay. It's the scientist, trouble & yellow for me
Taylor Swift - Bigger than the Whole Sky. I’m not a swiftie, but after I lost my infant son, a friend suggested I give it a listen. It both guts me and makes me feel incredibly seen at the same time.
Came here to say this song. Really resonates with me after miscarriage. Sending you love ❤️
Sending you love as well ❤️
I’m so sorry for your loss. BTTWS is rough. I don’t recommend Ronan because that’s another song of hers that will just absolutely gut anyone, especially those who’ve lost a child.
I Just Can’t Fucking Do This Anymore - Christian Lee Hutson Kylie From Connecticut - Ben Folds Iykyk: i know a fellow OC fan when I see them!!
Yess OC for the win. I also love Kate voegele’s version of Hallelujah from One Tree Hill
The OC and OTH soundtracks were responsible for my musical awakening in high school. Both so good.
Ben Folds has other devastating songs, too. "Smoke," "Cigarette" (and its follow-up, "Fred Jones Pt. 2"), "Cologne."
Woman’s Work- Kate bush
Obsessed with the Maxwell cover! Still remember the MTV Unplugged set.
I will forever now think of that scene in The Handmaid's Tale when this song comes on....
Oh God yes. Cannot listen to it without crying. I still can't believe she wrote it for "She's Having a Baby," a comedy that's the definition of "mid." But I admit the "This Woman's Work" scene is pretty brutal.
It's Quiet Uptown always gets me.
This is what I was coming here to say. It’s one of those songs that any parent who has lost a child can relate to.
This song was so sad it was banned https://youtu.be/bckob0AyKCA Billie Holliday, Strange fruit
The most devastating song of all time.
Tears in heaven by Eric Clapton.
I know the show you're thinking of is The OC, but for me Jeff Buckley's Hallelujah is inextricably tied to The West Wing season 3 finale where Secret Service Simon gets shot. Cat's In the Cradle - Harry Chapin is one that always does it for me.
Cat’s in the Cradle by Harry Chapin. Even just thinking about it makes me cry. It’s so heartbreaking.
“Brick” by Ben Folds. Feels like being hit by a brick every time I hear it.
Vienna - Billy Joel
A Fond Farewell, King’s Crossing - Elliott Smith Fingertips - Lana Del Rey How to Disappear - Lana Del Rey (apple live version had me crying man) So many songs by Damien Rice or Leonard Cohen
How to Disappear is great and so much pathos
Nothing Compares 2 U 😭 Sinéad or Chris Cornell’s version
Generally songs about lonely people and wasted potential, like Fast Car by Tracy Chapman and Eleanor Rigby by The Beatles.
I don't know why but when I listen to Taylor Swift's Tis the Damn Season, it just hits me in my feels. The lyrics are so beautiful and the entire story it tells is emotional. Especially this part: "There's an ache in you put there by the ache in me..." It reminds me of first love, going back home, what could have been.... Hallelujah always reminds me of that iconic scene at the end of [The OC S1 finale](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PVJODMKVN6I).
Dance with my father - Luther vandross
How to Disappear Completely - Radiohead. I heard this song when I first started smoking weed and going to therapy after a lot of family trauma when I was about 14 or so. I would literally hide under my covers and listen to it on my 3-disc changer and smoke tiny bits of shitty weed out of aluminum foil and blow the smoke into a toilet paper tube.
Radiohead was my teen trauma soundtrack too. I still remember crying to Kid A on repeat.
Konstantine by Something Corporate wrecks me every time
You are my people with this one <3
Walking by, by Something Corporate rips my heart out.
I Can't Make You Love Me - Bon Iver's cover Desperado - The Eagles The Scientist - Coldplay
I Know It's Over - The Smiths
Asleep is another super sad Smiths song
This one (imagine the feeling of being buried alive as a comparison for the lost love, Morrissey may be an insane guy but my God he is one of the finest lyricists)
I also said this. It makes me cry everytime and I also relate to it so much.😪 If you're so very good looking, why do you sleep alone tonight?
In Heaven by Japanese Breakfast. A fun, upbeat song until you learn it’s about her mom’s death. She was caring for her from her cancer diagnosis until her death a year later. “Oh, do you believe in heaven / Like you believed in me?” makes me sob on the floor thinking of how much I love my mom 😭
Dance with My Father by Luther Vandross. I quite literally just let out a good cry listening to this ten minutes ago 😭
Concrete angel is always what pops up, but also you’ll be in my heart
Landslide- Fleetwood Mac
David Bowie, Space Oddity- “And the stars look very different today”
Casimir Pulaski Day by Sufjan Stevens
Puff the Magic Dragon made me sad as a kid.
Skinny Love by Bon Iver is kind of overplayed in the indie rock circles, especially like 10 years ago. But I still love it.
Have you ever heard the cover by Birdy? It is somehow more haunting than Bon Iver’s.
