4 Country Choruses That Make Me Cry Every Time

No musical genre can get you to spill a tear in your beer quite like country music. It’s even easier for the tenderhearted like myself, who will cry at literally any intense emotion, happy or sad.

Needless to say, I’ve shed a tear or two (or 30) to these heartbreaking country choruses more than once.

“Whiskey Lullaby” by Brad Paisley and Alison Krauss

“Whiskey Lullaby” by Brad Paisley and Alison Krauss deserves to be on every tearjerker country list that ever exists. Their 2004 duet really had no business being that sad, but they went ahead and did it anyway. Even writing out the lyrics is enough to make me weepy.

“We found him with his face down in the pillow with a note that said I’ll love her till I die / and when we buried him beneath the willow, the angels sang a whiskey lullaby.”

“They’re Hanging Me Tonight” by Marty Robbins

Marty Robbins’ Gunfighter Ballads and Trail Songs track “They’re Hanging Me Tonight” is a typical Western testimonial about a scorned lover shooting down his woman and the man she cheated on him with. But there’s something about Robbins’ gorgeous vocal delivery that almost makes you sympathize with the man awaiting execution.

“I think about the thing I’ve done, I know it wasn’t right / They’ll bury Flo tomorrow, but they’re hanging me tonight.”

“When I Get To Heaven” by John Prine

John Prine’s “When I Get To Heaven” makes me cry not necessarily out of sadness but out of that bittersweet, joyful feeling you get when you know someone has crossed over to the other side—whatever that may be. It’s hard not to shed a tear or two when imagining Prine finally living out his to-do list he laid out in this 2018 track.

“I’m gonna get a cocktail, vodka and ginger ale / I’m gonna smoke a cigarette that’s nine miles long.”

“Concrete Angel” by Martina McBride

Moving back to plain old sad songs, it doesn’t get much more bleak than a country song about child abuse. I would imagine someone would have to have a heart of stone—truly, no pun intended—not to get at least somewhat emotionally moved by this devastating chorus.

“Through the wind and the rain, she stands hard as a stone / in her world that she can’t rise above / But her dreams give her wings, and she flies to a place where she’s loved / concrete angel.”

Photo by Jason Kempin/Getty Images for the Grand Ole Opry