Ambushed by unexpected emotion

Message Bookmarked

Bookmark Removed

Not all messages are displayed: show all messages (230 of them)

Hearing Gabriel's "In Your Eyes" on the radio in the copy room a moment ago made my hairs on my neck stand up. Hard to tell if it's b/c it's a great song, or if it's b/c I remember how much it meant to me when I was 16. One thing I like is how the chorus is a million times more interesting than the verses, which makes for great contrast. When Pete's "instincts return" the song starts getting good, which is very appropriate.

― Mark (MarkR), Thursday, 12 August 2004 15:59 (nineteen years ago) link

This morning, turning on the R2 news and finding it followed by ... 'Rush Hour'!

― the janefox, Thursday, 12 August 2004 16:15 (nineteen years ago) link

i cried at titanic

― latebloomer (latebloomer), Thursday, 12 August 2004 18:07 (nineteen years ago) link

i cried enough to drown all the people on the real titanic ten times over.

― latebloomer (latebloomer), Thursday, 12 August 2004 18:12 (nineteen years ago) link

Yes, Pod People rules! And who knew Jem had such an effect on a generation of American women? Great thread revivial.

― wetmink (wetmink), Thursday, 12 August 2004 18:36 (nineteen years ago) link

Bleh. "Black and White," by Three Dog Night. It's just... the children are all playing together, and nobody cares about their differences, AND there's a good beat underneath that's neither black NOR white! (For me, I think it only works if the musicians don't seem to be trying TOO hard to getchya.) Maybe it's my biological clock. That Phil Vassar song "Another Day in Paradise" did it once, too. Geez, my kids are gonna fucking hate me.

― dr. phil (josh langhoff), Thursday, 12 August 2004 18:53 (nineteen years ago) link

Oh, and in the trailer to Air Force One, where Harrison Ford says "I'm the President of the United States," and his daughter says "You're NOTHING like my father!" Why can't we get a president like that?!

― dr. phil (josh langhoff), Thursday, 12 August 2004 18:56 (nineteen years ago) link

I've cited it many times before, but "This Woman's Work:"....when she starts blubbering about "all the things that we never did" as the piano crescendo builds before she breaks with the "Oh darling, Make it GO AWAY!" Hell, I just got choked-up typing that just now. It's positively visceral.

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Thursday, 12 August 2004 19:01 (nineteen years ago) link

..by Kate Bush, obv.

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Thursday, 12 August 2004 19:01 (nineteen years ago) link

"Black and White," by Three Dog Night.

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

― Mark (MarkR), Thursday, 12 August 2004 19:30 (nineteen years ago) link

For some odd reason, I put on Laurie Anderson's Strange Angels. I'd forgotten how much "Ramon" makes my the skin on my arms tingle. I guess it's the look-out-for-your-neighbor vibe. The echo on "And you, you're no one. And you, you're travelling. Travelling at the speed of light." has always sent shivers.

― frankE (frankE), Thursday, 12 August 2004 19:52 (nineteen years ago) link

Lycia's "Pray" makes me cry. Mike VanPortfleet's voice is so incredibly melancholy amidst all the ambient synth washes and big reverby drums/bass.

― Curt1s St3ph3ns, Thursday, 12 August 2004 23:38 (nineteen years ago) link

keane's "this is the last time" affects me in ways i wouldn't have predicted

― purple patch (electricsound), Thursday, 12 August 2004 23:41 (nineteen years ago) link

I heard "Black & White" the other day in a car. It made me feel really cool about betraying the speed limit.

― Sonny A. (Keiko), Thursday, 12 August 2004 23:57 (nineteen years ago) link

I remember once I was out record shopping with some friends when I was about 19, we were walking through an indoor gallery in Glasgow that used to have cool record/comic shops (name escapes me now) I was in the basement where there were lots of antique stalls set up and I hear New Amsterdam by Elvis Costello and for some reason it just stopped me in my tracks, something impossibly perfect about that song/place/time just glommed together. So I rush upstairs and buy a second hand copy of Get Happy! It still moves me greatly, especially the chorus.

