Thank you, Mike! This is always a nice honor.

And what a classic from the middle of the 1980s! This is a song that was made a much bigger deal due to the accompanying video more than a lot of others. Don’t get me wrong. The song, itself, is unforgettable. But the video is even more unforgettable. I consider the 1980s the heyday of the music videos age.

I agree strongly, Larry!

I thought the actual music from the 1970's/early 80's was the best, most creative, innovative but maybe the time frame for each person corresponds to our age growing up, which determines the environment of the music during that age when our minds were embracing music for the first time!

I had numerous surges in my love of music that corresponded to:

1. Embracing a new type of music from the great composers of sound tracks for movies.

2. Embracing a new type of music from my sons love of alternative music

3. Using the internet to access millions of times more music at our fingertips than the 1970's, when you had to listen to the radio or go to a music store(or your friends house). In 2026, I go back and listen to all those cherished songs in the 1970's and much more. 

4. I also appreciated the music of the 80's/90s and can appreciate many other types but the 3 above had some of the biggest impact. Enya is a perfect example of music that my wife and I both fell in love with in the 1990's and you also love. 

Interestingly, 2 of my favorite albums ever came from Genesis BEFORE Phil Collins became the headline marketing artist with a change in the type of music from leaders in progressive rock genesis to much more mainstream to make more money(which worked). 

Genesis (band)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genesis_(band)

+++++++++++

The musical instruments in certain powerful songs have an incredible impact on me. I will break out in tears during parts of a song that has sad chords with lots of sharps and flats in harmonies. 

A couple of week ago, when I was doing this, my wife kept asking "are you ok? are you ok?" because I was sobbing so hard. 

This has never happened to her.  It's never the words, only the instrumental arrangements. Always the same thing with alot of sharps, flats, harmonies and different instruments, sometime unconventional ones.

I don't think that this can be learned but it seems to be more powerful as I get older and listen to more music. 

Two types of peak emotional responses to music: The psychophysiology of chills and tears

https://www.nature.com/articles/srep46063

++++++++++++++

I'll give you and example. I had never heard this song before even though its from a group that I liked in the 1970's. I stumbled on them last month and for the first time, sampled ALL their music online, like I will often do when I stumble on a song that I really like(listen to their other stuff).

I didn't necessarily love most of their stuff but when this song started playing, I was literally saying out loud, OMG! as I cried uncontrollably several times, during different parts with my wife asking, "are you ok?"

                                   King Crimson - Epitaph (Including "March For No Reason" and "Tomorrow And Tomorrow")    

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vXrpFxHfppI

+++++++++=

My favorite part starts just after the 3:30 mark, it leads up to the section when the low sax's come in with overwhelming power, along with a flute harmony.

The gifted composers clearly intended to maximize the impact of sadness demonstrated instrumentally. They chose those instruments, chords and relationship to each other together in a way that's profound. My mind is just extraordinarily sensitive to this. 

But the thing is that its doesn't make me sad in the same way that sadness causes a person to be depressed.  It's like tricking my brain to be overwhelmed in the same way that it would be from experiencing the profound loss of a loved one, while at the same time being completely conscious of the fact that its purely the music causing this, not a personal loss. 

We will cry sometimes during movies too, when we know its not real. This is also a not real realization but it comes from a completely different source. NOT humans experiencing sad or happy things from a powerful human experience.

Its purely from the unique instrumentation as in this song.

There are parts of Dances with wolves, especially when the french horns come in that cause this. It's a much more uplifting, powerful instrumentation with those french horn. 

The ending is my favorite. If I haven't heard it in a while I'll cry a bit.

Farewell / End Title (From "Dance with Wolves" Soundtrack)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1IEG2ZbLRCg

++++++++++

There was a promotion on one of our local tv stations 30+ years ago that had this music, before the internet. So I called the station and talked to Master Control that played it and asked where the music came from.

"Dancing with wolves"

So I went to the music store that evening to buy the CD!

That turned my on to composer John Barry, which started a lifetime of listening to this type of music. Nobody in history used french horns better than John Barry.  Hans Zimmer is another of my many favorites.