Maybe I'm a big baby but country music usually does it for me...especially if I am already crabby. I was thinking of Miranda Lambert's - The House That Built Me. I have been thinking about kids a lot lately and when I was growing up I hated this house so much because it was way too small for two kids. If we have a boy and a girl we have no bedroom (there's only two bedrooms). It makes me sad to think of leaving here but I always said I wouldn't do this to my kids.
I don't believe any song has ever made me cry, but if one ever does it will be Tears in Heaven, Clapton's eulogy for his son. That, or In My Life -- the original scrawled lyrics of which, thenewgreen, I just saw on display at the British Library. (!!!!!!!!!!)
Dude, I'm jealous. I realize this was almost two years ago, but still, that's awesome. One of the best songs ever written.
I have to be in the right mood for a song to make me cry, but for me the ones that comes to mind is Sufjan Steven's The Seer's Tower and John Wayne Gacy Jr.
Related thread : http://hubski.com/pub?id=30908
Sing About Me/Dying of Thirst (from good kid, m.A.A.d city by Kendrick Lamar, 2012) does it for me. By the time Maya Angelou comes in, I'm sobbing like a baby.
Ooh I haven't heard that one yet. I love Kendrick! I'll have to check it out today. EDIT I can't watch the video or listen to it from home so I looked at the lyrics. I don't think I will get the full effect until I listen to it, but I love how long Kendrick's songs are. How they have a lot of words, lots of verses, and some serious stories. I like my songs to tell a story.
It's the context. I was about 18 when this came out, and John's death hit me hard - it hit all of us hard, I think. This song makes me think about how it seemed he was finally getting his shit sorted, and his life in order, then bam - over.
The saddest song I've heard is Videotape by Radiohead
Personally, Lisa Hannigan & Cormac Curran - Martha does it for me.
I have always found Chris Bathgate's song Serpentine to be particularly stirring. It makes my wife cry. Great song.
The song "Color Blind" by the Counting Crows is extremely sad. No song really makes me cry, but that song makes me really sad and in a mood where I probably could cry.