You, mean the song that starts “Kilkelly, Ireland, 1860…”? That one’s
kind of a reverse “Cat’s in the Cradle”. I agree that it loses its power
after several listenings, but I have a recording where the instruments
cut out at the end, and the two vocalists are left in stark harmony,
and I had to call my Dad after hearing it the first couple times.
speaking of “Cats in the Cradle” one of the many times I’ve seen Tom Chapin in person, he had the entire audience teary eyed on singing it. Not necessarily because of the song, but he talked about Harry for quite a while before singing it, so it made the song that much more “sad”.
At that same concert, when Tom started singing the “circle” song, Noah (I think he may have been 7 or 8 at the time) jumped up and started singing along (this was an outdoor concert in a park, so no real "chairs). One of the guys with Tom came over and had Noah stand a certain way and rock back and forth so Tom could see him. The guy explained to me that Harry’s son (who was about the same age when Harry was killed) used to stand off in the wings and do the same thing during that song. Tom started cracking up.
Count me for another who doesn’t cry for music.
But I’m surprised no one has mentioned Gary Jules’ cover of “Mad World” by Tears for Fears, as heard in the movie Donnie Darko. If you’ve never heard it, be prepared for a rather emotional experience.
A few songs that give me (or used to give me) the “spine shivers”:
–Don’t Talk (Put Your Head On My Shoulder), Beach Boys
–A Day In the Life, Beatles
–Julia, Beatles
–Find the Cost of Freedom, Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young
–Older Chests, Damien Rice
–The Bewlay Brother, David Bowie
–Sodom, South Georgia, Iron and Wine
–Upward Over the Mountain, Iron and Wine
–A Case of You, Joni Mitchell (moi aussi)
–Tangerine, Led Zeppelin
–After the Gold Rush, Neil Young
–Tell Me Why, Neil Young
–Saturday Sun, Nick Drake
–Rene and Georgette Magritte With Their Dog After the War, Paul Simon
–Real Emotional Girl, Randy Newman
–the intro to Road to Nowhere, Talking Heads
Buckets of Rain by Dylan never fails to make me smile.
Also, it’s sort of campy, but when Jeff Lynne comes in with that telephone-sounding “Hello… How are you?” at the beginning of Telephone Line by ELO, I always get a little shiver. 
And this list is entirely too long.
Oo! Oo! How about Little Musgrave by Planxty, when O’Flynn’s pipes come in, sounding just like a silver hunting horn? If that doesn’t raise a lump in your throat you must be dead.
djm
There is a download - and it looks like the entire song is there. Go here:
http://www.smallpotatoesmusic.com/orderw.htm
Jason
Wikkid! Thanks Jason That was probably the one place I didn’t look! Now I just have to wait until I get home where the PC has RealPlayer.
well - there ya go - I just put the link from the site, I haven’t LOOKED at the site for a while…
I learned “There Were Roses” from a Mick Moloney recording. I can’t sing it anywhere, even at home in practice, without getting choked up. Bummer!
I don’t know the name of the only song that has ever moved me to actual tears running down my face. It was sung at a stage performance at a festival. It was about someone’s parents’ golden wedding anniversery. Everyone that I could see in my vicinity was choked up. Otherwise, I’m stoic like some of the others here. What gets me in motion and my blood rushing is some good really swinging jazz or some really danceable old-time music.
Steve
Across the Universe - John Lennon.
Okay, I’m gonna regret admitting this in public, but “Ordinary World” by Duran Duran can choke me up for some reason. It’s not just the lyrics, but the music really conveys for me the same sense of loss and aloneness, and of having to go on in a now-grayer world anyway. I once mentioned the force the song has for me to someone, and I got sneered at. Whatever. You can’t be top shelf every moment of the day, I suppose.
Can’t be bothered with the rest of their stuff, though.
Congratulations listed “Bewlay Brothers” by David Bowie. Yeah. Can’t say it moves me in the usual sense, but it puts me right in touch with my inner strange child.
Okay, yes, so “Bewlay Brothers” isn’t exactly the textbook “moving song,” but it’s one of those songs that will really transport you if you listen to it in a car at night.
A car at night would be perfect.
How about "yes ,we have no banana,s "
well it did bring Homer Simpson to tears .
RORY
Another by Garth - “The Dance” - can really get me, depending on where I am in my life
Bruce Springsteen - “The Streets of Philadelphia”
I didn;t believe people could be induced to cry from music until it happened to me.
It was last summer at an ITM summer workshop. Margaret Bennett (Living legend of Scots Gaelic singing) performed at the faculty concert. Even though I couldn;t understand a single word, her voice and the music hit me physically, like a laser beem, in the heart. I started bawling. It was actually a very odd and bewildering experience.
Gee, I wouldn’t know where to begin listing the songs that move me to tears, though I readily admit my threshold is a bit on the low side. (My kids take bets on how many times I will cry in a movie.) What I find is that often I just kinda let a song wash over me, enjoy it superficially, and then one day, for whatever reason, it finds its way in, and I am flooded. But one song moved me to sobs, like Wormdiet, so much that I had to actively stifle my response, because it was during a live performance: Martin Simpson singing Fair Annie.
Carol
ok, those are good and all, but “johnny i hardley knew ya” by the clancey brothers with tom makem… it doesnt get better than that… i cried when i heard it first. fur real
I have to join the people that mentioned “Kilkelly.” I literally cannot listen to that song without bursting into tears. I guess I could try the “7 times” desensitization method, but I don’t know if I could survive hearing it seven times!!!
The other song that makes me cry is Tracy Chapman’s “Fast Car.”
J.
Sweet Hera’s knickers, what a mawkish, puddling bunch we are. I have this need now to go yell at a little kid or something just to get all this sweetness outta my system.
(“Fast Car” rocks, btw )