Ambushed by unexpected emotion

OK, apposite to another thread this, too.

I was at a disco with Isabel. It was full of pricks - we hated it, really bitchy atmosphere (it was some kind of school reunion thing of hers, none of her friends had turned up). I had nothing to say to anyone and got steadily drunker and refused to dance. She, rightly, got cross at this and at the general atmosphere and sulked.

Finally I agreed that the next time a slow song came on I would dance with her to it. Lo and behold it was Bob Marley, "Redemption Song". As all the lowest representatives of my 'social strata' swayed in their DJs and cummerbunds and tried for a quick grope I was filled with images of BOB'S RIGHTEOUS STRUGGLE and how all that had happened was that he'd died and his LIBERATION MUSIC was being used to soundtrack the fumblings of catty debs in training, and like Mark, my cheeks they did moisten.

Later on as I recall I threw up in Isabel's toilet. Not my finest critical hour.

since then i listen to it occasionally - to remind me why im racing, and what im racing from.

(exhales)

Um, anyhow, I get really tense when the song "Good Morning" by the Beatles comes on. Not because of the fact that the song is awful, but because I went through about 5 years of my life being woken up every single morning, even weekends, by my mom putting on the Sgt. Pepper's vinyl to "Good Morning" and just playing the rooster crow and "GOOD MORNING! GOOD MORNING!" over and over and over again until I'd get up to entertain her. Because she thought it was funny. So when that song comes on, I get really, really tense. It happened tonight, I couldn't even finish my dinner because of it. It's just a learned response, I guess.

Oh, and I've totally flipped out at Jem before. It's really weird but I used to think about it all the time. It'd really upset me, Jem's boyfriend (Rio?), he'd go out with Jerica AND Jem, but he didn't know Jerica and Jem were the same person so in his mind he was dating two chicks, but since they were the same girl she knew he was cheating and didn't that bother her? What's going on here? I'd get really upset to the point where my mom had to take away my Jem dolls because I kept defacing the boyfriend doll. I'm honestly not making this up. I can't deal with Jem because of this.

Most recent occassion was hearing that Brian Adams trance track extremely loud in a clothes shop down Oxford Circus. Seeing the video on a mega-screen above a melee of girls fighting over the reduced racks, it was like a vision of the future, lucky I was in a good mood then.

Mind you, I cried at The Fly so I am a pretty unreliable one on that count.

Record wise "Grudge Fuck" by the Scud Mountain Boys (previous mentioned) always brings a tear to my eyes, which as I have said before I found rather unlikely due to it being a song called Grudge Fuck.

Music: I'd listened to The Cure's "From the Edge of the Deep Green Sea" quite a few times and enjoyed the ripping guitar throughout, but one time the lyrics just caught me. I was fascinated throughout, like a trainwreck, but when Smith got to "...just as I'm breaking free/she hangs herself in front of me/drops her dress like a flag to the floor/and hands in the sky surrenders it all..." I just lost it. Felt a chill run up my back and had to sit down.

Visual: Sometimes it's the stupidest things that set me off. Once I welled up with tears at a Star Trek:TNG episode, for pete's sake. Most notable, though, was the episode of the Simpsons where Homer leaves his job at the power plant and has to come crawling back to Burns afterward. Burns installs a sign in his workstation that reads "DON'T FORGET: YOU'RE HERE FOREVER". Later in the episode someone wonders why there are no photos of Maggie in the photo album, and it pans back to his workstation, where the photos of Maggie are pasted all over that sign, obscuring enough of it so that it now reads "DO IT FOR HER". I wept. How lame.

The reason I haven't posted a specific song is that songs used to be able to make me cry with an alarming frequency -- I don't think I could even begin to remember them all. Nothing lately though, though I am loving a lot more music this year than I have the past couple of years. That's probably more to do with me than with the state of music. However, I do find something really poignant about One More Time though -- something about it to me suggests it is the last party they will ever be having, so they're making the most of the situation. Maybe I'm reading too much into it, though.

as far as the simpsons go, in the episode where homer meets his mother, the end leaves me misty-eyed, when the credits are run and instead of the normal black background, it's an image of the sky filled with stars and of a relatively small homer sitting on the hood of his car just looking up at them.

