If you’re anything like me, sometimes the best cry sessions need to happen with background music on, like something out of a cheesy rom-com. Except this is real life, and there’s nothing funny about crying in the shower and having your favorite pump-up jam from 2013 come on. So in my years of crying—which trust me, I’ve done a lot—I’ve stockpiled some of the best songs that aide in some of the best cries.
Something special about this list, though, originates from a pet peeve of mine. I hate when I’m trying to sit in my feels and just be sad over something I won’t remember next week, and the song I’m trying to cry to doesn’t relate to me at all. So many sad songs are from a break-up/broken-hearted perspective, and sometimes that’s not why I’m crying. (I’m currently in a happy relationship with someone who has almost never made me cry, and I’d like to keep it that way.)
With that being said, enjoy these five non-discriminatory make-ya-cry songs.
1. “Don’t Hold Me,” Dean Lewis
This song is painful. The lyrics hit me right where I need them to. This song screams mental illness to me, but I know everyone puts their own meaning into a song, so don’t let me stop you from creating your own connection. However, the painful lyrics of the chorus make me feel so understood. When you’re going through a hard time, many people think that you need support, but sometimes you feel like all you do is drag down those you love. The last thing I want to do is make anyone I love feel the way I do, so I prefer dealing with my emotions on my own.
This song could have many meanings. For me, I cry because I think about how sometimes it just feels like I’m not worth anything. Sometimes, life just does you dirty and you feel like no one would care if you disappeared. This is a song for when you’re staring off into the distance, wondering how to give yourself more meaning. It still has an upbeat tempo, which is a hard find within sad songs, so it feels like a stare-out-the-car-window-while-it’s-raining song.
3. “Season,” The Scene Aesthetic
The soft voice paired with sad guitar picking? Ideal cry song. Overall, the lyrics and vibe of this song are great for just laying there with tears spilling from your eyes. The chorus kicking in gives you the feeling of a redemption arc up ahead so as to not make you dwell in the dark for too long, but then it calms back down so you can finish your cry. It’s pretty well-calculated, if you ask me.
4. “I Always Wanna Die (Sometimes),” The 1975
The 1975 have so many good cry songs, but this one just does it for me. This is definitely more of a call-up-your-best-friends-and-go-night-driving-while-screaming-these-lyrics-with-the-cold-air-seeping-through-the-windows tune. It’s therapeutic, I promise. Even if you’ve never experienced what it’s like to want to disappear (and I hope you haven’t), this song is overall so well-structured for a good scream-cry. But make sure to add “Love If We Made It” to the queue right after so you can get back on your feet and scream about how messed up our world is before heading home.
This song takes my breath away. It has such good cry energy and his voice set to the piano with such desperation really breaks my heart. It conveys the idea of not wanting to get back up after you’ve fallen down because sometimes it’s really hard to get back up and stand on the two feet that failed you. But you have to.
To end this saddening list on a brighter note, the best thing you can do after a good cry is turn on your favorite songs playlist and as Meredith Grey and Cristina Yang would say: Dance it out. Don’t sit and dwell in your sadness for too long. Give yourself some positivity. Listen to Lizzo because you can’t be sad when Lizzo is telling you how awesome you are.
Take some time for yourself every day, and I hope that you’re doing well if you find that these songs resonate with you. Do a facemask after your cry, cuddle up in bed and watch something that will make you feel happy. I recommend watching babies eating lemons for the first time or the video of the cat dressed as a shark on a roomba. Don’t ask, just YouTube.
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