gotta admit, there are passages in some songs that do bring a tear, more often because they are just simply amazing and the person that wrote/recorded them was reaching across the space between and got me -bam- right in the forehead. Sometimes its a lyric but more often for me, as a humbly skilled musician it is a beautiful movement or a passage that shows genius, no matter what the context of the song is.
Example: Brian Wilson never learned to surf, I don't even know a surfer personally and I know that the whole cars/surf/girls/fun fun fun thing was a gimic to sell the records but he gets me with some of the pure genius he showed on his earlier stuff, some of the later. To see him now, on a good night, is to see a man with bigger problems than me reach across the void and meet me more than halfway. There's a tear.
Another: Frank Zappa wrote disgusting, juvenile lyrics, but get him in the middle between the choruses working a guitar solo that borders on humanly impossible and he could make my hair stand up and go goose pimply.
For the more mainstream tear producers I have to go with Jackson Browne, far and away the most emotional connection with an audience I have ever seen or heard.
And with his best band/ensemble (David Lindly on guitar and lap steel for one), musically brilliant to boot.
I wish it was in the form of release for me, but it's not. More of a nice reminder that there are people in this world capable of making sounds that resonate deep within us. It is a strong sense of oneness with humanity when everyone in the room draws in that quick intake of air and feels the goosebumps at the same time, rare in this world. Trying to recreate that for myself with my own music or getting a little positive feedback from a listener gives me just a taste of that and it is very addictive.