That's why I feel slightly befuddled when I hear people talking about the new Missy video, etc. -- when does MTV show videos??? Every time I turn it on it is some "making of such and such video" or one of those ridiculous "real world/road rules challenges", so I have pretty much given up on mtv. Maybe if I had m2 it would be a different story.

It isn't lame either, obviously.

there's this part at the end of a mystery science theater tape i have where joel and the robots sing some intentially- sentimental 20s vaudeville-type song about taking off the greasepaint and then the no- lyrics credits version of the theme plays and the part where it says 'keep circulating the tapes' and they thank the teachers of america just gets me every time. there's really a melancholy mood around that whole episode actually (it's 'pod people', for those familiar with the show. probably the best thing they ever did).

is transcending your own irony the ultimate goal of humanity today? re: that episode and this thread.

Good taste in shows you have there. ;-)

Stop me before I quote everything. Love that show. And the thing is, that instrumental end music is beautifully emotional as you say, the more so because if it was presented as a straightforward piece on a serious show, it wouldn't work as well. Context is important.

There was a very clever, heartstrings-yanking use of "Angels" on the recent end-of-series epsiode of "Casualty" about two weeks ago (more trash Robin). I won't bore you with the details but anyone who saw it will know what I mean.

('a-ok' handsign)

'it STINKS!'

I find it impossible to imagine *any* use of "Angels" being clever or yanking the heartstrings. God how I hate that song.

And that's what this thread is about: except your story, Robin, was about being pushed from anger to more anger — I couldn't work out where the SURPRISE came in.

So I suppose I've got to think of something more appropriate. In that case, quite recently: after a moment of acute, profound public humiliation, hearing Shaggy's "It Wasn't Me" entering at number one. Suddenly its defiant plea of innocence became wholly personal and, essentially, what I wanted to believe was true, but I knew wasn't.

Scritti Politti's "Oh Patti (Don't Feel Sorry For Loverboy)" has done that to me after a couple of recent minor depressions, as well.

2. Stevie T's story is so sad!

3. October 1991, looking out a window at night on the grass running down to the lake, and the Yanks romping outside (always seemed funnt when 'Nightswimming' came out a year later). Eurythmics' 'Shame' plays, and its tinkling seems like the sound of the passing of our years; as, come to think of it, did the lonesome keening fade-out of the Psychedelic Furs' 'Love My Way' on the east coast of Ireland 2 months earlier.

The spooky climax to Benny Hill's "Ernie (The Fastest Milkman In The West)" - "Ernie was only 52*/He didn't wanna die" [...] "was that the trees-a-rustlin'? Or the hinges of the gate?/Or Ernie's ghostly gold-tops a-rattlin' in their crate?" - always jerked chilly tears from me as a toddler (it's the angel's chorus, the strings and the way Benny phrases 'of the gate'). Utterly astounded and not a little embarrassed to find myself choked seeing the video again on TOTP2 recently.

(Nick - do we have 52 yet?)

Also, driving with a friend recently and both of us singing along to "I Promise" and me feeling sad that we weren't dating.

A few months ago I was in the pub with Emma, and we were in a dodgy patch. I had a cold, and the jukebox was too loud, and I had a couple of brown ales inside me, and Emma was in a complete black mood when everything is a negative. I couldn't hear her properly because my ears were blocked up 'cos of my cold and because of the music, so I just sat there and enjoyed the sofa and the beer, while Emma got more and more wound up because I wasn't saying anything...

Anyway, without going too deeply into why she was down or why we were in a bad patch, she had a go at me because we "had nothing to talk about" and how our whole relationship was pointless etcetera, etcetera, and this tune was int eh background, too loud, and I couldn't filter her voice from the tune from the chit-chat of the pub 'cos of my sinuses, and the singer was talking about how hard he'd tried to keep this girl, or something, and how it was hard, and how she should look at him and he was spent 'cos he'd done the best he could and it wasn't good enough and so on and so on...

