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As the title says....which song still haunts you emotionally? And why? A (freely accessible) link might greatly bring your point across.
Mine would be: (Typhoon - "Empiricist") https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9E328pIZWFM
The lyrics go deep and it just touches me. No otherwise special attachment.
“Do it for her” from Steven Universe. If you haven’t watched the series. I won’t ruin it.
Likewise, “Leaves From the Vine” from ATLA
It almost feels like cheating, but Somewhere Only We Know by Keane always manages to get me, especially since it seems like the lyrics become more poignant the older I get.
Honorable shoutout goes to Johnny Cash’s cover of Hurt.
1916 by Motorhead.
Quite possibly the most heartbreaking anti-war song ever written.
Wings for Marie pt 1 and 2 by Tool. It's a 17 minute pair of tracks so there's no expectation of you, dear random reader, to slog through it, but it's very meaningful to me. It is haunting and beautiful though.
Part 1: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=BNTo34xOwoM
Part 2: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=qJq9y9xPKWs
I lost my mother unexpectedly and when I was rather young (mid 20's).
As a little relevant back history of the lead singer, he was at odds with his mother when she was alive but she passed of cancer. My take on the song is that this is an ode to her.
My mother was mentally ill and we never had a good relationship, but after that loss I spent a lot of time thinking about all that was strong and good in her. And I miss her still, despite everything. This song evokes those feelings and still brings me to tears to this day.
Edit: updated formatting a bit and the links. The parts 1 and 2 video I found worked fine via ddg but the direct link didn't seem to work, so changed to links to the individual songs.
Thanks man. And i will totally listen to it. I actually prefer loooong songs.
Sorry about your mom.
Undertale from Toby Fox
https://youtu.be/8CeYNJ-s0Kw?si=ybFwzAxK8uVi62KV
No matter how many times I listen to it, tears ALWAYS rush to my eyes
The context of all those motifs coming back just brings ALL the feels. Toby really has a way with his music.
Porter Robinson - Goodbye to a World It's a fun song since it's electronic and dance. There's not even many lyrics, but at the same time it manages to be a very emotional song. It genuinely makes you feel like you're at the end of a world.
The absolutely achingly long build up invokes such strong tension and vivid mental imagery of the end of some fantastical world, the end of a story. And then the final chorus hits like a truck: the final, thunderous cry of a world at its end. Then all is stripped away and you're left with a half-broken voice singing the same refrain, and it's truly over.
Porter Robinson is a musical storytelling genius!
I still remember listening to Changes by Tupac and Talent for the first time while I was waiting for the bus downtown to head home.
At the time hiphop and rap as a whole was something I hated, but there was something that really stood out about this one track the person across the shelter from me was blasting. The lyrics hooked me from the get go:
"I see no changes, wake up in the morning, and I ask myself Is life worth living, should I blast myself? I'm tired of bein' poor..."
I didn't grow up with the best surroundings, and it felt like a gut punch having a song played by a random stranger on their speaker speak to my experience like that. Followed later with:
"I see no changes, all I see is racist faces Misplaced hate makes disgrace to races We under, I wonder what it takes to make this One better place, let's erase the wasted"
I feel when I was younger I was really insensitive to racial issues, and part of that was owed to circumstances that were unique to myself that I was still dealing with the effects of, but listening to the whole song and the genuine nature of the lived experiences told in the lyrics really helped me see things through another lens that I'm still thankful for today. This part especially helped me do some self-reflection and realize that I was in part misplacing my hate on entire groups of people rather than those who specifically wronged me, and that all I was doing was damaging potential friendships I could have with people who were no different from myself outside of physical characteristics.
Feels weird being open about this, and I know that it's really odd for someone to say a song of all things got them to change some racist thoughts they held, but I was a teenager at the time with a shitty life in and out of the house, and while it's no excuse, it was hard to be rational when all you felt was anger at the world and didn't know where the hell to aim it.
I feel when I was younger I was really insensitive to racial issues,
Isn't that the beauty? We didn't even have a concept of "race" as kids. We develop that. As kids everyone is literally the same thing. Just looks a bit different.
