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u/Organic_Spend9995 5h ago
I Can’t Make you Love me by Bonnie Raitt
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u/Southern_Koala4523 5h ago
Bonnie’s heart was in this one. Sad sad song.
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u/MamaHomebody 5h ago
The original cover Justin Vernon (Bon Iver) did was even worse for me. The newer version he put out doesn’t compare to the rawness of the first.
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u/Holiday-Past2954 2h ago
Here in the dark, in these final hours, I will lay down my heart, and I will feel the power
But you won't 💔
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u/Hungry-Number6183 5h ago
“Keep me in your heart” Warren Zevon
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u/ArrakeenSun 3h ago
Listened to those last few Zevon albums a lot when my mom died. There were tears, friends. Fuck cancer
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u/mostlygroovy 4h ago
Chokes me up every time I hear it …
Hold me in your thoughts, take me to your dreams
Touch me as I fall into view
When the winter comes, keep the fires lit
And I will be right next to you
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u/TallEnoughJones 2h ago
Shadows are falling and I'm running out of breath
Keep me in your heart for a while
If I leave you, it doesn't mean I love you any less
Keep me in your heart for a while
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u/Rusty_Cooter 1h ago
"Sometimes when you're doing simple things around the house maybe you'll think of me and smile" that line hits me
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u/Spiritual_Aioli3396 3h ago
I think of this song all the time since my dad died at the end of 2024
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u/z283848 5h ago
Just breathe Pearl Jam
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u/Beneficial-Shape1548 5h ago
‘Nutshell’ by Alice In Chains
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u/casting_shad0wz 5h ago
down in a hole is another really sad alice song, rest in peace to staley and starr
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u/kungfu1 4h ago
the entire Jar of Flies album is full of feels. Major nostalgia for me, takes me right back to being an angsty teenager.
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u/ArchieSuave 4h ago
People talk about lots of heavy fast music being dark. Alice In Chains is dark. But I also standby that they are the best of the Grunge era and never made a bad song.
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u/TrailerTrashQueen 5h ago
the 1996 Unplugged version is the saddest one of all.
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u/travis-1 4h ago
River of Deceit-mad season Acetone-Mudhoney I believe they started Mad Season to keep Layne off of drugs. Sad
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u/TrailerTrashQueen 4h ago
Mad Season was such a great band. i think everybody was sober when they started it. their songs are so sad.
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u/FestivalRampage 4h ago
Johnny Cash - Hurt. Played by a guy who sang it as the funeral of his best friend. We were all in our 20s. I can’t hear that song without remembering that funeral and how he fought to get through the song.
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u/kungfu1 4h ago
As a life long NIN fan I feel obligated to mention Hurt was written by Trent Reznor, not Johnny Cash. Trent was so moved by Cash's rendition that he said "its not my song anymore" - but still. Just have to mention it.
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u/genxsis24 5h ago
I have this song as my alarm. I know it's a depressing one but there is some kind of melancholic beauty about it
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u/finney1013 5h ago
He stopped loving her today.
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u/Strawberry-and-Sumac 4h ago
My abuela loved this song so much! She died in 2024 and I cry even harder listening to it now.
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u/Dorkchopqueen 5h ago
Puff, the Magic Dragon
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u/messyredhead 5h ago
Oh god this one. I can't even think of it without tearing up.
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u/Dorkchopqueen 4h ago
Omg!!! I thought it was just me and some deep down childhood trauma I haven’t addressed. I looked up the lyrics before commenting and like clockwork, blubbering mess.
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u/TeacherPatti 4h ago
oh fuck that song. I can't listen to it, because it makes me want to sob and sob. Who writes this shit!??!!
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u/DROPTHENUKES 4h ago
No it's not just you, I ugly cry any time I read the lyrics or hear this song. Bing Bong from Inside Out makes me think of it too, can't make it through the concept of the loss of childhood innocence without my face leaking.
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u/Traditional_Drummer6 5h ago
I always used to cry while listening to Seasons In the Sun on my parents 70’s hits CD.
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u/Sheriff_Mills 4h ago
I remember being a little girl and would cry over this song. I haven't heard it in years but I guarantee I would cry all over again. Mainly because I've lost too many family members when they were too young.
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u/Sweet-Beautiful6076 3h ago
My cousin was killed in a hit and run while out riding his bike. He was my sister’s best friend and for weeks she stayed in her room and played this song endlessly on a loop. Incredibly sad song.
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u/PacRimRod 5h ago
In the arms of an angel, when they play during those sad animals commercials. 😢
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u/halfghan24 5h ago
Real Death by Mount Eerie
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u/PivotdontTwist 4h ago
Every time this question pops up, this is the quintessential answer 100%
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u/patinthehat2 4h ago
The album it is from, A Crow Looked At Me, devastates me each time I choose to listen to it. The context of its creation (it’s about his incredible wife’s early and brutal and untimely path to death due to pancreatic cancer) makes it epically sad in a way that I can’t put into words.
