3 Classic Rock Leading Women From the 80s Who Can Make You Cry

The ability to summon up emotion in your audience is crucial for a performer. If you can’t get them excited, sad, happy—if you can’t get them to feel something and even express something—then you’re lost up there on stage. The greatest musicians know it, and so, they know how to get the most out of those who buy their work or come to see them play live.

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That’s what we wanted to highlight below. We wanted to examine three classic rock leading women who know how to draw the emotion out of you. Three artists who can stand at the microphone and get you to remember something, to feel something. It’s a gift and they got it. Indeed, these are three 80s classic rock leading women who can make you cry.

Cyndi Lauper

Have you ever been alone in a room and put on Cyndi Lauper’s “Time After Time”? Suddenly, you’re transported to your prom, and all of your high school friends are around you. Those people you grew up with and who you shared your youth with. You’re in a dream, and the past has come to life. Don’t you wish you could reach out and grab it? Touch the past just one more time and be young again? Wait, why are you thinking about this? Oh, right, that’s the power of Lauper’s iconic, heartfelt track. It’s totally weep-worthy.

Stevie Nicks

Stevie Nicks has a mystical quality. Her songs don’t just entertain and enliven; they are often something like spells cast over you. They envelop you, take hold of you. And that’s the case with her solo track “Edge of Seventeen” as well as many from Nicks’ former band, Fleetwood Mac. The stirring track “Edge of Seventeen” is an intense dream. You can’t help but get thoughtful and even emotional when it comes on—just like her late 70s wistful hit “Dreams” from Fleetwood Mac. Powerful stuff.

Tracy Chapman

The world got reintroduced to Tracy Chapman over the past few years thanks to her collaboration with Luke Combs and Combs’ cover version of Chapman’s tune, “Fast Car”. But it was Chapman who was singing that song in the late 80s, tugging at heartstrings and telling the story of the couple who just had to get out of their small town. One had a car, one had a little ambition. Together, they got out. But even then, it didn’t go great. Hearing Chapman tell that story, sing that song is enough for you to get nostalgic, reflective, and emotional. Grab a Kleenex!

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