What secular songs move you emotionally?

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3 songs that affect my deep down that bring me to tears every time:

Here Comes the Sun - The Beatles
Salisbury Hill - Peter Gabriel.
Do You Feel Like We Do - Peter Frampton

Sometimes I am brought to tears just by the greatness of the music - happens mostly lately with The Beatles & Peter Frampton
 
The Son Never Shines (On Closed Doors) - Flogging Molly
The Foggy Dew - Traditional (I guess) Irish Song
We’re Coming Back - Cock Sparrer
The Rising of the Moon - Traditonal Irish
Most of the songs off of the Soul Cages album by Sting.
 
The Heart of the Matter
Written by Don Henley
Performed by Indie Arie

Beautiful Boy
John Lennon

The Rose
Bette Midler

I Want To Know Where Love Is
Foreigner

Excuse me…gotta go wipe tears now…
 
I Hope You Dance - Lee Ann Womack
Undiscovered - Ashlee Simpson
You’ll Be There - George Strait
The Dance - Garth Brooks
I Will Carry You - Clay Aiken
Landslide - Smashing Pumpkins’ version
1979 - Smashing Pumpkins
Popplagið - Sigur Rós
Njósnavélin - Sigur Rós
Breakaway - Kelly Clarkson
Earth - Hans Zimmer/Gladiator Soundtrack
Now We Are Free - Hans Zimmer/Gladiator Soundtrack
Canon in D - Johann Pachelbel

The list goes on…that’s just all I can think of off the top of my head.
 
“Starry Night” & “American Pie”–Don MacLean

“If You Could Read My Mind” & “Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald”–Gordon Lightfoot

“Questions”–The Moody Blues

“Paint it Black”–The Rolling Stones

“Here Comes the Sun”–The Beatles

“You’ve Got a Friend”–James Taylor (written by former wife, Carol King)

“Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner”, “Woodrow Wilson’s Guns”, “Tenderness on the Block”, & “Boom Boom Mancini”–Warren Zevon

“Colonel Bogie”–Traditional, whistle-theme to Bridge Over the River Kwai

“Men of Harlech”, special version for Zulu

Main Theme, The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly–Enino Maricone

Main theme, The Magnificent Seven, Aaron Copeland

“Taps”–US Military, Traditional (well, somewhat religious)
 
“Thats My Job” by Conway Twitty. Played it at my dads funeral, I cry if I ever hear it. Good thing it is rarely played.
 
Mine are from the Stone Age: Look to the Rainbow by Harburg and Lane. I also like “Little Boy Blue”, can’t remember who wrote it but it is about a little boy who puts his little toy soldiers away for the night and tells them to wait for him to come back. He never does.
 
I was listening to my Peter, Paul and Mary CD while driving my son to Tae Kwon Do class and “Puff, the Magic Dragon” comes on…

A dragon lives forever, but not so little boys,
Painted wings and magic strings give way to other toys,
One gray day it happened: Jackie Paper came no more,
And Puff, that mighty dragon, he ceased his fearless roar.

His head was bent in sorrow, green scales fell like rain,
Puff no longer went to play along the cherry lane,
Without his lifelong friend, Puff could not be brave,
So Puff, that mighty dragon, sadly slipped into his cave.

So I look in the rearview mirror at my “Jackie Paper” who is 11 days short of his 13th birthday (and already talking about getting his driver’s license and going off to college someday) and knew just how Puff felt and grabbed a KIeenex. My son sees me and raises an eyebrow. “Allergies, Mom?” he says, but the half-smile on his face tells me he knows just why I’m crying.
 
LilyM said:
Oh, how could I forget Salisbury Hill 🙂 not to mention ‘Don’t Give Up’ by Peter Gabriel and Kate Bush
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That’s a good one too - also, “Apron Strings” by Kate Bush.

Has anyone mentioned the BIG IZ “Over the Rainbow/Wonderful World”???

That gets me everytime I hear it.
 
I love Look to the Rainbow too, and How Are Things in Glocamorra from Finian’s Rainbow.

*Mama, A Rainbow *from Minnie’s Boys, a musical about the Marx Brother.

Love, Me by Colin Ray, another grandparents song.

Alabama’s I Wanna Be Loved Like That. That one makes me think of my parents’ beautiful marriage of 56 years.

The Kathy Mattea song mentioned above, Where’ve You Been.

There are a couple “Gospel” tunes I really love too.
If Prayer is the Key to Heaven, Faith Unlocks the Door, as sung by Jake Hess and *I’ve Just Seen Jesus *sung by Sandi Patti and Larnelle Harris. That just gives me goosebumps.
 
daeve said:
Alabama’s I Wanna Be Loved Like That. That one makes me think of my parents’ beautiful marriage of 56 years.
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Is that the one that starts with “Natalie Wood fell in love with James Dean”? It’s by Shenandoah, not Alabama.

(sorry if I’m coming off like the know-it-all, but I said before that if a song makes me choke up it’s going to be on my hit parade!)

