10 Podcasts Guaranteed to Make You Cry Terribly

Podcasting is an incredibly intimate medium. We feel like podcast hosts are our friends; although the relationship is one-sided, it feels like they speak directly to us. It also means that a sad podcast can hit us even harder than a tearful romance or tear-jerker movie . These 10 podcasts go in a sad place, but in the most beautiful, human ways. From life-changing songs to cultural moments that opened the floodgates, to tales of love and loss, addiction and suicide, even a mission to a red dwarf 7.8 light-years from Earth, these tales hold nothing back. blows. Consider this your trigger warning – these shows require napkins.

Soul music

Songs can evoke strong memories and strong emotional responses, and every release of Soul Music will turn you into a puddle of tears. Each is dedicated to a different song, as people from all over the world describe their strong connection to it. It’s not so much about the history of the song itself (although it’s been written about); it’s more about personal stories about why and how a certain song changed someone’s life. People talk about death, separation, loss – and happy things – using songs like “Purple Rain”, “Once in a Lifetime”, “I’ll Survive” and “Redemption Song” as a guide. Soul Music is a reminder that a song is never just a song and that music is often our companion in our saddest moments.

Crybabies

Crybabies haven’t released a single episode in years, but if you have access to Stitcher Premium, you can dive into an archive of stuff whenever you want to shed a tear. Writer Susan Orlean ( The Orchid Thief, The New Yorker ) and actress Sarah Tyre ( Candy Strangers, Late Night with Conan O’Brien ) ask writers, actors, musicians, and comedians about the cultural things that make them to cry. The conversations are heartfelt, funny and, of course, sad. The beauty lies in the specifics of each episode – who would have thought that Nat King Cole’s “Smile” made Molly Shannon cry, or that a particular Volkswagen commercial would bring Moby to tears, or that Guy Branum could give an entire lecture on the emotional impact of the film “Queen”. “Bohemian Rhapsody”?

Julie: Unwinding the Miracle

The late Julie Yip-Williams tried to be as present as possible in her life, even as she watched her die from stage four colon cancer. Julie is a podcast that explores Julie’s process of preparing for death and how she revisits the events of her unusual life. Compiled from hours of personal and candid conversations and touching on the themes of immigration, love and the paranormal, Julie is a show that will heal hearts and remind you to never take your time on earth for granted. Think of it as an add-on to her posthumous memoir Unwinding the Miracle .

Last day

The podcast company Lemonada by Stephanie Wittels Wax and Jessica Cordova Kramer was born out of a double personal tragedy – each lost a sibling to addiction. In “The Last Day,” Stephanie and Jess explore the last day of their brothers’ lives and try to find out how to deal with their loss to the microphone. Over the course of the first season, they strive to understand how to grieve in a world that often won’t let us slow down. This show is the heart of what Lemonada is about: making terrible things less sucky by giving us someone who gets through the wits of shit. After the first season , The Last Day continues to look at other things that are killing us, including suicide and gun violence. It’s hard to listen to, but filled with personal stories, beautifully told, that will remind you to squeeze your loved ones a little tighter because you don’t know when it’s someone’s last day. (“ Addiction 17” is an episode about the trauma of Dr. Gabor Mate , which I rewatched many times.)

Unread

On the evening of December 2019, at 7:00 pm, Chris Steadman received an email from his friend Alex. It said, “Listen. I am writing to inform you that by the time you receive this scheduled email, I will no longer be alive. here are Alice’s notes. The app included a link to a private SoundCloud account. Alice was a woman Alex met in a Britney Spears fan group. Chris knew this. Alice sounded just like Britney Spears. Unread is Chris’ attempt to understand his friend’s suicide and get to the bottom of this Alice character. Could it be Britney Spears? Why did Alex send him this link and what did his letter mean? How could his friend just disappear? Chris decides to track down the elusive Alice in the hope that she will help him figure out what happened to his friend. The unread reveals itself as a mystery and merges into a beautiful portrait of the pain and secrets we hide and the constant struggle to understand each other.

Bright sessions

The Bright Sessions is a sci-fi podcast about a group of psychotherapy patients whose mental health issues intersect with their superhuman powers. The show documents their experience, even as it delves into the life of their mystery therapist, Dr. Bright, and explores why she does these sessions. Each character is perfectly isolated, so listeners get to know them for real as they change, improve, and experience setbacks. While these characters are fantastic, they feel completely real, and their struggle speaks to the turmoil of life and contemplates how we can deal with the cards we’ve been dealt.

Wolf 359

Wolf 359 follows Doug Eiffel, a crew member aboard the USS Hephaestus , orbiting the red dwarf Wolf 359, 7.8 light-years from Earth. (Don’t you feel lonely just reading this?) The more the listener learns about Eiffel and his team, the weirder and more horrific their situation seems to be, and that’s before things go wrong. Doug doesn’t have much to do and socialize, so he starts to keep extensive audio recordings of everyday events aboard the station. The position of Doug becomes more and more strange, and the position of “Hephaestus” becomes more and more terrible. Wolf 359 is smart, fascinating, sometimes hysterical and deeply sad. There is nothing similar.

36 questions

“36 Questions” is about a wife’s attempts to reunite with her estranged husband using the tool that made them fall in love on their first date: New York Times article ” 36 Questions That Lead to Love “. The episodes show the couple’s attempt to fall in love again and include songs and outstanding performances by Jonathan Groff and Jesse Shelton. The chronicle of their separation will bring tears, but things get even more emotional as they work to get back together. Share this with your partner or loved one and bring extra wipes.

sorry for the baby

How do you cope with the loss of the person you love most in the world, and how do you keep your favorite memories of him? Alex remembers everything about the day in 1990 when his brother was killed by a police car, but nothing about the time they spent together when his brother was still alive. Thirty years later, in “Baby Regret,” Alex unearths his childhood grief as he talks to family, friends, and the therapist who was there when his brother died. All this is done in order to regain these memories and learn to grieve and overcome incredible trauma.

Strangers

Lea Tau, former director of The Moth , uses her interviewing skills to tell stories of real-life magical encounters in the Peabody Award-winning film Strangers . The show explores unexpected connections between people – events and circumstances, from adultery to organ donation – that can bring us closer. These are moments when two people who seem to have nothing in common are able to see the threads that bind them. Listen, and you too may find yourself interacting with others in amazing ways and understanding things about yourself that you didn’t know before.

This article has been updated since publication to show the correct cover for “Unread”.