And I had to get up and make us leave the pub 'cos I was starting to cry and it was really WAY too much to be doing with right there in front of people and we had an argument on the lawn and we were both in floods of tears and people were walking past and the fucking song that set me off crying was 'Against All Odds' by Phil Collins and I still quite resent Emma for making that tune make me cry and I am SHAMED FOREVER.

Not musical, but Amelie, when I saw it, didn't make me cry so much as finally let loose in sheer rage -- not at the movie, just at my situation some months ago when I was dumped. That was long overdue, though I wish I didn't have to have taken it out on my friends. :-/

Meanwhile, last night I was watching my newly acquired Snow White and the Seven Dwarves DVD -- been years since I saw the movie -- and was surprised to find myself tearing up during the whole sequence when Snow White was seen to be dead. Effective creators of mood, the late thirties Disney bunch.

These comments above about Bon Jovi are however alien to me. There won't be enough time in the world for me to think anything other than JBJ is a prick who deserves a guitar to the face.

Is there an I Love Films forum?

I get emotional.

2. I was riding in a vehicle as a passenger on New Year's Eve some years back when my parents and I decided to go through the neighborhood we lived in, looking at the Christmas lights that were still on the houses. I decided to listen to something while I was looking out, so I took out my Walkman and played what was in it -- which happened to be cued up to The Cure's "A Forest". Seeing the utter and complete darkness of the night sky illuminated by all these little glittery holiday lights to the soundtrack of this song was a truly magical moment and I will remember that moment for the rest of my life. The song even somehow managed to make those lights seem a little bit spooky and atmospheric-looking.

I got weepy the first time I heard that QUITE embarassing cuz they suck

That is because they are stinky, horrid and mean. And JBJ himself just looks like he deserves beatings. SMUGFUCKERY BASTARD!

However, I give credit for Tico Torres because he used to play briefly in this slightly mimsy and fun enough New Jersey psych-pop band back in the late sixties or something -- forget the name of the band, got the reissue on ArfArf Records. I like to imagine him as the one guy who ended up caught up in the band years later and thought, "Ah, fuck it, it's a living," and he just stays at home most nights and shakes his head with a laugh.

haha

Though they were probably right that the singer needed to be hotter and they needed some of that crazy mouth-tube-guitar action. Both "It's My Life" and "Livin' On A Prayer" benefit from such silliness.

I can't believe they toured WITH the Goo Goo Dolls. How much hair-in-the-eyes sexy-boy-rasp can the human ear take...

here's all the hair-in-the-eyes sexy-boy-rasp you need
http://www.mellencamp.com/images/1985/jmfield.JPG

Squeeze's "Up The Junction" (one of my all-time top 20 songs anyway) made me burst into tears outside Mile End station one evening a year or so ago. Just the horribleness of the narrator's situation, the hopelessness in the lines about drinking, the stultifying, truly pathetic inevitableness of it all, got the better of me.

Occasionally I will cry during WNBA games on television.

"Say it Isn't So" by Hall and Oates used to make me cry. That song vividly marked a time of young teen rejection.

I just totally blubbed at the end of The Simpsons - it was "And Maggie Makes Three" when Homer covers the sign at work which says "Don't forget you're here forever" with pix of Maggie, so it reads "Do it for her". I must've seen it half a dozen times, and, frankly, this time I was piss bored. And then I started blubbing like a girl, wtf?!

So nice to get a witness on this one. I absolutely love this song. It makes me so happy.

"I climb through the window and down to the street/I'm shining like a new dime"
"And her hair was so yellow and the wine was so red back in the good old world"

and that's the point I stop being able to move or do anything for the next 4 or 5 minutes.

You can definitely add "Martha" to that list as far as I'm concerned.

I'll add to that list:

Time
The Train Song
Falling Down

Most recent unexpected emotional ambush: Keane's Somewhere Only We Know, doing the dishes, last night. I've not even LIKED it up until now...

