Why Michael Jackson Songs Make Me Cry

Michael Jackson

Dabbing away the tears while listening to Michael Jackson's "Ben," I decided this weekend to embark on a quest.  I set out to find out why certain songs make people cry.  The results, however, were disappointing.  A quick Internet search pointed me to Adele's hit single, "Someone Like You." Let me apologize in advance to the billions of Adele lovers, but the woman's maudlin screeching grated at my eardrums rather than piercing my heart. It was then that I came across a program produced by National Public Radio (NPR) in  February of 2013: "The Ballad Of The Tearful: Why Some Songs Make You Cry."  My delight dissolved to coffee grinds when that Adele song turned out to be their prime example of a musical device called an "appoggiatura."   According to an article entitled "Anatomy of a Tear-Jerker" in the  The Wall Street Journal:

An appoggiatura is a type of ornamental note that clashes with the melody just enough to create a dissonant sound. "This generates tension in the listener," said Martin Guhn, a psychologist at the University of British Columbia who co-wrote a 2007 study on the subject. "When the notes return to the anticipated melody, the tension resolves, and it feels good."

The example they used was, of course, Adele's "Someone Like You."  I did appreciate this lesson in musicology.  But since Adele's song didn't make me cry, it was not telling me what I yearned to know. Besides, if tear-jerkers, which clearly outsell other songs, have such a simple paint-by-numbers formula, why weren't there more such super hits?

In frustration I did what I often do, when the world cannot supply answers to my questions.  I turned inwards, trawling my own emotional experience.



  I made a list of songs that always made me cry. It turned out to be rather short, namely, the slow ballads sung by the Jackson 5 or Michael as a child, in particular "Ben" and "I'll Be there."   It then occurred to me to try listing movies that turned on the tear-flowing faucet.  The only two that readily came to mind were "Glory" about a black battalion in the Civil War, and "Sarafina," a musical depicting the student uprising in South Africa during apartheid.  The music in both was extraordinary and both movies documented actual moments in history. (Maybe my profession as a historian plays a role here).  

And suddenly I saw it, the theme that tied all of these artistic experiences together.  It was the artistic depiction of the process by which knowledge crushes innocence.  In each case I know what is going to happen.  The purer and more beautiful the innocence, the more gut-wrenching becomes my response to the knowledge of how the story will end.  The lyrics and music play a role, but it is the life trajectory of the performer or the character that he or she plays, that holds my heart in thrall.  There is probably nothing universal in what I have found out about myself.  As unique human beings, our experiences in life give us an equally unique emotional signature. So, what kind of music or movies makes you cry?