These 61 Sad Songs Are Gonna Make You Cry Buckets of Tears

Sour is full of teenage rage anthems... and then all of a sudden in the last track, she becomes a geriatric millennial sipping wine scrolling Facebook and thinking about the friends she lost touch with. It's so sad. It's so sweet.

Nobody:

You: Please don't ever become a stranger whose laugh I would recognize anywhere.

Me: 😭

Why is this tiny green muppet making me CRY????? I'm kind of enamored with secretly depressing songs that you might not know are sad unless you really listen to the lyrics. This is one of the best. It's a sad sneak attack.

This one goes out to all the depressed extroverts out there and the popular and/or perpetually happy kids who are hurting inside. Burnt out from putting on a brave face? Belt this song out.

This song from the off-Broadway musical tick, tick...BOOM was not included in the 2021 film, and yes I will be forever bitter that I never got to hear Andrew Garfield go full emo with this one. But I digress. It's a sad song about how you feel helpless when someone you love is hurting and you can't do anything about it.

There are a lot of sad Disney songs, but this lullaby takes the cake.

Etta James is one of the most indulgent, emotional performers. She's perfect for wallowing in your biggest feelings. Even "At Last," her most famous song, sounds sad even though it's technically a happy song. But "Stormy Weather" is for sure sad. It's the musical equivalent of a big, healing cry session.

This song's for when you're sad but like... functioning enough to go journal in a coffee shop in the hopes it makes you feel better.

The late composer was known for writing show tunes that hit our most sorrowful emotions with razor-sharp precision. But while you may know "Send in the Clowns" or "Being Alive" (thank you, Adam Driver), I want to call out a deeper cut. This song is about the moment you realize it's actually really effing hard to get over someone. That specific pain is the worst.

Bringing out the big guns, obviously. Chances are you've cried to this song *at least* once, don't even lie.

Literally rip my heart out and throw it on the floor because I cannot deal with how gut-wrenching this iconic duet is. Reduce me to a puddle, why don't you!

You've heard "The A Team," and yes, that one was beyond sad. But Ed singing from the perspective of a couple who suffered a miscarriage? That's next level sad.

Perhaps one of the most underrated pop stars of our generation (and that is no exaggeration), MARINA is excellent at delivering music that pulls on your heartstrings. "Buy the Stars" is no exception—try to keep your composure at the 2:40 mark, I dare you.

Lana has a way of putting even the baddest of bitches in their feelings. I mean, how could she not when she sounds like an actual angel descending from the heavens while singing this tearful ballad? Asking for a friend.

If you're like me, hearing this at the end of A Star Is Born left you a soppy, wet-faced mess in the back of the theater. Won't spoil it for those who have yet to watch, but uh...yeah, you'll be messed up for days weeks months after the end credits roll.

For those though days in your 20s where life is unexplainably hard and you desperately crave the sweeter, carefree moments of your childhood. 😞

We included "Stay" in our list of Miley's best songs for a reason (because it slaps). It was criminally underrated then, is criminally underrated now, and deserves your sad girl energy more than ever.

The geniuses behind "Bring Me to Life" and "My Immortal" created yet another golden track to accompany your existential dread. The push and pull of fighting with your sorrows? Now that's what I call Relatable™.

"Happiness ain't free/ Everybody fights just like me" honestly hits real different after a 3 a.m. weeping sesh.

Poured the entirety of your soul into a person who chewed you up and spit you out? This song is exactly what your exhausted heart needs.

It would've been waaaay too easy to put "when the party's over" on this list, but Billie's voice in this track sounds like her chest is tight from holding back a sob, and that's enough to let the tears flow.

Let's be real—you came to this list with the full intention of seeing Adele make an appearance. Ask and you shall receive.

Sure, "Fix You" might be the iconic Coldplay staple that people always flock to, but "The Scientist" demands just as much respect, 'mmkay? (FYI: It sounds even sadder after your third—fourth? fifth??—glass of wine.)

Hmmm, guessing she wasn't talking about my height when she wrote this. 😶

There's a running commentary that every single big song by The Fray sounds exactly the same, but TBH that doesn't even matter because they're the KINGS of sad bangers.

Feel free to fight me on this (and lose) but the piano version of "Forever & Always" is infinitely better than the slightly angrier original version. It really gets across the pain of an unreciprocated breakup and shows just how much Joe Jonas hurt Taylor's teenage feelings. It just goes there, you know?

Speaking of a Jonas, "A Little Bit Longer" is entirely from Nick's perspective about him almost going into a coma from his type 1 diabetes as age 13. If you don't weep for the song itself, weep for BB Nick.

Flight Facilities might be known for making danceable electronic music, but "Clair De Lune" is different—the second you hit play, a shot of melancholy is injected into your veins, instantly placing you into a trance. True story.

BRB, blasting the living sh*t out of this (and demolishing the nearest box of tissues, of course) until I can see Lorde on tour IRL.