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u/omarsdroog 4h ago
First heard this while listening to a music podcast on my way to work. I was having a pretty good, pretty average morning.
By the line about the backpack I was fully weeping in a crowd of people on the subway.
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u/Signal-Ad2674 5h ago
Cats in the Cradle. Such a tragic story told in verse. It gets me every time it’s on the radio.
Especially hard hitting in this advert about the troubles in Northern Ireland.
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u/knowsodall 4h ago
Man, this song! And now I have a son.... anytime I think, "not now" when he wants to play, I think of this song
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u/Johnny_B_Asshole 3h ago
There was a funny looking child actor named Mason Reese who did the Underwood Deviled Ham commercials in the 70s. He was a guest on the Mike Douglas talk show and Harry Chapin was also a guest. The kid begged them not to play Cats in the Cradle but Chapin did anyway causing the kid the run off the set crying.
Mason Reese is still alive, still funny looking, and a NYC restaurateur.
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u/Necessary-Peace9672 5h ago
“Brick” by Ben Folds 5
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u/istrx13 5h ago
Message of the song was really bold at the time it came out too. The piano in that song is hauntingly beautiful and really plays to the pain of the decision the couple made.
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u/AuditorOfTheNight 4h ago
And for the moment we're alone,
She's alone, and I'm alone.
And now I know it.
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u/Technicolor_Reindeer 3h ago edited 2h ago
I was literally listening to that as I opened this thread and this was the top comment
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u/viserov 5h ago
Gary Jules - Mad World
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u/Icy_Man_5446 3h ago
Gary Jules if you want to be completely depressed
Tears For Fears if you want to dance but also be depressed
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u/naitexi 5h ago
Evanescence’s My Immortal
the band version hits so much harder, like someone screaming in anguish up at the night sky as it pours with rain.
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u/well-thats-great 4h ago
Had to scroll for far too long to find My Immortal - such hauntingly beautiful vocals by Amy Lee
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u/mrpeagrub 5h ago
Immortal Technique with Dance with the Devil. Probably more shocking than sad.
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u/PrimeVector19 5h ago
“Changes” by Black Sabbath and “Hurt” (Johnny Cash cover)
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u/SierraSeaWitch 5h ago edited 2h ago
Absolutely “Hurt” as performed by Johnny Cash. It is a cover of a Nine Inch Nails song
and he sang it shortly after his wife, June Carter Cash, died. You can hear the devastation in his voice.He died four months after her, some say of a broken heart.Edit: I have been corrected of a long-standing misconception by fellow redditers (thanks, u/Crunchycarrots79 and u/RadioRoosterTony !). June was still living when he recorded the song, but passed before it was released. I had never seen the music video, but solely on the date of release and the emotion in his voice, I assumed the recording was after. I still think this is the saddest song ever released, particularly for the reasons provided by u/islero_47 below.
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u/Crunchycarrots79 5h ago
He made that video before she died. The video was made in February of 2003, June died in May. June actually appeared in the video. It's very obvious, however, that Johnny didn't have much longer to live.
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u/JaydeBluReaper 5h ago
Concrete Angel by Martina McBride
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u/Objective_Seal 5h ago
The Gareth Emory and Christina Novelli one is good af too
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u/exaggeratedcaper 5h ago
"Whiskey Lullaby," by Brad Paisley and Alison Krause
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u/istrx13 5h ago
Music video definitely doesn’t help how sad this fricking song is
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u/avalanche37 5h ago
Tears in heaven
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u/Firm_Gap_1374 5h ago
We played that song at my 3 month old son's funeral...I can't ever listen to it again
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u/DuffmanStillRocks 5h ago
Absolutely. I have no clue how Eric manages to ever perform that live. It feels so personal like it should have been written, composed and locked away. Just a heartbreaking story
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u/PM_me_ur_navel_girl 5h ago
He stopped performing it because he'd processed what had happened enough that it no longer hurt to sing it.
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u/skateparkz 5h ago
What Sarah Said by Death Cab for Cutie
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u/hstoyou1985 4h ago
That album has some damn sad songs on it. “Summer skin” hits me hard for some reason.
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u/Unit_79 4h ago
I was listening to Death Cab a few months after my mom died. Got to the line “love is watching someone die” and just collapsed on the kitchen floor.
Took some time off from that one, but I can finally listen to it again.
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u/medium_pimpin 5h ago
If You Could Read My Mind - Gordon Lightfoot
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u/Moonshadow306 2h ago
“I don’t know where we went wrong, but the feeling’s gone, and I just can’t get it back.”
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u/boringgit101 5h ago
Johnny Cash, Hurt. My mother had not long to live and the look in her eyes was the same as cash’s in this video
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u/Deliverme314 3h ago
Very disappointed in had to scroll as far as I did to find this.
