Ah, life. It sucks. Well, OK, maybe not all the time, but there are times when you need a good cry-to lie on the bed in the dark with the Weather Channel on for company, but muted so you can wallow in the sound of your own sobbing. It’s good for you, they say. Get it all out, let it go, have a good cry, you’ll feel better.
Every phase needs a soundtrack, though, and every day can’t be Girls Just Wanna Have Fun and Let’s Get this Party Started.
So, for all your miserable needs, I give you April’s Emolicious List of Songs to Cry to. Enjoy. Or not. It’s not like it matters anyway.
Rickie Lee Jones-Company
Rickie Lee Jones is probably best known for her 1979 hit single, Chuck E.’s in Love. Dig a little deeper into her her self-titled debut album, though, and you’ll find Company. Company is the song we all wish we could have written, huddled on the floor with our journals, crying our eyes out over the perfect boy that got away. There is nothing-nothing, at all-that comes between the pain of loss and the shattered voice telling the story in this song. It begins with the line “I’ll remember you, too clearly”, drawn out as if she can barely say the words. When she sings “look and listen through the years; someday you may hear me, still crying for company”, her voice breaks on “me”, making it all but disappear from the line, which is heart-wrenchingly appropriate here. This is a song you don’t just hear; you feel it, and I’m pretty sure it feels, too.
Cracker-Night Falls
David Lowery…if you’ve read anything else I’ve written, you probably know that in my eyes, the man is a god. Why? Because of songs like this one. “I saw you there; I saw you waiting on that boulevard, for great parades and motorcades that never passed…” You can see him, can’t you? Watching while she waited till she couldn’t anymore, and then watching her go. There is a simplicity here that’s hard to pull off, but Cracker does it perfectly, mixing Lowery’s dead-on lyrics with a haunting, gentle melody.
Elliot Smith-Everything Reminds Me of Her
It’s hard to find much to say about this song; the title really says it all. It’s simple, uncomplicated: he’s having a hard time because she’s everywhere, and he really just wants everybody to be quiet about it.
Nine Inch Nails-Right Where it Belongs
In terms of music, Trent Reznor is emo’s pissed off, depressed, slightly disturbed older brother-the guy emo looks up to but can’t quite pull it off. Remember, this is the man who gave us Hurt, with the classic opening line, “I hurt myself today, to see if I still feel.” Right Where it Belongs takes your image of reality and turns it inside-out: “What if all the world’s inside of your head, just creations of your own? Your devils and your gods, all the living and the dead, and you’re really all alone?” Haven’t we all wondered if we really exist? And even if we do, what’s the point? In the end, your life doesn’t just suck, it’s irrelevant.
Elvis Costello-All This Useless Beauty
It’s at times such as this, she’d be tempted to spit, if she wasn’t so ladylike…” Elvis captures perfectly the sorrow of being a pretty little thing, trapped in a life of pretense and pretext. Beauty is truly useless when it’s all that you own and the life that surrounds you is everything ugly.
Beck-Guess I’m Doing Fine
Beck is generally known for his more upbeat-sounding songs, full of quirky lyrics and funky rhymes. He took a different route on his album Sea Change, an album of slow, sad ballads. Guess I’m Doing Fine tries to be hopeful: “It’s only lies that I’m living, it’s only tears that I’m crying, it’s only you that I’m losing, guess I’m doing fine.” This entire album, really, is great to put on when all you want to do is lie around and nurse your broken heart.
Counting Crows-Hazy
Counting Crows are always good for feeding a funk; Adam Duritz isn’t exactly known for his cheerful spirit and perky, happy songs. Hazy is a beautiful song, co-written with Gemma Hayes, and performed live on their New Amsterdam album. “All these ending love songs come into my eyes, but every time I see you
I’m alive, I’m alive…so could you tell me why you’re leaving? Cause I don’t know why it has to be so…” Honest, simple, perfect.
Linda Ronstadt-Love has No Pride
This may be the ultimate lovesick tearjerker-“But if you want me to beg, I’ll fall down on my knees, and ask you to come back, I’d be pleading for you to come back, I’d beg for you to come back to me…” It looks like a pretty pathetic sentiment in print, but when you’re in that place, nothing sounds better.
Unkle Bob-The Hit Parade
Unkle Bob’s entire debut album, Sugar and Spite, is lovely-lead vocalist Rick Webster brings to mind early Peter Gabriel, and the music is that alt-folk thing everybody’s trying to do, only Unkle Bob gets it right. In The Hit Parade, Webster swears “All I wanna do is get over you”, then goes into a chorus of “wish you were mine…and all that that goes with”. What you want isn’t always what you need, and this song makes that painfully clear.
Jeff Buckley-Hallelujah
Written by Canadian poet Leonard Cohen, Hallelujah is a gorgeous piece of work that’s been covered by several artists, but the best (outside of Cohen’s original) was done by the late Jeff Buckley. Listen carefully to the studio version, and you can hear a small sigh as the music begins. From there, Buckley’s voice, somehow fragile and powerful at the same time, takes you to that place inside you that knows that love is beyond hard, it’s desperate and bitter and yet still beautiful. When he sings “love is not a victory march; it’s a cold and it’s a broken hallelujah”, you’ll be crying with him.
Pink Floyd-Wish You Were Here
Just listen…
