...came on iPod shuffle a couple of weeks ago

"...all I want for my Birthday is another Birthday"

choked me up, as did the ending (which always did).

though I knew she was sleeping

Paul Simon knew a thing or two about a throwaway line

from Mr Bojangles kills me

David Baerwald, 'Young Anymore' off Bedtime Stories. Divorced dad on the edges of his 9 yr old kid's life, sitting in a car watching her go to ballet class. There but for the grace of god etc. Unfortunately not available on YouTube

The French have it...."je t'aimais je t'aime et je t'aimerai" - which means "I loved you, I love you, I will love you" - got heavily into it whilst mourning the passing of my Dad, and even now I am welling up listening to it on YouTube. It's actually about his son, but therein lies the rub, eh. Noone told me that at some point you are supposed to grow up.

in The Wheel she sings:
"I'm not looking for your answer, Oh darling can't you see,
Just to know the question is goog enough for me" But it's not just the lyric, it's the very sound of her voice.
I also love the line in Mary Chapin Carpenter's song Outside Looking In - "I heard the sound a heart must make when a memory's caving in".

I forgot to include this song in the list of tear jerkers: Christine Collister's Always There, which has induced precipitation more than once.

"You still live with rage unspoken
I still want to stroke your hair"

Married to a beautiful melody and her gorgeous deep contralto, it's a killer line.

A song I've plugged here is My Smallest Friend by Virginia Astley. It's one of those songs whose strength is magnified by parenthood, to the extent that I can't listen to it anymore without making an exhibition of myself. In particular this couplet:

"I try to be everything to you my precious girl
I'm less than perfect in a less than perfect world"

The next line is "I'm holding you close, I can't let you go". Finishes me off!

"It was you, you, it was you"
the hard-boiled,late-night deejay in the Nightfly gets melancholy.

"And after all the loves of my life
You'll still be the one"
the cake guy in MacArthur Park breaks our hearts.

Both get me every time..

for this moment..."

"Everybody Here Wants You" - Jeff Buckley

...but NOW-WWWWWWW I am John

five notes in the one word

"Once there was a way........ to get back homeward"

Chris Evans unexpectedly played it a few weeks back while I was feeding my daughter her dinner and as if by coincidence something went in my eye...

The blond haired mystery girl who approached me outside the pub on Christmas Eve and said "Can I have a go at unbuttoning your tartan shirt, I like these press on buttons". Should have asked for her number. Bugger.

But the song that does this to me most of all is 'Sacred Heart' by Mark Eitzel (on the album '60 Watt Silver Lining').

Astonishingly tender song, that really does take in wandering around by the Sacre Coeur, and after the instrumental break, he comes back in with this yearning 'Saturday moo-o-orning', that's kind of half-sung, half-breathed. And then he doesn't let you go till the 'I don't want to be alone' outro.

It's not necessarily the lyric (although taken as a whole, I do think it's bloody good) but the shiver-down-the-spine performance.

but am going with "I don't pretend to know what you want, but I offer love.."

And I remember quiet evenings
Trembling close to you...