― mzui, Friday, 13 August 2004 09:19 (nineteen years ago) link

There are a handful of Tom Waits songs (Good Old World Waltz, Introduction To The Blues, Downtown Train, I Don't Wanna Grow Up) which I have played a million times and every one of those times freeze me solid and/or make me cry. The thing is it's so unexpected. I can be in a perfectly stable frame of mind and then there's a line eg:

"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.

― dog latin (dog latin), Friday, 13 August 2004 09:29 (nineteen years ago) link

"There are a handful of Tom Waits songs (Good Old World Waltz, Introduction To The Blues, Downtown Train, I Don't Wanna Grow Up)...."

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

― Stewart Osborne (Stewart Osborne), Friday, 13 August 2004 09:31 (nineteen years ago) link

Actually, most Tom Waits songs make me blub, the more beaten down he sounds, the more I get suckered into it.

I'll add to that list:

Time
The Train Song
Falling Down

― mzui, Friday, 13 August 2004 09:46 (nineteen years ago) link

Jimmy Cliff singing "Many Rivers To Cross" very nearly reduced me to a complete blubbering wreck the other day for no particular reason.

― Stewart Osborne (Stewart Osborne), Friday, 13 August 2004 09:56 (nineteen years ago) link

"The Day Before You Came" by Abba makes me cry EVERY TIME.

― Diego Valladolid (dvalladt), Friday, 13 August 2004 09:59 (nineteen years ago) link

I prefer the version by Blancmange!

― Stewart Osborne (Stewart Osborne), Friday, 13 August 2004 10:13 (nineteen years ago) link

I get this a lot during Desert Island Discs (BBC Radio 4, Friday mornings). When Meera Syal picked Bob & Marcia's Young, Gifted & Black, I just Lost It and started bawling my eyes out all over the breakfast table.

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...

― mike t-diva (mike t-diva), Friday, 13 August 2004 10:46 (nineteen years ago) link

when laurie anderson sings "oh mom and dad... mom and dad..." in "o superman", i always feel pretty emotional.

― peter smith (plsmith), Friday, 13 August 2004 11:15 (nineteen years ago) link

Watching the movie "Philadelphia" years ago, at night, I was greatly affected by the song they played when Tom Hanks' character passed- it was Neil Young's Philadelphia. Definitely teary eyed.
I liked the song so much I bought the otherwise subpar soundtrack, and filed it away; it was always teetering near the edge of "sell it back", except for that one song.
Now the album's been ripped, and this morning my Ipod randomly plays the song, sandwiched between some Elvis Costello & some DJ Shadow.

― mclaugh (mclaugh), Friday, 13 August 2004 11:25 (nineteen years ago) link

"God Only Knows" had the tears welling up in my eyes at a Brian Wilson gig a few weeks back too.

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

― Stewart Osborne (Stewart Osborne), Friday, 13 August 2004 11:31 (nineteen years ago) link

"Philadelphia" and "God Only Knows" - yes:

"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.

― dog latin (dog latin), Friday, 13 August 2004 12:09 (nineteen years ago) link

"Thought of you as my mountain, thought of you as my peak. Thought of you as everything I had but couldn't keep."

Blubbering like a baby.

― Super-Masonic Black Hole (kate), Friday, 13 August 2004 12:12 (nineteen years ago) link

(That's hardly ambushed, though. That song gets me every time, even when I'm in the happiest of moods.)

― Super-Masonic Black Hole (kate), Friday, 13 August 2004 12:12 (nineteen years ago) link

"You'll See Glimpses" certainly did it for me the evening after I heard Ian Dury had died.

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.

― Stewart Osborne (Stewart Osborne), Friday, 13 August 2004 12:26 (nineteen years ago) link

If this thread was "ambushed by completely expected and predictable emotion, every single time"... then The Streets "Weak Become Heroes".

Tears. Every. Single. Time.

― mike t-diva (mike t-diva), Friday, 13 August 2004 13:11 (nineteen years ago) link

1) Years ago a girlfriend put Del Amitri's "Tell Her" on a mixtape for me. On the wrong day I can't hear it without completely welling up - not over memories of that particular relationship, but because the song so completely reminds me of my parents' pre-divorce bickerings / reconciliations.

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....