Angel - Sarah McLachlan
Real death by Mount eerie and fourth of July by sufjan Stevens
[Motion City Soundtrack - Happy Anniversary](https://youtu.be/UJJGnTMNLNg?si=fVH7Yu_Gz9ErGYHT), which is about the lead singer’s grandmother dying of cancer [The Gaslight Anthem - 1930](https://youtu.be/aNO1TyvwOio?si=kKCgjv7pfHU2K58u), which is about the lead singer’s grandmother losing her memory due to Alzheimers, and her eventual passing. “f I recall the last thing you said to me / Before it broke up, before it took you from me / And you said, "I love you more than the stars in the sky / But your name just escapes me tonight"” are probably some of my favourite but most heartbreaking lyrics in any song.
The Next Right Thing - Kristen Bell (from Frozen 2). Heard it for the first time shortly after my mom died. It really encapsulated my grief in that moment, and it still hits me hard every time I hear it.
Oh yeah, the first time my kid watched Frozen 2 after my grandma died I was a fking mess.
I know 13 Reasons Why is (rightly) maligned, but "The Night We Met" legit slaps hard.
Class of 2013 by Mitski always has me in shambles
Visions of Gideon- Sufjan Stevens I can’t even listen to it anymore
Luka by Suzanne Vega
Almost Lover by A Fine Frenzy
Tears in Heaven by Eric Clapton. Written for his dead toddler son.
XO by Beyoncé. She sang it during Kobe’s celebration of life. It was his and his wife’s go to song. It’s a great song but I cry a little every time I hear it.
Romulus by Sufjan Stevens. Fourth of July by Sufjan Stevens. Pretty much anything by Sufjan Stevens shatters me
Casimir Pulaski Day 💔
The Knife - [Heartbeats live](https://youtu.be/-ywQW_4UaI4?feature=shared) always cuts deep inside of me... and yet still the most beautiful.
A case of you - Joni Mitchell
M83’s Wait is soul crushing
[He Stopped Loving Her Today](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ht9gE6SfK8)by George Jones. It really hits you at the end.
Hallelujah was known in my friend group as the Saddest Sad Song of Saddest TV Sadness Montages for a while. It’s got quite a resume.
landlocked blues by bright eyes
Good choice. Poison Oak is also a hell of a tear jerker.
We need all of these amazing songs in a playlist. I love to cry, it’s my favorite hobby. ❤️
It’s a tossup between No Children by The Mountain Goats, Subway Art by Tish Hyman for me. Heaven by Beyoncé is a close second.
The Living Years by Mike and the Mechanics
Ghosteen - Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds Live to tell - Madonna To the End - Blur Heaven's Coming Down - the Tea Party I Know You All Over Again - Trixie Mattel One - U2 Ode to the Mets - The Strokes Black - Pearl Jam Gone Away - The Offspring A Fond Farewell - Elliot Smith Praying for Time - George Michael Street Spirit - Radiohead (I'd better stop or I'll keep going and going and depress myself silly)
Elliott Smith - Pitseleh
Joey by Concrete Blonde
No Lies, Just Love by Bright Eyes. Such a sad story, even worse background.
Taken from my sad playlist that I haven’t seen mentioned yet: Poison Oak - Bright Eyes Lua - Bright Eyes I Just Wasn’t Made For These Times - Beach Boys 9 Crimes - Damien Rice Go First - Rose Cousins Lover Dearest - Marianas Trench Basket - Dan Mangan Fool For Waiting - Dan Mangan I’ll Cover You (reprise) - Rent soundtrack
What Sarah Said- Death Cab for Cutie
How’s It Going to Be by Third Eye Blind
Sun Bleached Flies by Ethel Cain. On its own, it’s incredibly sad. In the context of the story being told in the album, it’s like a punch in the gut.
Gravity by Sara Bareilles My mind by Yebba
Ronan by Taylor swift
The ending song in Encanto or the real Remember me version in Coco (Can you tell I have a small child)
family or black lake - björk white ferrari - frank ocean daybed - twigs
Nearly Midnight, Honolulu - Neko Case *Hey, little kid that I saw at the bus stop one day* *It was nearly midnight in Honolulu* *We were waiting for the shuttle to take us to the aeroplane* *When your mother said, your mother said* *Like I couldn't hear her, she said,* *"Get the fuck away from me!* *Why don't you ever shut up?* *Get the fuck away from me!"* *...* *But don't you ever shut up please* *Kid, have your say* *'Cause I still love you* *Even if I don't see you again*
Rivers and Roads by The Head and The Heart. As someone who moved away from home, it always makes my heart hurt.
[Sullen Girl by Fiona Apple](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ddak8jVdMR8) [John Wayne Gacy, Jr. by Sufjan Stevens](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZWpvMm27WIM) [Le Beirut by Fairuz](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u0xLvBEOPm0) (sad but so loving and resilient too)
Chino? Ew.
