Songs that bring back unhappy memories

Art Garfunkel singing Bright Eyes. It was on the car radio when we arrived home from work to find our cat lying dead in the back yard. It was many years ago, in 1980, and although I love the recording, hearing it always brings Patch back to mind, and tears to my eyes.

We were driving back from doing the family shopping and my husband (now ex) decided to inform me that he was in love with someone else and was leaving me. The song 'I love you because ' (by Jim Reeves) was playing on the Radio at that exact time. I have hated that song ever since.

I always really knew that my ex had 'other women' but once I found a record he had bought for one of them with a yucky message attached. It was John Denver 'Annie's Song'. That was bad enough but it was the type of music he would have been highly critical of if I had liked it. He was into jazz and Big Band music.

As an ex (and now dead) I am well over him but when I hear that song I can only think, 'You foul up my senses!' Poor John Denver. It wasn't his fault!

Stay Another Day by East 17.
Reminds me of leaving my darling daughter to school in happy days when she lived at home and not far away in Brighton.. She used to keep rewinding the tape to play it again.
Still makes me cry.

My physical and emotionally abusive partner used to gaze into eyes when Van Morrison sang "Have I Told You Lately that I Love You?" It was my LP, so I destroyed it and I have never listened to it again.

The timing of this thread was bizarre- I fell asleep with the radio on last night and was woken by the opening bars of “Sailing By” the music which precedes the quarter to one Shipping Forecast.
I used to listen to it to help me go off to sleep during the latter months of Paw’s final illness 2 years ago - and a huge cloud of sadness just enveloped me and I sobbed and sobbed.
It may not be a song, but it arouses such strong feelings of sadness and loss.

Fields of Gold by Eva Cassidy,played at my daughters funeral.

Blackbird by the Beatles, played after my sisters funeral... it's making me tearful now ...

to you all with sad memories.

Music is so evocative of time & place isn't it? Same with scent - a perfume, cooked meal, the dentist chair.

‘When Autumn Leaves Begin to Fall* sung by the late, great Nat King Cole was my dad’s favourite song. He died at the too young age of 47y. I always feel sad when I hear it.

Time in a Bottle by Jim Croche played at my late husbands funeral .

I actually love the song but can’t bring myself to listen to it .

My parents loved the song "Amazing Grace" (I cannot remember who sang it) so at their funerals, 3 weeks apart, it was played. I cannot bear to hear it now because of the memories it brings back and this was 40 years ago.

Not a song, but the theme music to Coronation Street. My father was in hospital; he was ill but not expected to die. He was talking to me and sitting up and eating (I helped him eat his dinner). I went home, switched the TV on and then there was a phone call from the hospital; he had died a few minutes after I had left.

There is a song by country music legend Merle Haggard that is particularly special to DH and I . Looking back I think we truly believed it, not so much these days.

Those who know me well from Gransnet will understand how the song makes me cry.

”Someday we’ll look back” by Merle Haggard

Someday when our dream world finds us
And these hard times are gone
We'll laugh and count our blessings
In a mansion all our own
If we both pull together, tomorrow's sure to come
Someday we'll look back and say it was fun

We live on love and pennies
And the daydream out of sight
And I'm amazed the way you smile
When things don't turn out right
We climb each hill together, each step one-by-one
And someday we'll look back and say it was fun

Someday when our dream world finds us
And these hard times are gone
We'll laugh and count our blessings
In a mansion all our own
If we both pull together, tomorrow's sure to come
And someday we'll look back and say it was fun
And someday we'll look back and say it was fun

“Bright eyes” here too. It was popular when I miscarried my first baby, at 20 weeks.
I did go on to have four more children, but the sadness I felt at losing my first is still evoked when I hear that song- recently at a Choir with no Name concert.

One that makes me angry, it is Jolene by Dolly Parton. My ex started an affair with a young woman called Gillian at the same time as that song was a hit. Grrrr

No New Years Day can’t remember at the moment who sung it, some young male singer It was a hit in the new year of 1985. My 4 year old son had died he week before Christmas and the words just said to me he would have no New Years ever again and I was in bits.

Dvorak's New World symphony. I had always loved it but the Funeral Director had it played at my fathers funeral and although it's 30+ years ago, I still can't hear it, with any enjoyment.

Whiter Shade of Pale. It was my late husband's favourite song and it was played at his sister's wedding. My husband passed away on her wedding anniversary and I could not have it played at his funeral.

When my Dad was dying of a horrible cancer in a hospice and I had to go to work everyday when I wanted just to sit with him I used to hear John Rutter's Peace of the Running Waves (not sure its called that) I use to wish that peace for my lovely Dad.
We had Nimrod and eternal Father strong to Save at his funeral my elder brother sobbed like a baby it was awful he could barely stand.

Charleygirl funny you should mention that, “Amazing Grace” was written by John Newton when he was curate in Olney, near me. Together with the poet William Cowper with whom he became friends they produced the hymns known as the Olney Hymns.

In 1767 William Cowper, the poet, moved to Olney. He worshipped in Newton's church, and collaborated with the priest on a volume of hymns; it was published as Olney Hymns in 1779. This work had a great influence on English hymnology. The volume included Newton's well-known hymns: "Glorious Things of Thee Are Spoken," "How Sweet the Name of Jesus Sounds!," "Let Us Love, and Sing, and Wonder," "Come, My Soul, Thy Suit Prepare," "Approach, My Soul, the Mercy-seat", and "Faith's Review and Expectation," which has come to be known by its opening phrase, "Amazing Grace

I'm in tears reading some of these painful memories. for all of you remembering this morning.

I have just played the song gilly and cried, it is very moving. I don't have any sad connections to songs really but think about My Dad when hearing brass bands play, he was a big fan.

Catch the Wind by Donovan was played at my sister-in-law's funeral. The words were very poignant. She died suddenly at 49.