3 Female Singers From the 70s Who Can Make You Cry

The human brain is a wild thing. Out of nowhere, some emotion can hit you and you’re floored. You’ve become a sputtering mess, slobbering onto your bedroom carpet. Sometimes that rush of emotion can come out of nowhere. Other times, it is brought on by a song or an artist. Some piece of music that you have associated with another time. That’s what we wanted to highlight here. We wanted to check out three artists who can get that rush of emotion right out of you. A trio of classic rockers from the glory days of the 1970s that know how to move you and stir your soul. Indeed, these are three female classic rock singers from the 1970s who can make you shed real tears.

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Judy Collins

In many ways, Judy Collins was the mouthpiece for the 1970s. She was the voice for so many songs by so many songwriters. They all trusted her to deliver their mood, tone, and feeling. And she did it as only she could. She was a wellspring of emotion, and she could summon the same in you. Her songs, lilting and inquisitive, could shatter the hard stone of your soul and bring in a little of the light that both opens your eyes and gets them to well.

Patti Smith

Patti Smith can get you to cry the same way the news can get you to cry. In her best work, she’s a reporter for the world right outside your window. She is telling the stories of those doing the living, the breathing, the dying, and the making. She wasn’t in it for the limelight; she was in it for the moonlight and the subway lights and the street lights. That’s why listening to her can make you remember what the real world is and how important and tactile and fleeting it all is. It’s enough to get anyone a little weepy.

Carole King

When Carole King sings, it’s like she’s reading the language scrawled down on the inside of your mind. Somehow, she’s reading it as if off a teleprompter. It’s her gift, her magic power, her superpower as one of the greatest female singers of the 70s. Her songs are of that sort that seem like they always existed. Furthermore, like they’ve always existed in you. She has that quality that some storybooks have. Those beloved tattered books that have somehow always been on your dusty shelf. It’s enough to get you feeling a little misty-eyed.

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