But i hear you. And i don't think it's weird, that tupac gave you the nudge to ponder. As a teeny you most likely only listened to yourself or maybe some idol-figures. So you actively listened to tupac with your mind not just your ears. Makes total sense to me.
What a luck, you listened to him and not some of those fuckbitches-begangsta-blingbling-imbeciles of today 😁
A Different Kind Of Human by AURORA
The song resonates with me so deeply, feeling like I don't belong anywhere, as an autistic/trans/lesbian individual. The idea of "my people" arriving in a mothership and warmly embracing me for all that I am, and taking me somewhere I belong, is enough to make me well up just thinking about the song.
Sia - Breathe Me (mainly because of Six Feet Under)
Honorable mention to Dan Folgelberg - Same Old Lang Syne.
remember me, from Coco (the lullaby version)
Mad World. I respect Tears for Fears, but Gary Jules did it much better
IMHO, Jasmine Thompson aced the song.
The Pentatonix version comes in tied for second place.
Why? I think the song really nails how we can feel about this world sometimes. It was a fairly good description of me In my more depressed times, or at least, it triggers some very familiar feelings of the past. How can I describe it.. It's like I am looking at myself and the world through dead eyes. There are no feelings, no emotion and just the buzz of the world happening around me for no reason. (That description almost mirrors some of the lyrics, now that I think about it. What can I say? It's an accurate song.)
Children waiting for the day they feel good
Happy birthday, happy birthday
Yup.
That line has always hit me right in the feels.
Lauren Shigihara - Everything’s Alright
https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=nIZxh_nc64w
The lyrics by themselves tell a story, but this song is the capstone to indie game To The Moon, which is an emotionally devastating tale. The theme of being near each other despite all else going wrong (thus making it all okay) was what made it my wife’s song of choice to sing to our son while he was in the NICU. I cannot hear this without my emotional state falling apart.
Oh fuck, To The Moon and Everything's Alright will always make me cry like a newborn.
I have a feeling that when Deltarune is finished in its entirety and we finally have the "full" version of Don't Forget by Laura Shigihara, it'll be similarly heartbreaking and warm
Passenger - Let Her Go - https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=RBumgq5yVrA
And Garth Brooks - The Dance - https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=iYhnFvxTjok
Because I'm tired of watching the people I love die.
Depressing songs? That's my expertise. I'll try to keep it short:. Off the top of my head:
Richard Ashcroft - The Drugs Don't Work - Lyric: "'Cause baby, ooh, if heaven calls
I'm coming too, just like you said. You leave my life, I'm better off dead"
Kate Bush - This Woman's Work - about a woman (almost) dying during childbirth. Think most people can relate to the thought of their mother (or mother of their children) dying. (And if that's not you, internet hugs. Sorry, if that's all I can offer you.)
Soft Cell - Say Hello, Wave Goodbye - Mark Almond isn't the best singer, this sounds like a cheesy 80s song about a break-up.... and then the chorus hits. Anger and bitterness seem to mask true pain.
Regina Spektor - Becoming All Alone Again - Key lyrics: "Why doesn't it get better with time?
I'm becoming all alone again."
The Knife - Is it still light outside? - a cheery song about the doctor coming for a visit after something happened.
Bowie and Mercury = Under Pressure - Aftersun version - Key lyric: "Why can't we give love one more chance? Why can't we give ourselves one more chance?" and "this is our last dance" - in this version Bowie never gets to finish the lyric. Love doesn't get one more chance. The movie's equally depressing.
Pink Floyd - High Hopes - about regret and growing old. Key lyric: "Running before time took our dreams away, leaving the myriad small creatures trying to tie us to the ground to a life consumed by slow decay". Obviously Pink Floyd has other great songs, I chose one of them.
Queen ’39
"In the year of ’39
Came a ship in from the blue
The Volunteers came home that day, and they bring good news
Of a world so newly born
Though their hearts so heavily weight
For the Earth is old and grey
Little darling, we'll away but my love this cannot be
For so many years are gone
Though I'm older but a year
Your mother's eyes from your eyes cry to me”
The reality of deep space travel.
Aside from Mad World by Gary Jules and *Everything's alright" by Laura Shigihara, which have already been mentioned, I have a few off the top of my head:
Betty by Hot Mulligan.
The song is about the death of a beloved pet.
