Puts a lump in your throat and makes you rethink your life?(lol)
Without you by Air Supply
I’m sure I have a lot, but comes to mind:
EDIT: Sorry this turned into a big reply haha…
- Zombie (both the original and the 2016 Bad Wolves cover) , the second it opens, just visceral; it’s the same old thing, in [2026], in our heads…
- The Kids Aren’t Alright by The Offspring , I hate relating so hard to this as a generation, watching so many kids with promise just get smothered out surviving in a bleak “cruelest dream reality.” Oft by drugs and hopelessness.
- In the Arms of an Angel by Sarah McLachlan : My mom always cries if she hears this song because her late mom did too. Then my cousin sang it at my dad’s funeral so…Yeah, I don’t let that one play. Sorry, Sarah.
- Immortal by Marina and the Diamonds ; The entire song is beautiful and profound. “And if the earth ends in fire, and the seas are frozen in time, there’ll be just one survivor, the memory that I was yours and you were mine.” (Holy shit just typing that…)
- Pretty When I Cry by Silent Rival ; Such a beautiful song I thought was about a partner who taught the singer about true unconditional love… It’s about her late mother. It empowers me to fight to be there for those I love, and it sends a powerful message that we can be strong in our weakness.
- Dust in the Wind by Kansas ; anything about the fleetingness of life hits me hard.
- Memories by Maroon 5. I miss people…
Lots of happy songs too…Like they’re beautiful and wistful and lovely and I think I cry because I can’t imagine such peace… My wife likes these songs and I guess I kinda break imagining us getting to just unshoulder our burdens and truly live.
- Perfect by Ed Sheeran
- Just Too Good by Phil Wickham
- “Will the Circle Be Unbroken?” , a popular Christian hymn from 1907, made prominent in recent history by BioShock Infinite.
- On that note, Amazing Grace really is amazing, but it doesn’t help that it’s the ‘somebody died’ song now…
- The Prayer by many artists: Celine Dion and Andre Bocelli
- Prayer by Hayley Westenra
- In My Arms by Plumb (has some sweet remixes, but man, a mother’s love is truly something…our first is on the way and I really feel it now…)
- Somewhere Only We Know by Lily Allen
… Okay I’m sensing a theme here. Yeah, I’m a person of faith. Thinking of a refuge in my Father where I can stop worrying, stop fearing, stop fighting. Songs about pure and unyielding love, or lullabies , crush me instead of relax me for some reason. Maybe because the contrast with our present circumstances is so harshly defined and such respite feels like it can’t be had in this life.
Bright Eyes by Art Garfunkel from the Watership Down film
An Alien’s “I Love You” by Utsu-P.
Hits really hard if you’re neurodivergent.
Cats in the Cradle
The night we met by lord Huron
“I had all and then most of you, some and now none of you” fucks me up every time, incredible songLa Dispute - King Park
Story of a an accidental shooting of a kid by another kid
Jamie Hay - Where Do The Missing Go?
The story of a missing child who was killed and buried by their parents
Red Tape Parade - Leap Year of Faith
(RIP Wauz) The last song my friend Wauz wrote before he died. His band finished recording it after he passed. The music video especially gets me recognising so many faces.
- Brothers of Metal – Yggdrasil
- Order Ogan – Fields of Sorrow
- Sabaton – No Bullets Fly
I’ll have to check these out. I’ll add another Sabaton here:
- Christmas Truce
It’s powerful. The “true meaning of Christmas” has been satirized and watered down to death in our time…
…But there was a time it truly could stop a war. It could get people to lay down their guns and be brothers again.
Their “superiors” forced them back into battle. If we all snubbed our masters and just stopped fighting, what could we be?
Hero of War by Rise Against - I’m a vet to this hits fucking hard.
Blackbird by Alter Bridge - My stepdad got cancer in 2020 and had a very slow decline until he finally passed in 2025. Watching him wither away was heartbreaking. I saw him around Christmas of 2024 and he was still able to get up and move around on his own, but only for a short period of time. I went back down a month later to help my mom, because he couldn’t even get out of bed anymore. The hospice nurse came one day and basically told us he maybe had a week at most. He couldn’t even talk at this point, would not eat, and you could tell he was just in constant pain. I told him not worry and that I appreciated everything he did for my mom and that I would take care of her. He passed a few minutes later with his dog in his lap. Later that afternoon, after I had gotten everything taken care of, I took his dog for a walk. This song just happened to come on while I was walking her. The line, “May you never be broken again” made me breakdown right there in the middle of the park. To this day I still cry every time I hear the song.
Hero of War also a strong fave of mine. Bleak as fuck. No Bravery by James Blunt is on similar lines.
As I Am by dream theater
A Warm Place by Nine Inch Nails.
Something about this song takes me right back to a certain time and friend group in high school.
I’m the only one still standing after a loss this last winter and I can’t even think of listening to this track for a few more months.
RIP K.I.D. you and the rest of the tree people are missed.
The entire Frozen 2 soundtrack.
Noah Kahan- Growing sideways
The closest I have to that, is Hate Me by Blue October.
