22:42Oldies Music · Sad Songs That Make Us CryForgotten Songs That Will Make You Cry
Episode: Top 10 Songs That Will Make You Cry You Probably Forgot These
From Sora Music Rewind · 17 min ·
About These Forgotten Songs That Make You Cry
Some of the forgotten songs that make you cry are not truly forgotten at all. They are the ones we have not played in years, until a few notes on the radio bring back a person, a place or a loss we thought we had put away.
This episode counts down ten songs born from grief, regret and loneliness. Below is the true story behind each one, checked against chart records and other reliable sources. Where the episode's script got a detail wrong, we have set it right.
The Countdown: 10 Songs Born From Real Heartache
#10: The Sound of Silence — Simon and Garfunkel (1965)
Paul Simon wrote this song in his early twenties, finishing the lyrics in February 1964. He worked on it in his bathroom with the lights off and the faucet running, because he liked the echo off the tiles.
The duo's first album sold only about 3,000 copies when it came out, and Simon moved to London. In 1965, producer Tom Wilson added electric guitar, bass and drums to the original recording without telling them.
That fall, Simon was playing small clubs in Denmark when he saw the song climbing the Billboard Hot 100. The new version reached No. 1 for the week ending January 1, 1966, and brought the duo back together.
#9: The Living Years — Mike + The Mechanics (1988)
Mike Rutherford of Genesis and songwriter B.A. Robertson realized that their fathers had died around the same time. Out of that shared loss came a song about the things a son never managed to say while his father was alive.
Paul Carrack sang the lead, and a children's choir lifts the chorus. Reviewers were kind: Billboard called it sweeping and anthemic, and Burt Bacharach later praised its lyrics as some of the finest of the decade.
It reached No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 on March 25, 1989, the band's only American chart-topper.
#8: Angie — The Rolling Stones (1973)
Keith Richards wrote "Angie" in an afternoon, sitting in bed with a guitar at a clinic in Vevey, Switzerland, where he was being treated for drug use. Many people assumed it was named for his newborn daughter, Angela. Rumors also pointed to Angela Bowie, David Bowie's wife at the time.
Richards has given different answers over the years, and in 2010 he said the song was not about any particular person. The band recorded it in Jamaica in late 1972, with Nicky Hopkins on piano. Listen closely and you can faintly hear Mick Jagger's guide vocal in the background, a "ghost vocal."
The single reached No. 1 on the Hot 100 in October 1973.
#7: Wish You Were Here — Pink Floyd (1975)
This is the title song of an album that was largely about Syd Barrett, the band's founding leader, who left in 1968 amid struggles with his mental health. On June 5, 1975, according to most accounts, Barrett walked into Abbey Road while the band was finishing "Shine On You Crazy Diamond," the album's tribute to him.
He had changed so much that at first nobody recognized him. Roger Waters was reportedly moved to tears. The title song opens with sounds David Gilmour recorded from his car radio as he turned the dial, like someone searching for a lost signal.
The album went to No. 1 on the Billboard 200 and in Britain.
#6: One Sweet Day — Mariah Carey and Boyz II Men (1995)
After her close friend and collaborator David Cole died in 1995, Mariah Carey began a song about how losing someone changes your life. She had the chorus but set it aside, hoping to record it with Boyz II Men.
When they met, Nathan Morris of Boyz II Men had been writing a similar song for the group's late tour manager, Khalil Rountree. Carey said his version had nearly the same lyrics over the same chords. They combined the two ideas and finished the song together.
It spent 16 straight weeks at No. 1 on the Hot 100, a record that stood for 23 years.
#5: Everybody Hurts — R.E.M. (1993)
Much of this song was written by drummer Bill Berry, though the band shares the credit. Guitarist Peter Buck explained that the words are unusually plain because the song was aimed at teenagers.
Berry's drums are mostly replaced by a Univox drum machine, which gives the song its steady pulse. The string arrangement came from John Paul Jones, formerly of Led Zeppelin.
The single reached No. 29 on the Billboard Hot 100. In 1995, the Samaritans, a British emotional support charity, used its lyrics in newspaper ads alongside their helpline number, reaching out to young men in crisis.
#4: Hallelujah — Jeff Buckley (1994)
Leonard Cohen wrote "Hallelujah," but Jeff Buckley's version was inspired by John Cale's 1991 cover, not by Cohen's original. Buckley recorded it at Bearsville Studios in Woodstock, New York, for Grace (1994), the only studio album he completed.
It was not an instant hit. On May 29, 1997, Buckley went swimming in the Wolf River Harbor, a slack-water channel of the Mississippi in Memphis, and drowned. His death was ruled accidental. He was 30.
His recording found its audience slowly. In March 2008, after a performance on American Idol, it reached No. 1 on Billboard's Hot Digital Songs chart.
#3: Candle in the Wind 1997 — Elton John (1997)
After Diana, Princess of Wales, died in a car crash in Paris, Elton John asked his longtime lyricist Bernie Taupin to rewrite their 1973 song about Marilyn Monroe. Elton sang the new version once in public, at her funeral at Westminster Abbey on September 6, 1997.
He later explained that he kept a teleprompter beside the piano, just as a precaution, because a mistake would have been disastrous. George Martin produced the studio recording immediately after the funeral.
The single spent 14 weeks at No. 1 on the Hot 100 and has sold over 33 million copies. All profits went to Diana's memorial fund.
#2: Hurt — Johnny Cash (2002)
Trent Reznor wrote "Hurt" for Nine Inch Nails. In 2002, Johnny Cash, then 70, recorded it with producer Rick Rubin for American IV: The Man Comes Around. Mike Campbell played acoustic guitar and Benmont Tench played piano.
Mark Romanek filmed the music video in February 2003 at the House of Cash museum in Nashville. Reznor admitted the idea first sounded a bit gimmicky to him, but after seeing the video he said the song was no longer his.
June Carter Cash, who appears in the video, died that May. Johnny Cash died on September 12, 2003, seven months after the video was filmed.
#1: Tears in Heaven — Eric Clapton (1992)
On March 20, 1991, Eric Clapton's four-year-old son, Conor, died after a fall from a high-rise window in New York City. Later that year, Clapton and songwriter Will Jennings wrote "Tears in Heaven" for the film Rush.
Clapton performed it in January 1992 for MTV Unplugged. The single reached No. 2 on the Hot 100 and won three Grammys, including Record of the Year and Song of the Year.
In 2004, he stopped performing it, explaining that he no longer felt the loss that was so much a part of singing it. Years later, the song returned to his concerts.
Why These Songs Still Bring Tears
Almost every song on this list began with a real loss: a father, a friend, a child, a bandmate, a princess the world felt it knew. The artists did not set out to write sad hits. They wrote what they needed to say.
That honesty is why the songs last. We may not play them often, but when one comes on, it seems to speak directly to our own memories.
How to Listen to Them Again
Songs like these are best heard slowly, perhaps alone, perhaps with someone who shares the memory. They can be a gentle way to remember people we have lost.
Which of these forgotten songs that make you cry still stops you in your tracks, and who do you think of when you hear it?
Sources and Further Reading
Topics in This Story
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