Songs that aren't necessarily sad, but never fail to make your cry anyway.

I'm curious to know what songs, which aren't necessarily sad, make you cry anyway and why.

I was listening to the Matilda soundtrack the other day. As "When I Grow Up" began, I had to brace myself because I knew it was going to make me cry. And it did, despite my trying.

I don't think the song is necessarily sad. The song's lyrics are full of hope, innocence, and naivete, sung by children who are stuck in a rather cruel world.

The song starts so serenely, a single voice and simple piano accompaniment. Every passing verse adds vocal harmonies and responses, along with fuller and fuller orchestrations. When it arrives at the 6th verse ("I will have treats everyday"), it is bursting with energy and joy. I'm pretty much bawling at this point (and I'm even tearing up as I think about it now and am writing about it).

I saw the show in West End in, I think, 2018. I loved how the song was staged and choreographed, how the kids soared on those swings when the song hits its climax. The movie in 2022 also did a marvelous job, especially with the visual of the child riding a bike with training wheels evolving into stunt motorcyclist doing wheelies, a bus driver chaperoning grown ups (who join the chorus), and jet fighter pilots.

Perhaps it makes me cry because it captures the innocence of childhood so well. I grew up not so well-off in a poor country. I'm 32 now. I'm a rather well-off woman blessed with many great relationships in adulthood and a fulfilling career. I love my life. But the song reminds me that I still yearn for a time when my understanding of the world was so simple and small, when my understanding of the world--unburdened by experience--made the world feel infinite.