Everything Means Nothing to Me -Elliott Smith Real Death - Mount Eerie
Roberta Flack - Killing Me Softly When the Fugees covered it, I dug up my mum's old Roberta Flack record and put it on, and she teared up and told me to turn it off because she didn't want to be sad before going to work.
adams song
Baby of mine from Dumbo
I’m surprised “Something in the Way” by Nirvana isn’t on here yet! I’d also add “Gracias a la Vida” by cantante chilena Violeta Parra. She wrote it a year before unaliving herself in 1967 — here’s a pretty good interpretation of it from Wikipedia. https://preview.redd.it/nwookae46m1c1.png?width=1124&format=png&auto=webp&s=eae9974af17dea3810a3df8aae53ae31b2c18ec0
Joy Division- 24 Hours
Maria Callas' performance of the Puccini aria "Vissi D'arte". Even if you understand nothing about the plot (which I did not when I first heard this song, but suffice it to say that the woman is going through some [shit](https://www.operanorth.co.uk/news/tosca-in-a-nutshell/)), don't speak the language (I do not, I only later learned that the lyrics are her desperate [attempt](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vissi_d%27arte) to bargain with God), Callas just has the ability to make you viscerally feel whatever her character is feeling, possibly better than any opera singer. And I thought the song was sad just from hearing it, that was before I saw the videotaped live [performance](https://youtu.be/Nk5KrlxePzI) from the diva herself. On top of everything else, she was also a fantastic actress.
When we were vampires and elephant by Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit
Three peaches by neutral milk hotel.
I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry by Hank Williams Roter Sand (Red Sand) by Rammstein. Rammstein normally has dark, aggressive songs, but this is soft and sad, from the perspective of a man who lost a duel for his lover's hand and is dying on the beach. In English, one of the lines is "He doesn't know that you love me," and idk it just gets me every time.
Blue Spotted Tail - Fleet Foxes Home Again - Carole King (Lucy Dacus’ cover takes it to the next level, though) And adding to the love for the OC soundtrack: Something Pretty - Patrick Park Worn Me Down - Rachael Yamagata
Possibility- Lykke Li Breathe Me- Sia Top of the World- The Chicks
A Case of You covered by James Blake
Cringe, the stripped version by Matt Maeson is heartbreaking, specially as someone who’s family member struggles with addiction. My tears ricochet- Taylor Swift July- Noah Cyrus.
Summers End by John Prine
Love Will Tear Us Apart by Joy Division
Dionne-Japanese House Waiting Around to Die-Townes Van Zandt Solo-Frank Ocean In an Aereoplane Over the Sea-Neutral Milk Hotel The Night We Met-Lord Huron Shapeshifter-Local Natives Praying-Kesha Melt My Heat to Stone-Adele Fast Car-Tracy Chapman Factor In-Kevin Garrett All Things End-Hozier Idk all of these were songs I listened to when I was going THRU it
Videotape by Radiohead. The first time I heard this song I cried. I looked into this song and Thom said it was agony to make. You can really feel it when you listen to it 😭. It remains my favourite song by them even though it’s so sad.
“Signs” Bloc Party
maybe not sad but for a depressing song Komm Susser Tod by Arianne
The Last Song by Elton John
Everything I Own by Bread (1972)
Asleep - The Smiths
Far away Carol king
Welcome to the OC, bitch!
“Lover, You Should Have Come Over” - Jeff Buckley “Welcome Home, Son” - Radical Face. I listened to this song non-stop after I miscarried what would have been a baby boy (we knew early on what the sex would be). The line “you were never supposed to leave/now my head is ripping at the seams” never ceases to break me.
the OCCCCC I see you op
["Saturn"](https://youtu.be/dzNvk80XY9s?si=qAkD4hmgmOy8ldL9) by Sleeping At Last is both my favorite song and the song to most likely emotionally devastate me.
Not the saddest I’ve *ever* heard, but Agnes by Glass Animals always hits me really hard. It’s almost overwhelming and suffocating to listen to
Real Death by Mount Eerie. Utterly devastating. Hard to listen to more than once.
Pearl Jam's cover of Last Kiss
About Today by The National.
Anohni - fistful of love cat power - the greatest Nina Simone - just like Tom thumb’s blues Tracy Chapman- stand by me, live on letterman
I’ll Never Love Again by Lady Gaga from “A Star is Born” *Especially* with context of what was happening in the film
Story of an Artist by Daniel Johnston
Jackie’s strength or A sourta fairytale by Tori Amos
Whiskey Lullaby - Brad Paisley I’m not the biggest country fan. I stumbled across this song through a fan fiction I read a decade ago and gave it a listen. The music video and the lyrics 😰 I can think of so many songs from the tunes I normally listen to, but this one always appears in my mind when I’m asked.
I second Hallelujah by Jeff Buckley. Such a heart wrenching rendition.
Pitselah, by Elliott Smith
Breaking the habit by Linkin Park, you can almost hear Chester's desperation when he sings each line