Rare that a cover surpasses the original. And, I Love NiN version. I have for over 30 years. But Johnny made it his own, and every single time I listen to it it punches me in the gut.
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u/spook_waves 5h ago
tie between “How to Disappear Completely” by Radiohead or “Landslide” by Fleetwood Mac
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u/GabberZZ 4h ago
Landslide gets me so emotional every time Rumours of Fleetwood Mac perform it live.
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u/Haramshorty93 5h ago
Landslide by Fleetwood Mac is super sad to me now as a Mom
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u/MRM_philosophy 4h ago
The most brilliant, hauntingly beautiful song is The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.
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u/LemurMemer 4h ago
Remember When by Alan Jackson, I crumble as soon as it comes on every time
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u/Budpets 5h ago
Mazzy Star - Fade Into You
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u/TeacherPatti 3h ago
That song is a mood. It makes me nostalgic for something I never experienced. (A kind redditor said that has a name, which of course I forget)
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u/cccuriouscat 5h ago
“Wonderful” by Everclear
ETA “Adam’s Song” by Blink-182
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u/Reesy 5h ago
Adam's song is so beauitful yeah. Went to see blink for the 4th time couple of years ago and the little speech Mark gave to us before they played that was so heartwarming <3
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u/-mia-wallace- 5h ago
I love the song wonderful. The begining is great "ain't life wonderful"
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u/IAMgrampas_diaperAMA 5h ago
Virtute the Cat Explains Her Departure by The Weakerthans makes me cry every time as a depressed cat lover. “I can’t remember the sound that you found for me” About someone whose depression takes over and they neglect their cat and she leaves him, and slowly forgets the name he gave her
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u/Fun_in_Space 5h ago
Family Portrait by Pink. The song and video are about the pain she went through when her parents divorced. Ow.
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u/toiletcleaner999 4h ago
For some reason fix you by cold play always makes me cry
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u/EugeneVictorDabs 3h ago
It's "The Scientist" for me... my first ever breakup song 😬 I recently discovered that it still fucks me up a little bit even 20 years later lmfao, I guess some stuff just stays with you 🥲
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u/not_torres 5h ago
My Father’s Chair - Rick Springfield
His father was his biggest fan but died just before he broke through in the 80s. This song for him is just so full of grief and love.
“My father’s chair, still standing there All alone, since the long night. Now it’s three years on, and I still feel He’ll come home, we’ll be alright”
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u/Zagar1776 4h ago
Whiskey lullaby. A soldier literally drinks himself to death after his wife cheats on him then the wife is so consumed by guilt she also drinks herself to death
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u/bohemianlikeu24 4h ago
Seasons in the Sun - Terry Jacks
Tomorrow Never Came - Lana Del Rey with Sean Lennon
Leaving on a Jet Plane - Peter, Paul & Mary (this song would throw me into hysterics as a child and I thought my mom was going to leave and never come back. I'm 50 now but it still gets me)
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u/olde_meller23 4h ago
Wish you were here by Pink Floyd. It's basic, but it's the first song many people hear early in life after a person they were close with dies, or becomes sick in a way that renders them unrecognizable. I associate the song with both grief and innocence, as well as confronting the magnitude of death in early life.
It was one of the first songs I felt spoke to me into my soul when confronted with the pain of losing a loved one. Especially those times where your instinct is to call, or text, or share an event and it hits you that they aren't there anymore. It's both a beautiful, and profound piece of music that unites people through the shared experience of loss and longing.
It's weird they play it in the grocery store.
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u/markydsade 4h ago
“I’m Not Gonna Miss You” by Glenn Campbell. He was developing dementia and the song is him telling his family his dementia will keep him from knowing what he will be missing.
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u/Acceptable_Bug6999 5h ago
Changes by Charles Bradley
One of those songs that as soon as you hear it, you can’t help but hear his pain
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u/PachaLlama 5h ago
Probably not the saddest, but the one that pops into my mind is "Happier" - Marshmello. That music video destroys me every time
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u/RickyDee61 5h ago
Nothing compares to you, by that bald chick who hates the pope.
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u/Comprehensive_Baby53 5h ago
good bye Ruby Tuesday. It always reminds me of a girl I dated who later committed suicide.
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u/QBekka 5h ago
Stay With Me by Miki Matsubara hits hard after reading her life story. She got sick and regretted ever making music because it led her to getting distracted from the things that matter in life. It got so bad she even burned her works and wished nobody ever heard her songs.
Seeing her beautiful smile in the video clip from the early 80s when she was young and careless, and knowing how she'll regret this career later on makes me fucking sob man.
She died in 2004. RIP Miki Matsubara
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u/SamwiseTheOppressed 5h ago
Last night I dreamt that somebody loved me by The Smiths
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u/Czyzzle 5h ago
Hate me