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“Happy” Cancer season!!!! Remember when I made all my friends mad at me by asking them to pick just ONE song as the most romantic song of all time? Well, I’m back as an agent of musical chaos, baby! This time, I made a lot of people with a lot of feelings have…a lot of feelings.
Specifically, I asked a bunch of Cancers (and broadened the poll to include anyone Cancer risings and moons) to pick the saddest song ever. People became a little too stressed about sticking to one song, so I did amend the rules slightly, as I did not want to be the cause of a Cancer’s meltdown — especially not in their own damn season!
I ended up receiving soooooo many songs covering a wide range of Cancer Sadness™ — from grief to heartbreak to loneliness to pain to death to loss to yearning to breakups to regret. You name it; Cancers will cry about it!
While listening through these decidedly somber tunes, I narrowed them down and tried to arrange them in a way that made narrative sense to me, an overthinking Taurus moon. This resulted in perhaps the greatest crying playlist of all time? See for yourself, and have a good cry along the way. It’s just under 90 minutes, which I think is the perfect amount of time to be in your feels. Scroll down for the Spotify playlist.
This post was originally written in 2022 and updated/republished in 2023.
cancer season playlist
- “Swim Good” by Frank Ocean
- “Something in the Way” by Nirvana
- “I Bet On Losing Dogs” by Mitski
- “The Glow, Pt. 2” by The Microphones
- “Silver Springs” by Fleetwood Mac
- “Promise” by Julia Nunes
- “Your Love Is Killing Me” by Sharon Van Etten
- “Sullen Girl” by Fiona Apple
- “Kiss” by Scout Niblett feat. Bonnie “Prince” Billy
- “Cry, Cry, Baby” by Nina Nastasia
- “Where Do Broken Hearts Go” by Whitney Houston
- “Hurt” by Johnny Cash
- “Ride” by Lana Del Rey
- “Bones” by Mod Sun
- “I Want You” by Mitski
- “All Alright” by Sigur Rós
- “Dark Come Soon” by Tegan and Sara
- “If U Love Me Now” by MUNA
- “Ev’ry Time We Say Goodbye” by Ella Fitzgerald
- “One More Hour” by Sleater-Kinney
You don’t have to have any Cancer in your chart to know the power of a good cry-song. What’s on your Cancer season playlist?
Pride and Joy by Brandi Carlile.
It snuck up on me as I’m taking care of my Mom through Alzheimer’s, and obliterates me each time I hear it 💔
Pisces here, and it’s Fallingwater by Maggie Rogers
as a fellow pisces who has Had Many Feelings to this song- agreed, it absolutely deserves to be honored for its cathartic qualities
February by Dar Williams and Breathe Me by Sia are probably my top two, but it’s a very long list.
“february” KILLS ME EVERY TIME
Glitter by Tyler, the Creator; all my angsty queer feelings
(I’m a Cancer sun)
“Breathe Again” is “She Used to Be Mine” for Sara Bareilles fans who Cannot Handle Anything Related to Human Reproduction Now or Ever.
Very upset Julien Baker did not make this list
“Breathe Me” by Sia, and “Lua” by Bright Eyes always get the tears rolling for this Cancer Moon
I have not heard either of those songs since high school and now I’m crying just thinking of them thank you
Kate Bush, Moments of Pleasure. Concrete Blonde’s Take Me Home. Cyndi Lauper singing Sally’s Pigeons. Paloma Negra, as done by Chavela Vargas. And, oddly, She’s An Angel by They Might Be Giants kills me every time the slide guitar starts in.
Winter by Tori Amos.
Sellers of Flowers by Regina Spektor.
Any song with the bittersweet flavor of childhood and memories.
The one song I can’t hear without silently singing along and crying to is You Are My Sunshine. My grandma used to play it to tune up her guitar and it struck me as hauntingly sad then. Now interlaced with memories of her, I find it heartbreaking.
not a song per se, but “photograph” by andrea gibson performed as spoken word always destroys me.
Fast car by Tracy Chapman, tomorrow Wendy is going to die by concrete blonde, my name is luka by Suzanne Vega.
Yup, gen x’er here.
“What Sarah Said” by Death Cab for Cutie. Love is watching someone die….That lyric gets the waterworks flowing every time.
I do not have any Cancer in my chart, but I am an enneagram 4 so indulging in sadness greatly appeals to me. I have a Spotify playlist called Perfectly Melancholy that will definitely be expanding thanks to y’all’s recommendations.
Super sensitive cancer here! “Smile” by Portugal. The Man, “Can’t Help Falling in Love” by Elvis, and “Sea of Love” by Cat Power make me a sloppy, sad mess when I’m already melancholy. None of them are particularly sad songs, but they hit me right in my feels every time.
it is 100% absolutely Casimir Pulaski Day by Sufjan Stevens. Brings me to tears every time.
Same!! I loved this song when the album came out and I was fully in middle school, but looking back I think I missed the part where it’s fucking heartbreaking. I just liked the trumpets.
Came to the comments to say this! Such a beautiful, absolutely devastating song. Also, Sufjan’s Fourth of July is another that brings the tears hard
no hate but…meryl streep’s version of ‘winner takes it all’
Scorpio INFP here, very surprised no one has mentioned Nico’s “These Days”! Great for looking out the window feeling despondent while tears roll down your cheek.
mmm no grouper? “Come Softly,” “Living Room,” “Clearing,” “Headache…” all intensely sad and beautiful. love liz harris’s work so much.
Both Sides Now – Joni Mitchell
I don’t know how to love him – Sara Bareilles
Superstar – version by Sonic Youth
Love this article!! Someone mentioned Sufjan’s Casimir Pulaski Day already, which is my top song for crying to, but also The Night We Met by Lord Huron and St Jude by Florence + the Machine
Ok this one might sound a bit nuts but the last verse of “puff the magic dragon” sets me off. It did the very first time I heard it when I was like 6 years old and I never recovered.
I’m a double cancer. This might be relevant.
“Puff the magic dragon” is devastating! It also gave me Feelings as a child, and honestly I feel like that’s the perfect summary of who I was as a kid. I spent a lot of time very sad about things that had never existed – or at least not in my little life.
hahaha yes, right down to the age of onset (pisces sun/cancer rising). can i add the rainbow connection to this song cluster, because???? it gets me every. single. time.
Cancer sun/Venus here! the last song I fully cried to (before reading this article) was “I Guess” by Mitski :’) “Two Slow Dancers” is another good one
for a real double whammy of Sad Girl/Sad Boy Music, I love Julien Baker’s cover of “Ballad of Big Nothing” by Elliott Smith
and “It’s Okay” by Land of Talk and “Bar on A” by Greg Holden always get me
Gemini, but I have one to contribute.
I’ve been listening to “My Immortal” by Evanescence lately. Every time I do I see a montage of Shauna’s life after getting back from the Wilderness. Marrying Jeff, giving birth to Callie, raising her, and her domestic life of oblivion. Over it all Jackie is hovering. A constant presence, felt but never seen. Shauna can never escape her need for Jackie, no matter how many years pass.
fellow Gemini here! and I love the Yellowjackets tie-in here
Traveling Soldier by The Chicks
I am a Taurus who prefers not to feel my feels, so I skip it every time.
My chart is FULL of Cancer (sun, rising, Venus, Mercury) and I can’t relate to this “Cancer = sad/feelings” business at all! I’m the most consistently joyful person I know! Is it because of the Gemini moon?!?
Cancer here, reporting for duty. My saddest song would have to be Julien Baker’s cover of The Modern Leper by Frightened Rabbit. Gets me every time.