Must be turning into some sort of a softie in my old age.

"I've got my friends in the world..."
"The world would show nothing to me/So what good would living do me?"

These give me shivers just typing them.

As for Tom Waits, I was listening to Small Change at lunchtime and the line "Tonight this broom will be my baby" (I think that's it) got me pretty bad.

Blubbering like a baby.

Likewise "New England" after I heard about Kirsty MacColl.

I also spent best part of a decade unable to listen to "Love Cats" by The Cure without wanting to burst into tears - but that wasn't really anything to do with the song itself.

Tears. Every. Single. Time.

2) The Byrds' "Turn, Turn Turn", The line "A time for peace / I swear it's not too late" plays, and then I bawl like a small child.

3) More recently, the song "Forever" by Bruderschaft was introduced to me by an EBM-loving coworker. Even though the song is your typical industrial disco angst-fest, I find the lyrics especially moving as they were written for the father of one of the group members, who died of cancer:

"I will walk this ground forever / and stand guard against your name / I will give all I can offer / I will shoulder all the blame / I am sentry to you now / All your hopes and all your dreams / I will hold you to the light / that's what forever means".

This speaks to me, as I was dumped this winter after an intensely brief relationship with a young woman who has cystic fibrosis. Most people with CF don't make it past their early forties, and while we don't talk anymore, I will always wonder about her health and whereabouts....

I got a flat tire once when mountain biking and the frustration of it coupled with the fact that I had Lou Reed's "The Kids" stuck in my head made me cry. Yes, I didn't even have to hear the song, I just had to think about it and it set me off.

And you can't really blame the flat tire because I've had loads of punctures and nothing like that ever happened.

Movie: The end of 'Singles,' when the camera pulls up and you hear the voices of the whole city searching for love. A dozen years later, I live a block away from the apartment building that's the center of that picture.

I was really surprised the first time Robert Wyatt's Rock Bottom had that effect on me too; sort of hit a trance while listening to the album and suddenly the damn thing just burst on me. But I suppose that might not be that odd, all things considered; just very unexpected.

Anyone else feel sorry for those who say they never cry at music? Can't believe it myself; I'm blubbing far too often for my own good.

Most unexpected blub has been to Cartman's version of Styx's Come Sail Away from the South Park album. I've no idea wtf happened, but it still does it to me.

Very belated OTM to Alec in NYC for Kate Bush's This Woman's Work - I'm a fucking quivering wreck every time I hear this.

Add Soldier's Things to the Tom Waits list.

And(and I am suitably ashamed)one line in Barbra Dickson and Elaine Page's version of I Know Him So Well by fugging Andrew Lloyd Webber. I remember the first time... there I am sitting at home berating the jumped up little Lord's vacuous attmept at real emotion when Dickson and Page get to the middle eight and sing:

"...if I knew from the start, why am I falling apart?"

and I had to leave the room. Fast.

Finally, one that I think I share with a lot of people, but most of us hate admitting it; The Muppets' Rainbow Connection.

also, get this: my roommate's mom was in a convent, like: a full-on nun & she heard "turn turn turn" by the byrds on the radio & took it as a calling to start a secular lifestyle. incidentally, the song is a bible verse, right? i love that story. it's really ...poetic. i was like: "dude, you wouldn't exist if weren't for that song. ever think of that?!". that kinda flipped his wig.

Even though I'm a political cynic, and I hate the course of the current administration, and I think a lot of us are truly deranged, the religious right is ruining it for the rest of us.

That damn song still makes me tear. Oh, and "America the Beautiful." No matter where, no matter when.

My brother and I got along uncommonly well as children, and my parents didn't neglect me for him, so I'm not drawing on that particular experience. I guess there's the universal feeling of being misunderstood. But actually, when Ashlee addresses that - "So if you're listening, there's so much more to me you haven't seen" - she's lovable: nakedly vulnerable yet audacious.

i was feeling anxious and uneasy the other day and put on my bloody valentine's 'lose my breath'. it somehow made me feel even more upset.

t.A.T.u., "Show Me Love":

"Like a game of pick-up sticks / played by f#*!ing lunatics"

Dunno why, ambushed every time.

