It’s ok. Punks have feelings too.

August 4, 2023 4:24 PM

Top 10 The Weakerthans Songs To Cry To On A Long Drive
posted by crazy with stars (21 comments total)

I would switch 1 and 2, but that's because I can on fact cry more for a cat than my own mortality.
posted by tavella at 4:27 PM on August 4, 2023 [5 favorites]

Sure, I'll even cry to Our Retired Explorer.
posted by charismatic megafauna at 4:35 PM on August 4, 2023 [3 favorites]

If you are listening to the Weakerthans you are not on a long drive. That would take too much of your time away from writing your spec script.
posted by Jessica Savitch's Coke Spoon at 4:36 PM on August 4, 2023 [2 favorites]

sometimes I play this song on the guitar. I can get through without crying maybe half the time. (yes, it's one of the cat ones)
posted by es_de_bah at 4:39 PM on August 4, 2023 [1 favorite]

Punks are sufficiently old that a Weakerthans/Propagandhi tour actually makes a certain amount of sense.
posted by East14thTaco at 4:47 PM on August 4, 2023

Lol this is my one “hey I know those guys!” moment. Kelvin High school alums represent. I love that John K. Samson was too emo to stay in Propagandhi, I love both these bands with all the vehemence of someone who got kicked in the head more than once in front of the stage at the Rendezvous circa 1988-1991. Sometimes I still run into one of them when I’m home and Chris Hannah is always nice enough to stop and chat. We’re all so grizzled.
posted by Lawn Beaver at 4:56 PM on August 4, 2023 [11 favorites]

I saw John K. Samson a few years ago and it was a strange audience. Everyone clearly loved him from their formative years and would emotionally support heckle him when he was being self deprecating. At one point someone in the audience shouted out a marriage proposal and the crowd turned on them and, as a group, informed that person that he was already married to Christine Fellows.
posted by forbiddencabinet at 5:34 PM on August 4, 2023 [4 favorites]

”Time’s Arrow” often puts a little lump in my throat.
posted by ryanshepard at 6:20 PM on August 4, 2023 [1 favorite]

If they'd included his solo stuff, this would be pretty much the whole list:

Letter in Icelandic from the Ninette San
posted by MrVisible at 6:30 PM on August 4, 2023 [2 favorites]

If you are crying to a punk song, and it's not because of the tuning, or the missed notes, or out of tune singing, you are, in fact, not crying to a punk song.

I will show myself out.
posted by evilDoug at 6:37 PM on August 4, 2023 [1 favorite]

Of the cat songs, Virtute at Rest is the one that really gets me. Not technically a Weakerthans song, but I think it should count.
posted by vibratory manner of working at 7:12 PM on August 4, 2023 [9 favorites]

I do love #1 on this list but personally, I have literally never heard "Virtute at Rest" because I read the lyrics when it came out and cried too hard ever to risk it. And it didn't even make the list! Maybe it's too small to qualify. (On preview: oh right, vibratory manner of working explained it!)

If you are crying to a punk song, and it's not because of the tuning, or the missed notes, or out of tune singing, you are, in fact, not crying to a punk song.

That's the idea. The Weakerthans aren't punk! The author is contending that they're the music punks listen to when they want to cry a lot.
posted by babelfish at 7:13 PM on August 4, 2023 [4 favorites]

I can't count the number of times I listened to "Aside" during my hormone-addled adolescence.
posted by signsofrain at 8:11 PM on August 4, 2023

I am in this picture, and I do not like it. I mean, I love the Weakerthans and his solo work, but.. I have cried to most of these songs.
posted by Alterscape at 9:04 PM on August 4, 2023

Wait, are we saying that My Favorite Chords is not punk? That can't be!
posted by Balna Watya at 9:52 PM on August 4, 2023 [2 favorites]

I don't have time to listen to the real sad Weakerthans songs because I'm too busy listening to their amazing curling-themed slightly sad song on repeat, because it's just perfection
posted by jason_steakums at 11:02 PM on August 4, 2023 [3 favorites]

Bless Samson, was not into The Weakerthans as much as my peers, but count the first two Propagandhi albums as formative. Will always have a soft spot for Letter of Resignation. Speaking of latter Propagandhi, it seems without sensitive forces guitar wank creeps like carcinization into metal
posted by Brainstorming Time! at 11:17 PM on August 4, 2023

Speaking of latter Propagandhi, it seems without sensitive forces guitar wank creeps like carcinization into metal

Latter day Propagandhi is plenty sensitive though. And they're a better band today than ever, I'd argue!
posted by kensington314 at 12:50 AM on August 5, 2023 [2 favorites]

Huh. We lost contact about 20 years ago, but I was pretty close friends with Christine Fellows back in our treeplanting days, and for some years after. And now that I think about it I do seem to recall being told she married the Weakerthans/Propagandhi guy.

I have a weak but nagging sense that I saw the Weakerthans (maybe Propagandhi too) but, for whatever reasons, they were just outside of my preferences at the time.
posted by house-goblin at 1:08 AM on August 5, 2023 [2 favorites]

Trying to limit yourself to just 10 seems very hard.
posted by 3j0hn at 8:15 AM on August 5, 2023

Sun in an empty room is such a spot-on rendering of that moving moving feeling.
posted by umbú at 11:21 AM on August 5, 2023 [4 favorites]