The song Phil Collins says always makes him cry

In his solo career, Genesis drummer and singer Phil Collins wrote some of the biggest hits of all time about love and breakups. Especially on his early albums, he was deeply influenced by his divorce, which was clearly reflected in the lyrics.

Those songs moved millions of people around the world over the past decades, often making listeners shed tears because of their personal connection to the music or the situations they were experiencing at the time. It takes a sensitive artist to write songs of that kind and Collins himself is also emotionally affected when listening to other people’s music. He once revealed which song is the one that always makes him cry.

The song Phil Collins says always makes him cry

“To be honest with you I can cry at the drop of a hat with a good piece of music. I have to be honest and say that I don’t know what the last piece of music was that made me cry but I always fill up whenever I hear ‘I Can’t Make You Love Me’ by Bonnie Raitt,” he told UK Music Reviews. He also had praised that track in an interview with Sirius XM, revealing why it meant so much to him. “I was surfing the TV for no apparent reason. It was like in the middle of the afternoon but I was going through the TV stations. I came across this shadowy figure playing piano and straight away I recognized as Bruce Hornsby so I stayed. So I just said: ‘What’s this? I don’t know this song.'”

“Then Bonnie Raitt’s voice came in and I just melted pretty much there and then. I just thought that that song, the lyrics of that song are just the best… You know, if you’re going through something, that is the perfect way of putting it. (The lyrics are) tough, The first line said ‘Turn down the lights. Turn down the bed’, that’s a great line. It’s a song you just think: ‘Man, that was circling around the ethos and I missed it’. Other people have done, but I’ve never heard anybody do it like she does.”

Phil Collins continued:

“It’s just a beautiful little piece of music. I’ve played it thousands of times, you know, should I feel better? (I go) ‘Noooo, put the record on again!’ It’s so emotional for me. When my marriage was breaking up, my third marriage was breaking up, I was in New York writing a musical and I had no choice, really. I mean, I realized straight away, I started rehearsing December 27th, just straight after Christmas. I remember that the more I was here I had to stay here and write this thing, because they were saying ‘We need a new song.'”

“I’d go back to my hotel room and write something, coming in the next day. It would be just like a black & white Hollywood musical, with pages coming off the calendar. It was great fun but it was unfortunate timing. So I was here when a lot of emotion was going on and I just played that song over and over and over again. Because you know, there’s no talking your way back, you know, ‘I’ll feel the love and you won’t’. That’s the way it is, it’s unbelievable,” Phil Collins said in 2011 (Transcribed by Rock and Roll Garage).

Collins said that once you break-up with someone you realize most of the songs are about that

Most songs are written about love, something everyone in the world can relate to, what makes it easier for them to become worldwide hits, bringing more fame and money to artists and record companies. However, lyrics are not the only element that captures the listener, who is also drawn in by the melody, which often causes many music fans to realize that a song is about a breakup only when they are actually going through one themselves. In an interview on the podcast “This American Life“, Collins explained this, mentioning the Bonnie Raitt track he loves.

“The song was written by Mike Reid and Alan Shamblin after they read this little article in the newspaper about a guy who’d gotten drunk and shot up his girlfriend’s car. At his sentencing, he was asked if he learned any lessons from what he’d done, and he said: ‘Yes, you can’t make a woman love you if she don’t’. (Like the lyrics) ‘I can’t make you love me if you don’t.'”

He continued:

“Before the breakup, I had no idea how much breakup music was out there. For example, every song ever written, or at least every third. But once you’re heartbroken, you notice it everywhere. You find yourself in the supermarket listening to a song you’ve heard before but never really heard, thinking to yourself, It’s just so true,” Phil Collins said.

“I Can’t Make You Love Me’ was featured on Bonnie Raitt’s 1991 album “Luck of the Draw”. She co-produced the track with Don Was and Bruce Hornsby provided the piano accompaniment. Were also part of the song the drummer Tony Braunagel and longtime Bonnie Raitt bassist James “Hutch” Hutchinson.

Bonnie was born in Burbank, California back in 1949 and is two years older than Collins. Besides a very praised and successful career, she had also collaborated over the years with other artists. Some of them are Warren Zevon, Little Feat, Jackson Browne, Pointer Sisters, John Prine and Leon Russell.

By 2025, she had received 13 competitive Grammy Awards and had been nominated 31 times. She was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2000, while Collins has yet to be inducted as a solo artist. He was inducted only as a member of Genesis, in 2010.