The break in Chrissie Hynde's voice on the line "won't let nobody hurt you" in "I'll Stand By You" always brings a lump to my throat.

The perfect combination of song and movie can really mess me up. I know a lot of people hate it, but the Aimee Mann "Wise Up" segment in Magnolia is achingly, beautifully sad. Hell, I get choked up at the end of Koyaanisqatsi.

On the joyful end, during the live performance of "Ain't No Mountain High Enough" by Chaka Khan and Montell Jordan in the Standing in the Shadow of Motown documentary, when the band hits that crescendo and the gospel choir enters...tearful bliss.

Radio 2 are right now playing a song by ACKER BILK. He has just started singing. It is a good thing Robin C is not listening, or he might be getting very angry!!

"was that the trees-a-rustlin'? Or the hinges of the gate?/Or Ernie's ghostly gold-tops a-rattlin' in their crate?"

They played Acker Bilk on Radio 2 last night!

acker bilk was on local news last week, he has just celebrated his 80th birthday (i think).

Little April Showers from the Bambi Soundtrack recently on a TV ad, kills me totally.

In my elementary school there was this "popular" kid I'll just call Matt. Matt was tall, athletic, liked by girls, etc. etc. I was unathletic and somewhat picked on in school, and he was among a group of kids that sometimes picked on me. He wasn't the worst of the bunch, but he was mean sometimes, and I resented him very much, in part just because of that cosmic unfairness of there being a tall, charismatic, athletic blonde guy who everyone liked, while of course so few people saw all of MY obvious good qualities, or didn't appreciate my intelligence, yada yada, bitter nerd stuff etc.

When we were in fourth or fifth grade, his father suddenly passed away. I remember my parents said something to me about how I should offer my condolences to him. I remember it seemed like the whole grade was abuzz with his father's death. I think in my resentment I imagined that if *my* father died, people wouldn't be acting as sad about it, this was all just because he was popular! Part of me still knew the right thing to do would be to just go and say "I'm sorry about your father Matt." But I kept thinking about doing it and then backing away, and in the end, I never said a word.

I doubt if he even kept track of who offered him condolences or ever noticed I didn't, but this bothered me for a long time after, and I felt very guilty about it, although I never really knew the guy past seventh or eighth grade and eventually forgot it completely.

Today I was browsing facebook, and it suggested him in the "people you may know" category, and I clicked out of curiosity. There are pictures of him, looking like a very regular adult dude with his wife, and he has a toddler, about my daughter's age. Somehow when I saw this I started to tear up. I almost want to message the guy and say something about it, but the last time someone did one of those "long lost apology" things to me, it was just out of nowhere and totally surprising.

i get this, to a degree. i felt the "bitter nerd stuff etc." in jr. high and high school.

you're a better person than me, because i don't think i'd have had later regrets about failing to offer condolences. i have thought, in retrospect, that maybe some of the injustices done to me were the product of my imagination, or exaggerated in my mind because of my own insecurities. but they felt bad enough to me, at the time, that they lingered in my mind long into my adulthood, and even remain today. hard to forgive or forget, i've found, even if i've been blessed with a lot of good things since that should make me let go of past grievances.

I felt more guilty about my inner justifications for not saying anything than for not saying anything.

Like my perceived slights were somehow bigger than the fact that this kid lost his dad.

fair enough. but that doesn't undo the slights, or lessen their impact on you, either. people -- even high school tormentors -- are complicated.

The thing is I wouldn't call this kid in particular my "tormentor." He was a popular kid, and he probably said mean stuff to me more than a few times, but I saw him more generally as being of that group that I felt excluded and rejected me. It's not like he was beating me up and stuffing me into lockers all the time though.

i'm usually willing to give myself and everybody else a free pass for any perceived moral failings done before, say, age 14? not sure where the upper limit is but slighting this kid in 4th or 5th grade definitely isn't a big deal. (a tangential question i often think of us whether kids are really morally responsible for anything) though i can totally identify with getting that sudden onset of emotion from something that previously seemed really buried.

