But love songs, at least romantic love songs, don't make me cry. Maybe it's because they're everywhere, and I've exposed to them since before I could talk. Maybe it's because I've never been in a romantic relationship. Maybe it's because of the autism. But whatever the reason, songs about new love, unrequited love, love lost, and love rekindled just don't make me cry.
However there are songs that make me ruin tissue after tissue, and I can think of at least two that stand out.
One is Susan Werner's "Different Son"
This is definitely a love song, but not a song about romantic love. It's a song about a mother's love for her child, and the lines are things I could imagine my own mother saying. It also is a song about an autistic boy (I asked her at a concert, along with questions about several of her other songs), but it almost seems like it doesn't really matter what his problem is.
I usually lose it at least three times over the course of this song. The line about "he's always gonna be a different boy somehow" is something I still have difficulty coming to terms with. And the lines about her son's potential and about wanting him to build a life he can be proud of lose it every time, because I feel like I haven't lived up to my potential, know I haven't built a life I can be proud of. Knowing that my mother wants the best for my I realize how difficult it must be for her to watch me struggle.
Another song that makes me cry (though not as much) is Blaine Larsen's "How Can You Get that Lonely"
I first heard this song in high school, carpooling with a neighbor who was really in to modern "country" music. I didn't like most of the songs on the station, and this one had a lot of turns of phrase that make me cringe. But I still like this song, and it still makes me cry when I listen to it, which I think demonstrates how powerful it is.
I know the answer to this song. It's not necessarily about loneliness, though it certainly helps to know you have people who care. But the desire to commit suicide is about an intense, overwhelming feeling of despair. When you're depressed and used to feeling nothing, it doesn't feel good just to feel something, not if that something is despair, which by its nature seems like the only thing you'll feel again. This sudden rush of horrible feeling leads to a desire to feel nothing again, to end the pain. And yet, I obviously haven't actually committed suicide, so I don't know myself what it feels like to people who actually go through with it.
Both of these songs are written from the perspective of someone trying to understand something that I've struggled with, and almost getting it, wanting to help yet not knowing what they can do to to help. One is about a mother's love for her son, the other is about a man mourning for a stranger, but they both feel like they know me, and I guess that makes me cry.