― Tantrum The Cat (Tantrum The Cat), Friday, 13 August 2004 13:24 (nineteen years ago) link

one month passes...

...the end of the bell's of st. mary's...

― amateur!!!st (amateurist), Wednesday, 22 September 2004 03:36 (nineteen years ago) link

Watching the movie "Philadelphia" years ago, at night, I was greatly affected by the song they played when Tom Hanks' character passed- it was Neil Young's Philadelphia.
It's a crime that all the attention was given to the vastly inferior "Streets of Philadelphia" instead of the Neil Young track. I've only cried once during a movie (last few minutes of "Schindler's List") but otherwise, that moment in "Philadelphia" is the closest I've come (by far).

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.

― MindInRewind (Barry Bruner), Wednesday, 22 September 2004 03:51 (nineteen years ago) link

haha i've cried at two movies THIS WEEK

― amateur!!!st (amateurist), Wednesday, 22 September 2004 03:54 (nineteen years ago) link

I'm an uncaring bastard most of the time.

― MindInRewind (Barry Bruner), Wednesday, 22 September 2004 04:08 (nineteen years ago) link

And I've never been a big movie fan, so movie crying just isn't for me.

― MindInRewind (Barry Bruner), Wednesday, 22 September 2004 04:11 (nineteen years ago) link

so ILX is filled with blubbering saps then

― Gear! (Gear!), Wednesday, 22 September 2004 04:11 (nineteen years ago) link

WITH PRIDE MOTHERFUCKER

― amateur!!!st (amateurist), Wednesday, 22 September 2004 04:12 (nineteen years ago) link

OMG, ILM is an emo haven!

― MindInRewind (Barry Bruner), Wednesday, 22 September 2004 04:14 (nineteen years ago) link

Song: The Chipmunks singing "The Longest Time." That's when I knew Billy Joel was a genius.

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.

― Rickey Wright (Rrrickey), Wednesday, 22 September 2004 04:23 (nineteen years ago) link

o dont shout your volume makes me weep

― Gear! (Gear!), Wednesday, 22 September 2004 04:23 (nineteen years ago) link

Once I was tired and hung over and in a bagel shop and that song that goes "I don't wanna wait for our lives to be over" came on, and I suddenly found the melody very beautiful, and the clarity of the voice. I got ragged a lot for admitting that one

― hurtingboss, Wednesday, 22 September 2004 04:44 (nineteen years ago) link

Putting in a Screeching Weasel (!!!!) cd and BAWLING over "Leather Jacket"

― roxymuzak (roxymuzak), Wednesday, 22 September 2004 05:02 (nineteen years ago) link

Phh... movies don't make me cry. But the trailers for them do. I bawled during a preview for 'Two Brothers' and spewed a sea of tears at 'I Am David'

― ex-jeremy (x Jeremy), Wednesday, 22 September 2004 05:05 (nineteen years ago) link

"the longest time" is a billy joel song i can get behind, chipmunks or no chipmunks

― amateur!!!st (amateurist), Wednesday, 22 September 2004 05:06 (nineteen years ago) link

I'm astonished that i've never posted to this thread.

― Tim Finney (Tim Finney), Wednesday, 22 September 2004 05:22 (nineteen years ago) link

ambushed by unexpected update

― mark s (mark s), Friday, 24 September 2004 19:47 (nineteen years ago) link

radio catharsis.. it's what keeps me in touch

― nick.K (nick.K), Sunday, 26 September 2004 23:24 (nineteen years ago) link

A few months back I was sideswiped by a moment of total heartache when the radio played "Year of the Cat" (by Al Stewart?) It'd been on a mushy mixtape I got over ten years ago - but I'd never realised how sad it is. It felt like some kind of secret message, only seen in retrospect. Had to sneak off to the washroom for a good blub.

― Kim (Kim), Monday, 27 September 2004 13:23 (nineteen years ago) link

two weeks pass...

Last night The Boss made me cry.

― the bluefox, Tuesday, 12 October 2004 12:45 (nineteen years ago) link

Skipping 130 messages at this point... Click here if you want to load them all.

You must be logged in to post. Please either login here, or if you are not registered, you may register here.