My Five Favorite Cry-Along Songs

Okay…everybody cries. Some more frequently than others. Me more frequently than most. But that’s okay. What follows is a list I compiled of five of my favorite songs that I love to blast when I am sad and need a good cry, or when the tears are already coming and I need the song to say the words that the tears speak. Tears don’t always mean the same thing, and these songs show that beautifully I think. I have affectionately titled these songs as being “cry-along songs.”

So even if you’re not much of a crier…give these songs a listen. They are guaranteed to pull – or at least peck – at your heart. 

1.     Foundations by Kate Nash

 The “I hate you and I feel empowered so I am going to scream sing this song in my car with the windows down and might tear up a little” cry-along song

"you said I must eat so many lemons,

cos I am so bitter,

I said I'd rather be with your friends mate,

cos they are much fitter"

The most light-hearted cry-along up first. Kate Nash is a talent who isn’t afraid to speak her mind and is a very strong and independent woman. The song shows that with it’s lyrics. Boy pisses girl off, girl deserves better, girl should dump boy, but girl can’t because girl loves boy. Never has such frustration been so fun to sing along to. This song is a MUST HAVE for your car. Screaming the lyrics in my best British accent while banging the steering will and occasionally tearing up is therapeutic  - and the sessions are free!

2.  Come Pick Me Up by Ryan Adams

The “I currently hate everyone I have ever met but it’s okay as long as you’re still there to make it worse by making it better” cry-along song

"when you're walking downtown,

do you wish I was there? do you wish it was me?

with the windows clear and the mannequin's eyes,

do they all look like mine?"

This song. THIS SONG. I have loved this song for years but it’s one of those songs that you forget about for a little while only to suddenly remember it when you’re in the middle of doing some mundane task like writing an essay or making a sandwich and you need to listen to it. And you hear it and it’s like hearing it for the first time and the lyrics, and the HARMONICA. The harmonica alone in this song is enough to bring me to tears. Add the lyrics and I’m done for. This is my mad cry-to song. My song for when I hate the world and nothing feels right and basically I hate you so much but I don't and everything hurts. Everything's heavy.  

3. Candles by Daughter

The “I am fragile and I gave you a change and you broke me like a twig” cry-along song

"so please just blow out all the candles blow out all the candles,

'you're too old to be so shy' he says to me so I stay the night"

This is my newest cry-along song. I saw the amazingly talented Daughter live in September, and when they performed this song I had goosebumps. The song hit me like a ton of bricks. The softness and innocent sound of the song with the heart-wrenching lyrics really does a number on me.  Basically this is the one you want listen to when you feel so fragile. When you feel like you’re a vase on the kitchen table that the dog just ran into and you come falling down onto the hard and unforgiving floor – shattering into a thousand pieces. This song is that first impact of glass on the tile. 

4. Halleluiah by Jeff Buckley

The “all around sad but sadness is beauty” cry-along song

"I used to live alone before I knew you,

and I've seen your flag on the marble arch

and love is not a victory march

it's a cold and it's a broken hallelujah"

This song ugh this song is the ultimate general cry-to song, I think, not my own personal cry-to song.  No one will ever do to this song what Jeff Buckley has done to this song. His voice and these lyrics just turn on my tears as if it is water coming from a faucet. It’s such a classic and always hit’s the nail on the head. It’s the song when you’re sad and you don’t know why. It’s the song when you’re sad and you do know why. It’s the song that understands whatever reason why you are sad and will wrap you in a blanket of a chords and notes and words and a touch of magic.

5.     Woods by Bon Iver

The “my heart is broken” cry-along song

"I'm up in the woods, I'm down on my mind,

I'm building a sill, to slow down the time" 

This is my own personal cry-to song, so of course this had to be on the list. We all have our own personal cry-to songs I think, I wanted to share a couple of my favorite but no song will slay me like this one does. In 2008, I remember writing a piece of prose about how once while listened to this song on repeat I actually felt by heart being torn into two pieces. I felt it debating from itself and from going from a whole to halves. The song was the soundtrack to my literal adolescent heartbreak, and for that it will always be an automatic tearjerker. Four lines worth of lyrics have never said so much nor meant so much to me.

…And that’s my list! I decided to add them to a playlist on Spotify if you’re interested on listening to them there, and I also provided YouTube links for them as well! Here is the Spotify playlist link: http://open.spotify.com/user/1247521026/playlist/2Qh1Jpdq6U0Ovcgpi6a4hj

Trust me…I have many more cry-to songs so if you enjoyed this at all please let me know, I’d love to do songs 6-10 and kindof make this an ongoing thing.

I really hope you enjoy these songs. I hope you haven’t heard of them and like them or you have heard of them and are reminded of why you love them. I hope they shine a light through the dark days like they do for me, as cheeseball as that sounds. These songs get it, and that is beautiful.