“Cry to Me”: This Soul Classic Just Might Be a Tongue-in-Cheek, Beautifully Disguised Pride Anthem (2025)

“Loneliness, loneliness, such a waste of time …”

Music — that infinitely potent cocktail of melody, harmony, cadence, and nuanced outputs of the amplified vocal cord — conveys raw emotion and elicits visceral reaction. It has the ability to overrule logic, and make us feel, empathize, understand — even if the underlying lyrics are rudimentary, ambiguous or downright nonsensical. (Think of most McCartney/Lennon compositions.)

Sound trumps word.

Then there are those times when a closer pondering of a song’s lyrics yields unexpected discoveries, and deepens our appreciation of the songwriter.

As writers and poets, we often engage in this retrospective, “secondary" inspection, sometimes within minutes, sometimes many years after we first hearaparticular song. When the prolonged high of the initial (and second and third) infusion of that wonderful drug finally wearsoff, sending us in search of new and novel ways to derive pleasure from the same art. Or when a friend, or perhaps an essay, explicitly prompts us to give closer scrutiny to the lyrics.

I could have chosen from among many songs to illustrate this point. I’m going with “Cry to Me”, written and composed by Bert Berns. Berns was a New York-born, Juilliard-educated songwriterandproducer, the son Russian Jewish immigrants, with a strong affinity for African American and Latino music.

Berns wrote and offered “Cry to Me” to Solomon Burke, a singer several years his junior, who had by then made a name for himself on the gospel scene. Burke signed with Apollo Records in the mid-1950s, and later with Atlantic Records, where he was introduced to Berns. The two recorded “Cry to Me” in 1961. The song hit the air waves in 1962, and peaked at number five on the R&B charts.

Let’s look at the first few lines of the tune:

When your baby — leaves you all alone
And nobody — calls you on the phone
Don’t you feel like crying?
Don’t you feel like crying?

Our initial impression is of an individual in a melancholy, self-pitying moment, perhaps on the heels of a recent breakup. Burke’s impressive range and melismatic technique are on full display, underscoring the emotionally charged sentimentality of the song.

The listener naturally assumes that the singer is speaking about himself, describing his own lonely state of mind.

Nothing surprising here.

Not yet.

The next two lines turn the narrative on its head:

Well, here I am, my honey
C’mon, cry to me

Whoa.

The dynamics change as soon as we realize that there not one but two parties, engaged insomesortofdialogue.Thesongisnolongersimplybeingsungbysomeone — itisbeingsungtosomeone. The role of the speaker shifts from sad, abandoned lover, to someone who steps in to console.

This shift in perspective also brings about a subtle change in the tone of the song. The line “Well, here I am, honey” sparkles with confidence and promise, of brighter days ahead. It sounds opportunistic, in fact. The speaker has entered the scene not merely to console, but perhaps to take the place of the former lover? The playful use of “honey” certainly hints at this.

Another aspect of this dynamic that we now have to grapple with and try to sort out is the genders of the participants.

There are no gender-specific pronouns in the first six lines — all we have to go on is “your baby” and “here I am” — but as consumers of pop songs, we have been conditioned to interpret the lyrics through heteronormative filters. Times and attitudes have changed, but certainly this would have been the case in the early 1960s. So, if we assume that the speaker is a man, then his “honey” must be a woman, right?

Let’s move on to the next verse, which provides additional clues, and yet another surprising twist in the narrative.

Here is the second verse in its entirety:

When you’re all alone — in your lonely room
And there’s nothing — but the smell of her perfume
Don’t you feel like crying?
Don’t you feel like crying?
Don’t you feel like crying?
C’mon, c’mon, cry to me

Here we have a first indication that a female (“her”) is part of the narrative. The familiar trope of the scent of perfume reinforces this.

Now, if “she” was the one who left, then is “honey” a guy? If so, then is the singer consoling (and possibly offering a rebound relationship) to a male companion? Yes, that is one plausible scenario. Alternately, if “she” and “honey” were both women, then they were in a same-sex relationship, and the singer is now approaching “honey” with the hope that she might be interested in pivoting to a relationship with him.

Then there is yet another interpretation of all this. “Honey” could be a woman who picked up the scent of yet another woman (a fourth person) on her boyfriend, the boyfriend who has since gone missing. I am going to discount this scenario, as it feels contrived just for the sake of keeping the whole cast “straight”.

Let me go out on a limb and say that this song is (or can be interpreted as) a Pride anthem. A beautiful, thought-provoking, defiant Pride anthem.

Not because the song is definitely portraying a gay man/men. Not because “honey” could be seen as a bisexual woman moving from a lesbian lover to a newheteroreboundrelationship. As we’ve seen, all of these variations are all possible. The narrativemayportrayalovetriangle,oranevenmorecomplicated lovequadrangle.

It is precisely the ambiguity, the seductive playfulness of the words and their delivery which make the song a proud celebration of diversity, of the challenging of traditional boundaries, of love and desire overcoming societal constraints.

I will take a quick aside to note that if you were born after 1965, then very likely you first heard the song “Cry to Me” in the hugely successful and iconic 1987 film “Dirty Dancing”. Specifically, this song starts playing on a crackling record player during the steamy scene when Jennifer Grey and Patrick Swayze consummate their summertime romance. The audience is therefore too preoccupied with the anticipation of when Johnny might begin to remove Baby’s white blouse to pay much attention to the lyrics of the song playing in the background.

I will admit, so was I — which is why I’m writing this now, well over three decades after I first saw the movie, salivated over the scene, and heard the song.

One more cultural footnote, if I may: Solomon Burke fathered 21 children during his lifetime. I am not suggesting that he was either gay or a crusader for LGBTQ rights (self-appointed or accidental, closeted or otherwise). What he was, was a top-notch singer and entertainer, a wizard of phrasing and stagepresence.

Berns, the composer, was also married and had three children by the time he tragically died of heart failure at the age of 38. He penned many other classics, including “Twist and Shout,” “Brown-Eyed Girl,” and “Here Comes the Night” — none of these lyrics offer up nuanced sexual ambiguity on par with “Cry to Me”.

I’ve based the interpretive musings above on just the first two verses of the song. Twelve short lines.

But wait, there’s more.

Here is the final verse:

Whoa, nothing can be sadder than a glass of wine alone
Loneliness, loneliness, such a waste of time, whoa yeah
You don’t ever have to walk alone, you see
Come take my hand, and baby, won’t you walk with me?

The singer reiterates his earlier message, that being lonely isn’t the only option, that there are better times ahead. His tone remains hopeful and defiant.

But there is a definitive shift here. His delivery is more elevated, more oratory. “You don’t ever have to walk alone” sounds like something a preacher might sermonize to his congregation on a Sunday morning. (Burke was, after all, known honorifically as “the Bishop of Soul”.) The line carries echoes of "Just a Closer Walk With Thee”, the gospel hymn covered by so many great artists from Mahalia Jackson to Patsy Cline, Willie Nelson to Eric Clapton.

In the final analysis, it is this duality — of pious spirituality and sexual tension, of pure devotion and forbidden desire — that lifts thesong’s lyricstogreatness. The same duality which makes the genre of soul / R&B great. The depth of emotion and the possibilities behind the words are a seductive spiral staircase, a rabbit hole that we irresistibly descend, time and time again.