It’s a rare gift to write a song that gets billions of streams. It’s a rarer gift to be able to write a sad song that makes it around the globe. And it’s an even rarer gift to write a sad song that gets billions of streams that also makes other people want to sing along. There really may be only one artist on Earth today who can do all those things. That person? Adele.
Adele, with her big, powerful voice and her knack for writing choruses that seep into our souls, is the kind of artist who can write songs that make the world want to cry and yet also make her giant audience want to join arm-in-arm and belt out a tune. Below, we wanted to explore three Adele songs that make us cry like babies and sing like chorus members.
“Someone Like You” from ’21’ (2011)
Perhaps the saddest song of all time, this is a heartbreaking number about splitting up with someone. But the singer is so deeply in love with that other person that they know, even despite the split, that they will look for someone else with the same qualities as their now-ex. Adele sounds so broken on this track. Indeed, it’s the sign of a great performer. Her delivery on the 2011 offering just brings a tear to your eye, especially if you know the pain of losing someone you never wanted to let slip through your fingers.
“Hello” from ’25’ (2015)
This song is almost the spiritual follow-up to the one above. After a breakup, after being apart, the singer is trying to reconnect with the one that got away. She’s calling to establish a connection, but a connection can’t be made. This tune perhaps displays Adele’s whopper of a voice better than any track she’s released. It’s like a sonic mountain grows out of the music. She swells like Mother Nature, looking to reconnect with her long-lost love.
“When We Were Young” from ’25’ (2015)
Another song from Adele’s 2015 LP, this song shows Adele in a familiar place: with her emotions on her sleeve. She even cites the “someone I used to know” line in this track, which she released some four years after the 2011 tune mentioned above. There is deep nostalgia in Adele’s voice. She sings about the passing of time, of knowing that getting older changes things. Youth slips through hands like sand through an hourglass. And this song sums that reality up in just a few emotive minutes. Keep the Kleenex close!
Photo by Brian J Ritchie/Hot Sauce/Shutterstock
