Saddest songs in musical theater

Not a Day Goes By, Telephone Wire, I’m Still Hurting, the final sequence of Sweeney Todd to name a few.

Updated On: 6/25/18 at 03:27 PM

“She Used to be Mine” - Waitress

Updated On: 6/25/18 at 04:37 PM

qolbinau said: "In Buddy’s Eyes - I can’t think of much sadder than a woman lying through her teeth that she has had a happy marriage for 30 years to the man she actually loves. Almost no one can act this song like Bernadette can, especially the last verse."

Vicky Clark would like several words. (but I agree the "truth" of this song, as Paul Gemingani calls it, is downright heart-shattering).

Words Fail is certainly a sad song, but listening to Rachel Bay Jones sing So Big So Small gets me every time. The song is heartbreaking.

I first saw "Cabaret" in London, starring Judi Dench and Lila Kedrova, in 1968. I was 21. I still remember the emotional wallop that this song packed....Miss Kedrova standing still on the stage, singing beautifully. Now half a century has passed, and I am 71. The song has meaning for me in my twilight years that I could not have understood as a young man. And as the music begins to swell at 2:00, I am once again brought to tears. Every single time.

I agree with so many already mentioned, and would include I Am Here from Come From Away, What Would I Do and You Gotta Die Sometime from Falsettos, Just Ask Flowers from Here Lies Love, Those You've Known from Spring Awakening, The I Love You Song from Spelling Bee, and Alabanza from In The Heights.

From the saddest musical I have ever seen - Andrew Lloyd Webber's THE BEAUTIFUL GAME ( aka BOYS IN THE PHOTOGRAPH).

Poignant, haunting and heartbreaking -- GOD'S OWN COUNTRY is about love of country. This part is about the plight of people who have to leave their homelands to seek a better future elsewhere, no matter how hard it is to do that. It is only one part of the song.

Updated On: 6/25/18 at 07:21 PM

Supper Time (As Thousands Cheer)

This Nearly Was Mine (South Pacific)

Her Face (Carnival)

There's Always One You Can't Forget (Dance A Little Closer)

Telephone Wire, from Fun Home - the way she's in that position of memory, begging her past self to say anything to her dad that might open him up, even though she, and we, know that that's impossible, because otherwise the show, and the pain, wouldn't exist. I was a mess when I saw this on tour.

Children and Art, from Sunday in the Park - "Isn't she beautiful, there she is, there she is, there she is, there she is...mama is everywhere, he must have loved her so much" is one of the saddest and most beautiful lyric lines ever put into any musical. It says so much about love and time in such a strange way, the emotional and conceptual epiphany always catches me off guard.

The I Love You Song, from 25th Annual - The absolutely devastating desperation knocks me over even when I'm just listening to the album while doing chores. When she spells the word and we hear "that is correct" in a distant echo, and then she and her parents sing the last notes in perfect, imagined, and impossible harmony, my heart aches.