Songs where male singers sympathize (or identify) with a woman's pain

Sometimes he is. There's songs where he's quite clearly singing from the POV of a woman ("The Night You Can't Remember", fer instance) Sure, you can read gay subtext into almost all of those, but I think that Merrit truly likes to approach his songs from various diferent sexual viewpoints, which is why he gets boys to sing about girls and boys to sing about boys and girls to sing about boys and girls to sing about girls.

xpost with Aaron

She cries alone at night too often
He smokes and drinks and don't come home at all
Only women bleed
Only women bleed
Only women bleed

Man makes your hair gray
He's your life's mistake
All you're really lookin' for is an even break
He lies right at you
You know you hate this game
He slaps you once in a while
And you live and love in pain

She cries alone at night too often
He smokes and drinks
And don't come home at all
Only women bleed
Only women bleed
Only women bleed
Only women bleed
Only women bleed
Only women bleed
Only women bleed

---- musical interlude ----

Man's got his woman to take his seed
He's got the power, oh, oh
She's got the need
She spends her life through pleasing up her man
She feeds him dinner or anything she can

She cries alone at night too often
He smokes and drinks and don't come home at all
Only women bleed
Only women bleed
Only women bleed

Black eyes all of the time
Don't spend a dime
Clean up this grime
And you there down on your knees
Begging me please
Come watch me bleed

Only women bleed
Only women bleed
Only women bleed
Only women bleed
Only women bleed
Only women bleed
Only women bleed

which also brings "Jane Says" in the mix

"Sheila Take A Bow"? "What She Said"?

(x-post)

Merritt said in an interview that the song's narrator is a guy singing to a girl named "Mike" after Nancy Sinatra's character in The Wild Angels. It's supposed to be a hetero song, but I suspect the confusion caused by her name being "Mike" was entirely intentional.

Also, Scott Walker's "The Amorous Humphrey Plugg"

The 28th day
She'll be bleeding again
And in lupine ways
We'll alleviate the pain

Unholy water
Sanguine addiction
Those silver bullets
A last blood benediction

It is her moon time
When there's iron in the air
A rusted essence
Woman may I know you're there

Hey wolf moon
Come cast your spell on me
Hey wolf moon
Come cast your spell on me

Don't spill a drop dear
Let me kiss the curse away
Yourself in my mouth
Will you leave me with your taste?

Beware
The woods at night
Beware
The Lunar light

So in this gray haze
We'll be meating again
And on that great day
I will tease you all the same

- Jonathan Richman - "Don't Let Our Youth Go To Waste"

Also "She Is Suffering" which is a hundred times worse.

John Prine's "Angel From Montgomery" opens with "I am an old woman."

My shakin', my sleep, my stress
My days, my night, my rest
My do's, my don'ts, my dares
And my church, my pastor, my prayers
My all, my faith, my powers
And my kitchen, my sink, my towels
My joy, my sad, my hate
And my sister, my cousin, my friends
My lights, my gas, my bills
My role, my way, my will
My hollerin', my fussin', my fights

"say hooray to the bad guy, and all the broads
puttin' cars in they name for the stars of the game
Puttin' 'caine in their bras and their tomorrows on the train
all in the name of love
Just to see that love locked in chains and the family came
over the house to take back,everything that they claimed
Or even the worst pain is the distress
learning you're the mistress only after that love gets slain
and the anger and the sorrow mixed up leads to mistrust
now it gets tough to ever love again
but the allure of the game, keeps callin' your name
To all the Lauras of the world, I feel your pain
To all the Christies in every cities and Tiffany Lanes
We all hustlers, in love with the same thing"

lots of hiphop songs about mothers in pain (as a result of poverty -ghostface's "all that i've got is you", reckless sons - parts of jay-z's "shoot 1st", "december 4th", biggie's "things done changed", absent fathers - too many to name).

