Cry songs.

I’ve mentioned before on here about how since having kids I cry much more easily now, usually at films. Along with a lot of other people, I think sometimes I feel like crying in general. But I've noticed recently that certain types of songs will also make me cry. They all seem to have something in common as well: regret. That’s what gets me about, for example, Magnolia. Man, that hits hard.

I think that’s my emotional Achilles’ Heel. Looking back on a life of promise unfulfilled. I don’t really feel that about my own life. I have a lot to be grateful for, not least a house I love, a wife I love even more, job, family – all the stuff that’s supposed to show you’re doing ok. Of course, I think generally using a metric like that to measure success is bullshit – it’s perfectly easy to be content without any of that. But my point, I think, is I’m not sure why this theme of regret hits me so hard. I think it’s also a wider theme – now I’m getting older it feels like the idea of looking back over a life evoked by music and film strikes a strong chord.

There’s something quite satisfying about being induced to have a proper cry as well, a kind of emotional release, so I do find myself fairly frequently revisiting the songs that trigger that reaction in me. Is that weird? I dunno, maybe.

The current crop of cry songs I keep going back to then:

The Kinks, Come Dancing. An ode to a long-demolished dancehall that was the centrepiece of an older sister’s happiest memories. “The day they knocked down the palais, my sister stood and cried. The day they knocked down the palais, part of my childhood died.”

Bruce Springsteen, The River. A life lived in a poor conservative working class America that went from few prospects to none at all for the sake of a fleeting moment of love and happiness. “All them things that seemed so important? Well mister they vanished right into the air. Now I just act like I don’t remember, and Mary acts like she don’t care.”

Joni Mitchell, Come in from the Cold. Feels like a cry from everyone who ever felt isolated and without love. Genuinely a wreck before the end of the first chorus. “We really thought we had a purpose, we were so anxious to achieve. We had hope, the world held promise, for a slave to liberty.”

Lana Del Ray, Gods and Monsters. Feels like a life deliberately thrown away just because of an inability to conceive of anything better. “You got that medicine I need, dope shoot it up, straight to the heart please. I don’t really wanna know what’s good for me, god’s dead? I say: ‘Baby that’s alright with me’.”