Ambushed by unexpected emotion

"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.