Recently, Mary J. Blige's "I Found My Everything", when the key changes and the organ kicks in, I just lose it. And like a conditioned dog, I can listen to it immediately following and cry all over again. Her song "Beautiful Ones" from her Mary album a few years back did the same thing. She's so damn real, I've enjoyed listening to her just become this big, bright, throbbing heart and soul over the years. Fearless woman.
More: Wyclef Jean & Lauryn Hill "Sang Fezi": "U should know in the end we all go/ so keep your head to the sky"....absolutely fvcking gorgeous big dripping tears all the way.
Ah, Roberta Flack's "First Take" album will just knock me down. Same with Nina Simone's version of Leonard Cohen's "Suzanne": there are heroes in the seaweed/ there are children in the morning/ they are leaning out for love / and they will lean that way forever. Probably one of the best songs ever written.
A song from Milton Nascimento called "Paixao e fe", also "San Vicente". Don't even know much portugues, but there you go. For some reason certain bits of Moody Blues' "A Question of Balance" the "I'm looking for someone to change my life" parts. Effective key changes, it's some howling dog response.
Ella Fitzgerald singing the Duke Ellington songbook: "Azure" and "I'm Just A Lucky So and So".
Um, Procol Harum was good with this, too, "A Whiter Shade of Pale", for instance. But that whole album was really, really good. Donovan makes me cry, too, but laugh at the same time. Just gotta hear his fingers on the guitar strings. Happy tears.
The strangest has to be The Clash's "The Card Cheat" just having me falling down weeping on the train for no good reason. "Train in Vain" reminds me of rollerskaters in Central Park. Elvis Costello's "This Year's Model" made me jump up and down and scream when I first heard it (on eight track) years ago. Not sure if there were tears or not.
Vic Chestnutt's "Stupid Preoccupations": Hallelujah for the ghosties/and all the scary monsters under the boiling seas...
O, and that "Horses in My Dreams" from PJ Harvey, mentioned above, I saw her live and it made me cry when she performed it, but somehow the album didn't. It's got those tear-jerking key changes, as well.
And how could I forget Angelique Kidjo, Sinead O'Connor (my teenaged queen), and Peter Gabriel & Kate Bush "Don't Give Up" ?? Got to stop, now, really...