Another one that tears me up is Merle Haggard’s “Mama’s Hungry Eyes”–“Mama never had the things she really wanted/But it wasn’t 'cause my daddy didn’t try/She only wanted things she really needed/One more reason for my mama’s hungry eyes.”
 
Daughters - John Mayer. I’m surprised no one has brought this up.

Bigger Than My Body - also John Mayer - a great song of positive, defiant triumph that kept me going through a very distressing time of oppression.

Beautiful Day, Elevation - U2 - while driving to the lake to go rowing or while thrashing on the rowing machine.

Last Worthless Evening, End of the Innocence - Don Henley

Closer to Fine, Prince of Darkness, Love’s Recovery - Indigo Girls

Precious, Cold, Money Can’t Buy It, Little Bird, The Gift - Annie Lennox, Diva CD…there is so much sorrow for her lost child in her music on this CD

Everyday is a Winding Road, Strong Enough, I Shall Believe, and definitely not for driving – Steve McQueen! - Sheryl Crow (huge fan here)

I Can’t Make You Love Me, One Part Be My Lover, All At Once, Cool Clear Water, Dimming of the Day, Steal Your Heart Away, Nobody’s Girl, lots more–Bonnie Raitt (huge fan)

Ghost in this House, Let Me Touch You For A While, Take Me For Longing, lots more - Alison Krauss + Union Station

Anything soulful by Etta James. I’d Rather Be a Blind Girl [than to see you walk away from me], Sugar on the Floor, Deep in the Night, Damn Your Eyes, Breakin’ Up Somebody’s Home, the Jealous Kind, One Night. Her Deep in the Night and Seven Year Itch CDs are my faves.

Can you tell I like chick crooners?

Saturday night, at a bluegrass show, they did “Angel Band” which you might know from the movie O Brother Where Art Thou? I heard that song from my father’s perspective, as his health and mind and physical abilities dwindle. The first verse is about the race being nearly done.

O come, Angel Band
Come and around me stand
O bear me away on your snow white wings
To my eternal home!

Real old-timey bluegrass gospel, Ralph Stanley style. Made me cry.

Well, that’s all I can think of right now.
 
I have to add:

It Don’t Matter to Me - Bread

Little Rock - Colin Raye (for my recovering alcoholic husband - 5 years sober now - and for those friends and family of mine that I lost to alcoholism - including my grandfather that I never met).
 
Some others:

“Mercy Street” by Peter Gabriel. Best heard on the dark Baltimore/Washington Parkway on a warm night when the peepers are out. 🙂

Semi-secular: Maurice Durufle’s Requiem, especially In paradisum. I want that played at my funeral.

Samuel Barber’s Agnus Dei, played quite a bit after 9/11.
 
I told my husband about this thread and he chuckled and said, “So how many times has Harry Chapin’s ‘Cat’s in the Cradle’ been mentioned?”

:eek: is what he looked like when I said, “Uh, I think you’re the first who’s brought it up!”

So… “Cat’s in the Cradle” by Harry Chapin

and one more… “Go Rest High on that Mountain” by Vince Gill
 
kentuckyliz said:
O come, Angel Band
Come and around me stand
O bear me away on your snow white wings
To my eternal home!
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Yes! I love this one, too.

Also, someone mentioned Peter Gabriel earlier. I love “In Your Eyes,” “Shaking the Tree” and “Don’t Give Up.”
 
“Watchin’ You” Rodney Atkins

“He Didn’t Have to Be” Brad Paisley

“I Wonder What God Was Thinking” Newsong

“I Loved Her First” Heartland (boy I dread the day my daughter gets married :crying:

“What Hurts the Most” Rascal Flatts

“Love Like This” Blackhawk

“What a Beautiful Day” Chris Cagle

“There Goes My Life” Kenny Chesney
 
bluerose said:
Is that the one that starts with “Natalie Wood fell in love with James Dean”? It’s by Shenandoah, not Alabama.

(sorry if I’m coming off like the know-it-all, but I said before that if a song makes me choke up it’s going to be on my hit parade!)

Another one that tears me up is Merle Haggard’s “Mama’s Hungry Eyes”–“Mama never had the things she really wanted/But it wasn’t 'cause my daddy didn’t try/She only wanted things she really needed/One more reason for my mama’s hungry eyes.”
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You’re right. It’s a beautiful song whoever sang it.

I love Nina Simone too. Everything Must Change and Feeling Good. So many others.
 
bluerose said:
I told my husband about this thread and he chuckled and said, “So how many times has Harry Chapin’s ‘Cat’s in the Cradle’ been mentioned?”

:eek: is what he looked like when I said, “Uh, I think you’re the first who’s brought it up!”

So… “Cat’s in the Cradle” by Harry Chapin

and one more… “Go Rest High on that Mountain” by Vince Gill
Click to expand...
Both winners. * Go Rest High *makes me weepy.
 
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