She's faced the hardest times you could imagine,
And many times her eyes fought back the tears.
And when her youthful world was about to fall in
Each time her slender shoulders bore the weight of all her fears,
and her sorrow no one hears, still rings in midnight silence,
in her ears...

Let her cry, for she's a Lady
Let her dream, for she's a Child
Let the rain fall down upon her
She's a free and gentle flower, growing wild.

And if by chance, I should hold her,
Let me hold her for a time;
But if allowed just one posession,
I would pick her from the garden, to be mine.

Be careful how you touch her, for she will waken;
and sleep's the only freedom that she knows.
And when you walk into her eyes, you won't believe;
The way she's always payin' for a debt she never owed,
and the silent wind still blows, that only she can hear,
And so, she goes.

Let her cry, for she's a Lady
Let her dream, for she's a Child
Let the rain fall down upon her
She's a free and gentle flower, growing wild.

Best line: What would I see/if I could walk away from me?

no one likes looking at you
your lack of ego offends male mentality
they need your innocence
to steal vacant love and to destroy
your beauty and virginity used like toys

my mind is dead, everybody loves me
wants a slice of me
hopelessly passive and compatible
need to belong, oh the roads are scary
so hold me in your arms
i wanna be your only possession

USED! USED! USED BY MEN!

all they leave behind is money
paper made out of broken twisted trees
your pretty face offends
because it's something real that i can't touch
eyes, skin, bone, contour
language as a flower

no god reached me, faded films and loving books
black and white tv
all the world does not exist for me
and if i'm starving, you can feed me lollipops
your diet will crush me
my life just an old man's memory

little baby nothing
loveless slavery, lips kissing empty
dress your life in loathing
breaking your mind with barbie doll futility

little baby nothing
sexually free, made-up to break-up
assassinated beauty
moths broken up, quenched at last
the vermin allowed a thought to pass them by

you are pure, you are snow
we are the useless sluts that they mold
rock and roll is our epiphany
culture, alienation, boredom and despair

"That's alright, you just walk on baby...
And don't you worry about a doggone thing at all,
because there's some man somewhere
who'll take you, skinny legs and all."

"Put Another Log on the Fire" by Tompall Glaser (also versions by Waylon, Willie, etc)

A lot of people do think she sounds like a man.

then there's always "Jane Says"

I don't think any of Dylan's songs show any sympathy or identification with a woman's pain, except maybe "The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll". Songs like "Just Like A Woman" are about Dylan's contempt for the weakness of women, imho.

that's what I thought, too.

Ramona, come closer,
Shut softly your watery eyes.
The pangs of your sadness
Shall pass as your senses will rise.
The flowers of the city
Though breathlike, get deathlike at times.
And there's no use in tryin'
T' deal with the dyin',
Though I cannot explain that in lines.

Your cracked country lips,
I still wish to kiss,
As to be under the strength of your skin.
Your magnetic movements
Still capture the minutes I'm in.
But it grieves my heart, love,
To see you tryin' to be a part of
A world that just don't exist.
It's all just a dream, babe,
A vacuum, a scheme, babe,
That sucks you into feelin' like this.

I can see that your head
Has been twisted and fed
By worthless foam from the mouth.
I can tell you are torn
Between stayin' and returnin'
On back to the South.
You've been fooled into thinking
That the finishin' end is at hand.
Yet there's no one to beat you,
No one t' defeat you,
'Cept the thoughts of yourself feeling bad.

I've heard you say many times
That you're better 'n no one
And no one is better 'n you.
If you really believe that,
You know you got
Nothing to win and nothing to lose.
From fixtures and forces and friends,
Your sorrow does stem,
That hype you and type you,
Making you feel
That you must be exactly like them.

I'd forever talk to you,
But soon my words,
They would turn into a meaningless ring.
For deep in my heart
I know there is no help I can bring.
Everything passes,
Everything changes,
Just do what you think you should do.
And someday maybe,
Who knows, baby,
I'll come and be cryin' to you.

Strange as it seems/You know you can't treat a woman mean. Yes, that's strange alright.