She used to sleep tucked in a tiny ball. Used to listen when I'd sing her favourite song. Held her fingers so she'd wake with me. Get drunk and sink into the couch for TV.
Couple years you couldn't go outside. But as long as she was here then I would be just fine. Had a cough, it made me nervous then. Thought it would pass by the time winter met its end, oh.
Doctor said, "It doesn't go away". Nothing left to do but hope and medicate. Held her fingers so she'd wake with me. Get drunk and stay awake for days, I'd watch her breathe.
Got her ashes from the vet today. I can't look at them or find the proper place. She used to sleep tucked in a tiny ball. Used to listen when I sang her favourite song, oh.
Mount Eerie’s album, A Crow Looked at Me, is crushing. Phil Elverum’s wife died shortly after their first child was born. It’s a raw grief album. I listen to this when I need a good cry. https://youtu.be/-1UyUsz0A-A?si=3JY1CLXZIxxKxDl6
Frightened Rabbit’s “Modern Leper” also hits me in the chest.
Well, I crippled your heart a hundred times
And still can't work out why
You see, I've got this disease
I can't shake and I'm just rattling through life
The song "ONE MORE LIGHT" by Linkin Park was already hard to listen to, knowing the dude who sang it killed himself shortly after makes it worse...
Mike and the Mechanics - "The Living Years" Makes me tear up everytime
Every time that song comes on I have to brace myself for the feels that are coming
Oh yes, lovely tune!!
Red Hot Chili Peppers - By the Way
It’s not intrinsically emotionally gripping, but my dad loved the heck out of that album and it evokes memories of him singing along and dancing to it.
For me, it’s a song about missing him.
"Space Doggity" by Jonathan Coulton still gets me. It's about Laika, the first dog in space. Also the first dog to not come back from space. Jonathan is a particularly genius songwriter and this one does not disappoint.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YEXqLkj9J10
Sting - The Soul Cages
This album was written when his father died. It's a loose concept album and it devastates from beginning to end but if you haven't heard it before two of the tracks hit hard as standalones:
Why Should I Cry For You is both beautiful and pleasant and ruinous
That whole Offerings album is amazing and fits this theme.
I have to add Anthems by Broken Social Scene, it feels like nostalgia for an adolescence I didn’t get.
Apollo 440( with Billy Mackenzie) - Pain in any Language
It's a beautiful, depressing song and Billy Mackenzie's vocals are just haunting. A girl I was hopelessly in love with introduced me to the song, so that adds to its effect on me...
Always Something There to Remind Me - Naked Eyes
a dear friend of mine's mother and grandmother died the same week. this song came on the radio when i picked her up at the airport and we both started bawling.
The Heart Remains a Child - Everything But the Girl
just because it is heartrendingly real.
Best I Am - Flaw https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=fnKCrI6VZjE
Not even a parent, just kinda reminds me of things I should remember but always seem to forget.
This is a bit on-the-nose and blatant, because the song has actual (or very realistic-sounding acted) crying in it. Lunatic Soul - Out On A Limb https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9C7u0k-yrFg
It's also a banging song & band in general.
I've mentioned it in a similar thread but Sting - What Could Have Been (ft. Ray Chen) is one that just breaks me down into a sobbing mess every time I listen to it.
Apollo 440( with Billy Mackenzie) - Pain in any Language
It's a beautiful, depressing song and Billy Mackenzie's vocals are just haunting. A girl I was hopelessly in love with introduced me to the song, so that adds to its effect on me...
Apollo 440( with Billy Mackenzie) - Pain in any Language
It's a beautiful, depressing song and Billy Mackenzie's vocals are just haunting. A girl I was hopelessly in love with introduced me to the song, so that adds to its effect on me...
Spider in the snow by Dismemberment Plan. It's a song about not really getting close to anyone and watching your life go by. Why? Because I probably have seen myself in it a few times in my life.
S Club 7 - Never Had A Dream Come True
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ei9qcH_jpqY
Heard a long distance dedication on live radio by the late Casey Casem back when he was still doing America's Top 40. I still think it was my Ex fiance who sent it. She knew i listened to that show. looking back im not sure it was really her but it wrecked me to even hear this song for years after that.