Originally, Kacey wrote "Rainbow" to personally encourage herself in times of hardship, but that later changed. "It turned into a song as a little message to myself, and then ended up being a song for anybody with any kind of weight on their shoulders," she told Taste of Country. (Ah, so that's why it makes me blubber like a big ol' baby!)

There's truly nothing more depressing than being with someone physically and still feeling lonely...aka the feeling that Wet flawlessly captures in this hauntingly beautiful track.

If you had to listen to one single piece of music by The 1975 for the rest of your life, it better be "Somebody Else." Die hard fans agree, casual fans agree, hell, even frontman Matty Healy listed this in his top 10 faves from the band...so uh, take that for what you will.

"I wanna marry you, but not now" — Pale Waves/my boyfriend 😭

I'm going to age myself by a million years for saying this, but I first heard this song on VH1 back in 2009 (*cough* when they used to play actual music videos *cough*) and was instantly blown away. The pain in Christina Perri's voice! The emotion of the lyrics! They don't do it like this anymore, kiddos.

Legend has it that "Something in the Way" was originally based on a stretch of time when Kurt Cobain was sleeping under a bridge in his home state of Washington. People can't agree on if that rumor is true or not, but imagine how lonely Kurt must have felt if it was. :'(

Still cursing out the Recording Academy to this day for failing to give Demi a Grammy for this track. My "allergies" act up every. Damn. Time.

Is that a draft? Oh, no...turns out it's just the chills running through my body at the sheer emotion in Emeli Sandé's voice.

"Lean On" isn't the only vibe that MØ is capable of delivering, you guys. Burn a candle as this deep cut of hers involuntarily causes your throat to tighten.

If you're reading this, imma need you to stop sleeping on BANKS RTFN because she is a literal goddess that has a song to fit each one of your moods. "Mind Games" is just one of the few that will get you feeling every single emotion.

Depressed, feeling generally empty on the inside, and a little hopeless...but make it funk. Boom.

Alright, so this isn't the saddest of sad songs, but it's like...you know that moment you're like "Shit, I'm an actual grown-up now and life came at me so fast?" This song feels like that. Thank you, Stevie.

Rest in peace, Mac Miller. 😞

"She is hard on herself / She is broken and won't ask for help / She is messy, but she's kind / She is lonely most of the time"...Sara, just saying, you really didn't have to expose me like this.

You know what's worse than feeling sad? Feeling not happy yet not sad at the same time, much like Morrisey describes. I'll take "ennui" for $500, please.

Not to make you feel bad, but Birdy recorded this when she was 15 (!) years old. Yep, feeling hella unaccomplished right about now.

Ah yes, yet another child prodigy to make me feel badly about my lack of songwriting abilities. :') Just gonna go ahead and rub this into your big fat wound right about now, but AURORA literally wrote this when she was twelve. Twelve!!! Goodbye, logging TF off.

Um, where my Directioners at??? If Zayn's high note at 2:58 doesn't leave you a bleeding mess, then you aren't a real one. I said what I said.

Fun fact: I cried while listening to this in the shower once. Do with that information what you will.

Before Sia started churning out hit singles and hiding her face behind elaborate wigs, she made enigmatic songs like this one—another gem from VH1's golden days :').

If I had a dollar for each time Mac forlornly sings the word "alone" on this track, I'd be approximately $15 richer.

Okay, so I will admit that the video for this is a lil Halloweenie. However! It's just what you need to fill the void inside of your sorrowful soul. Trust me on this one.

Hahaha, what? Me?? Crying??? Nope, I just have FKA's ethereal voice and otherworldly talent in my eyes.

Bet you didn't expect to hear a song on here that's entirely about Dua Lipa breaking a man's heart, but here you are.

Rising like a Phoenix from the ashes, Kesha sings of the sexual harassment, emotional distress, and employment discrimination she faced.

Specifically for when the emotional traumas from your childhood are weighing down on your fragile spirit.

In need of a dramatic song for your next at-home karaoke sesh? Hello, "Don't Speak" is two parts perfect, one part sad-angsty, all parts crowd pleaser.

Forget "Rumors," y'all. "Confessions of a Broken Heart" is easily Lindsay at her most raw. Turn it up, cry it out, let it flow.

Hipster YouTube ate this up back in when it started making the rounds back in 2012, and with good reason—with lyrics like "if you're still breathing, you're the lucky one," there's literally no way to not get choked up while listening.

Didn't realize that the biblical story of Samson and Delilah could leave me feeling so vulnerable. Welp, I guess that's the power of Regina Spektor. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I mean...where is the lie.

It would be criminal to have a sad songs playlist and not include Radiohead, don't you think? It's the line when lead singer Thom Yorke says "crushed like a bug in the ground" that really gets me, because can anyone really feel lower than that? (Nope, no, probably not.)