I think it was also the combo of "this guy lost his dad and now is a dad" and "he has a kid my kid's age" combined with the other stuff

a tangential question i often think of us whether kids are really morally responsible for anything

yeah, they definitely can be, at a certain age. the 13 year-old who set fire to his classmate, because it seemed funny. the 15 year-old who tells another girl, via social media, to kill herself. the army of kids who bully and torment their peers.

i realize these are extreme examples, but they're also valid examples.

idk, I knew what the right thing to do was and I didn't do it. I don't see how that's not enough for moral responsibility.

i get your point, don't misunderstand. fwiw, and from a distance, i think you're being too hard on yourself.

I think I probably would have been about equally as much a dick/nice guy in elementary school as this guy was if I had been in his position. I don't think I was actually an especially nice guy. I was polite and smart, but I had lots of my own insensitivity and selfishness, still do.

xp yea i think when it gets into teenage years i don't really know, it get's complicated since teens are in such a weird mix of childhood and adulthood. like i said i don't know the upper limit. but when i reflect on guilt or embarrassment i still feel from stuff that i did in my youth, i try to really think about whether i was really responsible at all. i mean, how morally developed is a 12-year old? like what was empty or lacking in my life as a kid that made me treat someone a particular way, you know? kids may have a moral sensibility but it's totally undeveloped and i'm not sure it's clear that that translates to a moral responsibility. fwiw i have zero expertise in child psychology or moral psychology.

i have zero expertise in child psychology or moral psychology

me, either. i speak only from my own experiences and as the father of a 12 -- soon to be 13 -- year old daughter, who i worry about all the time, even if she seems so much more emotionally together than i did at her age.

(as i sometimes say, my invisible child psychology degree hangs framed on the wall, next to my invisible engineering degree.)

when I analyze it, I think part of my emotion is the feeling of wanting to let go of all that resentment

my ford KA -- in the family since 1999, mainly used by a friend the last 2xyrs -- just went off to be cubed

i am not a wreck but i am sad: in 2007 i travelled the vertical length of france and back in that trusty little thing w/o mishap (lol except for backing into someone and scrunching up their driver's door in the languedoc hamlet of ASPIRAN)

when the saxes come in on this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oanAeie_Tag

In about 2006 I saw Brian Wilson and the Wondermints doing the rejigged Smile in Sydney. It was all beautifully performed and Brian himself was kind of a curio on stage, present but not quite, as the elaborate music unfolded around him. Then they started "Surf's Up" and it suddenly hit me that this man's life had been a shattered wreck from the time he wrote this song until now, and here he was performing it in all its glory as an aged, frail man, it just hit me like a hammer and I bawled in my seat.

So there I am, cleaning my kitchen on a Saturday afternoon, decided to have a little nostalgia trip by putting on Parklife. Singing along to 'To The End' I hear my voice crack and before I know it I'm standing in the middle of the room weeping.. Sometimes you think you're over someone..

Surfs Up is such a masterpiece, so much feeling

Meadow Soprano graduating high school. She reminds me of my daughter.

Bawled.

A couple of months ago I found a nice little animation that Queen had made for when they reissued News Of The World, for the song "All Dead, All Dead", I never realised it was about Brian May's long-gone childhood pet cat, because I'm colossally soft and the little cat in the animation is very sweet, I just broke into bits out of nowhere.

https://bsmrocks.bandcamp.com/album/i-spent-the-winter-writing-songs-about-getting-better

in 'white sheep':

I hate myself for feeling this way
'Cause if my dad showed me anything, it's that anyone can change
He went from always angry, smoking a pack a day
To calling me up to say he’s proud of the life that I made

i'm havin a fuckin cat's in the cradle moment over here or something

When I first heard the choir thunder in on the chorus towards the end of Selena Gomez's otherwise ordinary 'Lose You To Love Me' I had a serious moment. Although the real lip wobbler for me last year was Shura's 'Tommy'.

