Songs that stab you right in the heart.

Geez, I didn't mean to downer this awesome thread with that story about my brother. There's been a lot of songs posted that ring familiar to me as far as stirring something inside. One of these days when the mood arises I plan to run through the list.
No worries. You were invited to do just that. It feels funny to 'like' a post like yours, but I did. Sorry for you and your brother, but thanks for sharing. That's what this thread is for.
 
The Johnny Cash song "There ain't no good chain gang" always remined me of the proposition that somethings in life just suck .. nothing good about it.

Cash's version of "Hurt" … made me realize that there really is no good "end" in life. IMHO & experience .. if life has taught me anything … it's that the end is never good. "Everyone I know, goes away in the end". This video brings that point home like no other. It's the last video you see in the Johnny Cash museum in Nashville TN before you exit.

That song brings chills and sadness every time I hear it. Only Johnny Cash could do that one as it should be done.
 
Pretenders: Hymn to Her
Pink Floyd: One Slip
Gordon Lightfoot: The Wreck of the Edmond Fitzgerald
Toto: Africa
I`m sure there are others that can move me emotionally at times(tears), that I`m unable to recall at the moment, and some have already been mentioned here(Wild Horses, etc.).
 
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Another one I first associated with the seventies hippie Jesus movement stuff but actually listened to one time and found it totally captured the plaintive yet hopeful view of what I consider a mature place of understanding about life... internalized that which could simply be reasons to be cynical into a place of hopeful striving with everything that denies any higher purpose to life. That is why this song is one of my favorites. Brewer and Shipley, The Light:
 
In These Arms Of Mine by Bon Jovi (oddly enough).

A former girlfriend who I loved like none before her but sadly she didn't reciprocate. We had mutual friends and, during a 'break', we attended the same function. I had to watch her flirt her ass off all night and then this song came on while she danced with another mutual 'friend' who i suspected she was having a thing with. I stormed out, swearing not to get involved again for a long time.

A week later I met my wife of 22 years :)
 
"A Pirate Looks at 40"

by Jimmy Buffett

Makes me homesick and contemplative.

Great song... a great live version from his double live album from the 70s titled you had to be there. Great live Jimmy Buffett, full of nuance and ambience.
 
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Speaking of Jimmy Buffett and great ballads... from the same live album, You Had To Be There... this beautiful delicate song called He Went To Paris is a heartfelt delight celebrating appreciation for the human experience. I do believe Jimmy Buffett to be fully appreciated has to be heard live, and this is a great live recording.
 
michael franks-in the eye of the storm=

phoebe snow-never letting go=
--this one could have been written for my dear beloved Melanie Elexia Murphy Roy and me. she waited out much more than the divorce/child custody case it took to get free of the ogre.
 
Just about anything from Lennon Plastic Ono (debut solo).

Wildwood by Paul Weller
Only Love.... Neil Young
Strange Fruit (Billie Holliday but she did not write it), several versions exist and all are deep.

I could add more and more as I think of them and there is one song that I remember playing over and over and over about 20 years ago but for the life of me can not remember what it is (LOL). I guess I am less sad now?
 
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