I know guys are tough to crack, but there are songs that can make the hardest men shed a tear.

The one song that I can’t stop shedding tears to is “How to Save a Life” by The Fray. It makes my heart ache because my dad would always be there to comfort me when certain thoughts crossed my mind.

He willingly listens to me break down at 2 am and stays up all night until I’m fine again. The beginning of the song describes that scenario and it hurts.

The lines of that song that linger in my head are:

“Step one: you say ‘we need to talk’ he walks, you say ‘sit down, it’s just a talk’. He smiles politely right at you, you smile politely right on through”.

My dad said I’ll always be his little boy even if I’m an adult and I can always call him when I hit rock bottom. I’m so thankful to have someone like him.

47 comments

  4. Where’d you go by Fort Minor

    Dance with the Devil by immortal technique

    Brother by kodaline

  6. “Waiting on a miracle” from enchanto it isn’t the best Disney song or anything but my God it hurts my heart.

    Also “the owl and the pussy-cat” but I am genuinely at a loss for why it makes me emotional.

  7. Perfect, by Alanis Morrisette.

    It’s basically my childhood. I spent my first decades hearing how I wasn’t living up to my potential, and how I disappointed my Mum, how I was just like my Dad (who vanished when I was about 18 months old).

    I’ve told her more recently that my life’s goal isn’t to impress her, it’s to impress me.

  10. My dad was religious and a pilot. I sat at his deathbed for about a week after he fell asleep and often sang and played “I’ll fly away” (the Allison Krauss/Gillian Welch version), which he loved and was played at his father’s funeral.

    Today even just those first few notes get my eyes watering.

    Edit: had to go and listen to it. Apparently eyes watering has been upgraded to raking sobs. Miss you pops

  16. I’m definitely a rocker at heart, so I’ll say “Fade In/Fade Out” – Nothing More.

    But honestly, nothing can break my heart like a sad country song.

    “Whiskey Lullaby” – Brad Paisley and Alison Krause
    “When We Were Close” – Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit
    “You Don’t Care For Me Enough to Cry” – John Moreland
    “8th of November” – Big & Rich

  23. Daddy – KoRn (Very emotional song with a real message to it and a fucked up message. Gets me emotional as it’s intended to do. Probably the most fucked up song ive ever heard and disturbs me how parts of it is catchy and can get stuck in your head too. 😳) It’s a song about the lead singers real abuse as a kid as well. The crying in it is real and so is the angry shouting. The leader sing told no one to cut anything and after they recorded the song. The other bandmates hugged the lead singer as it was him getting out all his hurt. Also the abusers wasn’t actually his parents like the song makes it out to be. It was a female babysitter. Believe it or not.

    “It’s not about my parents molesting me or any of that shit. It was about me being abused by someone else and my parents not really believing me, which I believe happens to tons of kids. I believe tons of kids go back and say, ‘Hey mom, dad, this shit happened’ and they’re like, ‘Stop fucking lying’. Or they don’t understand. And they were real young at the time and I don’t blame them. It was my babysitter, and she has since passed away. Karma’s a bitch.” – Johathen Davies

    Faget – Korn (On the same album about the lead singers past with bullying. No, it’s not homophobic nor is he gay. It’s what the lead singer was constantly called in school and his real anger makes me emotional. And Johnathen Davies has mentioned in a interview that he gets messages from LGBT fans that say they like the song as they can relate to it for what they went through. The whole Korn 1994 album is a emotonal roller coaster but Daddy and Faget are the most emotonal songs on the albums to me. Especially the parts he screams in anger. I can feel the emotion)

    “That song I wrote about being picked on as a kid. In high school and junior high, I was a very feminine dude” who used to wear makeup and loved DURAN DURAN. “I wasn’t gay, but people liked to assume that I was gay and call me ‘f****t.'” – Johathen Davies

    How to save a life – The Fray (Message of the song is strong)

    Iris – Goo Goo Dolls (Played at my baby sisters funeral)

    Diary of jane – Breaking Benjamin (Beautiful song)

    I don’t ever recall crying to a song though but songs that got me emotonal as in sad

  24. Most recent song to make me get teary is Quiet Town by the Killers. The whole Pressure Machine album is vignettes of everyday life in small rural towns. It’s one of the best written albums in the last decade to me.

    This verse in particular:

    When we first heard opioid stories

    They were always in whispering tones

    Now banners of sorrow mark the front steps of childhood homes

    Parents wept through daddy’s girl eulogies

    And merit badge milestones with their daughters and sons

    Laying there lifeless in their suits and gowns

    Somebody’s been keepin’ secrets

    In this quiet town

    I’m not even a parent yet but the casual brutality of that crushes me.

  28. There is a Bollywood song called “Meri Maa” from a movie called Taare Zameen Par.

    The movie is about a kid who has a learning disability and scores low marks, his parents sends him to a residential school and the kid thinks that the parents are punishing him for his low marks by sending him off to a distant school.

    The song is the boy’s juvenile anxiety and pain.

  29. American Pie – Don McLean. A friend of mine used to play guitar and sing it all the time at bonfires or barbecues (he was an amazing singer and a great friend), the instrumental was played at his funeral and everyone sung it. I bottled up my emotions at that funeral back then which means everytime I hear it now, I can feel myself welling up.

  31. Elderbrook & Rudimental – Something about you

    I like the song, but the video turns it up to 11 – it took me by surprise, I guess I wasn’t ready and tears appeared out of nowhere.

  34. To be fair it didn’t actually make me cry, but I heard a folk/country song with the most heartbreaking lyric I have ever heard in my life.

    “There’s a hole in daddy’s arm where all the money goes.”

  36. No tears but definitely gets me in the feels. If We Were Vampires by Jason Isbel (Noah Kahan also does a great cover).

  37. “Hurt” the Johnny Cash cover.

    I’m not a cryer. Never really was even as a child. I remember specifically listening to this song and I had tears coming down my face and it took me a second to realize I was crying. It had been that long. Something about the chorus.

    “And you could have it all
    My empire of dirt
    I will let you down
    I will make you hurt”

  38. Oceans by Hillsong United makes me break down instantaneously and I’m not even a Christian

  39. Heard an ice cream truck variation of Tears in Heaven by Eric Clapton on the street one day when I was living in Japan.

    I was crying all the way home to my 6th floor apartment.

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