That bit in Lumpy Gravy about 9 mins in with Motorhead Sherwood talking about what jobs he had, there's all these background voices come in, then the sound of doors slamming for no reason and the doors make me really, really anxious.

Alameda, Elliott Smith, 7/31/1997 @ the Knitting Factory. but right now. the bootleg. It's a great show

I knew there was eventually going to be a song that would tip me over the edge. Honestly, never in a million years did I think that song would be 'November Rain'.

The third guitar solo represents the winter epidemic long after the peak.

In 2001 my girlfriend and I took a road trip from our home near Houston to San Jose to scout out places to live in anticipation of an impending move for grad school. This was going to be the first time that I had left my family and our close circle of friends and there had been endless going away parties and shit. I was excited and handling things pretty well, although in the back of my mind things were sort of jittery. Towards the end of the time in San Jose we went to see AI, the Spielberg/Kubrick movie. Liked it well enough but I felt sort of odd afterwards. When we walked out of the theater and got into our vehicle I broke down hard and couldn't talk well enough to explain what was happening. Gasping sobbing ugly crying. I was a total wreck for about an hour. I guess the little boy/robot being separated from his family is what triggered the episode, but it wasn't that I found the movie terribly sad or even compelling. It just happened to be the key that unlocked all the junk in my head.

We had somewhere we had to be in San Francisco and my lady had to drive because I was incapable. I remember laying on the bench seat in the truck with my head on her lap just like I did with my mom when I was little.

I can't really remember if I liked the movie that much and I periodically think about revisiting it but I turn chicken every time.

Bowie at the end of Jojo Rabbit broke me.

I’ve knowingly only cried 3 times to a piece of music. But the three culprits make me somewhat ashamed so I’ll never tell.

it can't be that bad. one of my most memorable time of crying was at the end of terminator 2 (arnold with the thumbs up in the lava), and my dad calling me out on it.

I am so starved for human companionship atm.

had to postpone my trip to visit my best friend in Virginia. she's on the spectrum, also struggles with depression, and is very misunderstood by people, because she's really fighting herself in her own head all the time and beats herself up for it.

some of my fav memories (and least fav memories) were with her in the last year. she worries (like I do) about unexplained medical symptoms and had herself freaked out that she needed to go to the ER for neurological issues, and her boyfriend, god bless him, rushed home from what he was doing and tucked her in and gave her her stuffed animal and I just started crying because I was relieved she has someone as wonderful as him in her life (I've met him, he's good people) and I dote on her like a big brother.

I miss her so much :(. I keep worrying that I missed my last chance to see her, as paranoid as that sounds. but when she talks about wanting to die or having suicidal thoughts, I can't help but think those things. we talk on the phone almost every day and have for about 2+ years.

i'm doing ok through this quarantine but every week I feel more starved for human connection. going to Asia alone for work last year was tough, but I was able to make connections with co-workers, who took me out to show me a good time.

I live with a roommate who I barely know and is never home, and although I thought of the idea of proposing shacking with my other best friend (who I've known 16 years), idk if it's a good idea. i may hint at it anyway, but I don't like inviting myself to things, even though this guy would give me the shirt off his back.

i've been drinking so I'm a little emo. but got kinda hit by an unexpected wave tonight that's for sure.

Thanks for sharing that. A lot of us are going to need to unburden over the coming weeks.

agree.

One time I was singing Muskrat Love at the karaoke, and I totally got this lump in my throat, choking back a single, tiny sob, just as I hit the lines about where Sam asking if Suzie will be his Mrs, and Suzie saying yes with her kisses. Some girl, all but snuggling with her boyfriend a few bar stools down, audibly says "Aww he kinda choked up there on that part, did you hear it honey?" thus ensuring everyone shared in my humiliation at my karaoke bar that day.

aw

i have had this happen to me today

I was just listening to Tempest again because of the new Dylan song. I always liked the title track fine but never found it particularly meaningful or moving, but today I was hit hard by "The watchman he lay dreaming/ the damage had been done/ he dreamed the Titanic was sinking/ and he tried to tell someone."

listening to late period Pizzicato Five and maybe it’s just the whole “haven’t heard these great great tunes in 10+ years” thing working its magic but... I get such strong feelings from this stuff. Maki Nomiya is such a fabulous vocalist, especially when she really belts it out. This P5 thing.. Something about the mixture of the Bacharach-y (?) chords with her assured delivery, on top of the sometimes cartoonishly bright PARTY DOWN vibes, it’s a really powerful righteous message of fabulousness, like just kicking down the door of self-flagellation and letting yourself be glamorous and awesome in your own personal way in everyday life. It’s all about her singing, though for me, it totally seals the deal. Why the hell I’ve never bothered to check out her solo career is a tragic mystery. I know, “get a blog”.

!!!

Now Playing Wheatus - Teenage Dirtbag wheatus

— BBC Radio 3 🎵 #NowPlaying Bot (@BBCR3MusicBot) December 24, 2021

AMBUSHED!

oh yeah!!!

How could I have forgotten about this stone cold classic thread!?!
Reminds me I want to read this recent book---intro'd here on Fresh Air:
In his new book, 'Music is History,' Roots co-founder Ahmir "Questlove" Thompson moves year-by-year through his life, writing about memories and turning points, and the songs he was listening to at the time.Terri Gross plays the hits, incl. "Freddie's Dead"'s vamp: when it first goes up on the last note is just when he burned his leg on the radiator---says he had scars into his teens, and you can hear his intake of breath when it makes that little change---talks about the good associations too---stream or download: pr.org/2021/10/12/1045272890/questlove-on-the-soundtrack-of-his-life
(The interview where he talks about Summer of Soul is also cool, duh)

This one I posted about on the Bootleg Series thread got to me:
This latest issue of xpost enewsletter Flaggin' Down The Double Ees, which always includes downloads of Dylan shows, old and new (free: a couple times a month, paid: more), also tells the story, via various sources, of Dylan half-assing "Dark Eyes," then getting it together w Patti Smith, and then---well, it's a lovely story indeed, I think, even though haven't yet checked the linked musical results https://dylanlive.substack.com/p/dark-eyes

Especially what she says about it---

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bFXsJ49CIt8 my mother hasn't died yet but this hit me hard because my mother is in the process of dying and this came up coincidentally

Don't do this to me

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Moz6XOAKK5U

XP I'm sorry to hear this Jonathan. Best wishes to you

My sympathies, Jonathan.

Not quite tears, but certainly chills.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FC3y9llDXuM

https://steidl.de/Books/Gas-Stop-0317385059.html

Gas Stop by David Freund

This is a four-volume set of books featuring photos of gas stations made in the late 1970s and early 1980s, and I am moved to tears just about every time I look through it.

A couple of years ago my (now 8-year-old) child heard Maroon 5's "Memories" somewhere, and liked it, and asked to play it a lot. I don't like Maroon 5 or this song (though I do like Pachelbel's canon). My child added it to one of his playlists. Some time passed, and when it popped up on his playlist again he said he couldn't listen to it because it reminded him of one of our cats who had died in the interim. So now when I hear this song that I really don't like in the grocery store or wherever, it makes me well up a little.

I found out in my facebook feed that a guy who went to the same law school as me (ten years after me, didn't know him) died of cancer. He was given his diploma early. His girlfriend, a magazine writer, made a wedding for them a few weeks before he died (I'm p sure when she knew he was dying). This story is turning me into a weepy mess. I don't think I've cried at anything for at least months.

https://www.vogue.com/slideshow/ashley-reese-and-rob-stengel-wedding

sorry, she did know he was dying, it says that

delighted to say that the effect documented nearly twenty-three years at start of thread still operates: i remain (mildly) dirtbag-pilled wheatus-ambush-wise 😭😭😭

enough time elapsed to make it unexpected again