Radio listeners were challenged last week when a musician ended his verse with: “And we still don't know why he cry!” Usually I'd let an underground hip-hop artist get away with claiming we don't know why we cry because we don't have all the answers. But when this musician rapped his his next line, “What does science have to say about that, huh?” I felt provoked. What does science have to say about why people cry? Was he was implying that science doesn't have much to say about it? So I decided to answer decades of similarly inquisitive songs with this article.

Rihanna contacted me by radio with this question:

“My mind is gone, I'm spinning round
And deep inside, my tears I'll drown
I'm losing grip, what's happening?” -Rihanna

Rihanna, it's quite normal to create tears when you feel as though you're “losing grip,” in fact that's the healthiest thing you can do. First of all, there's three basic reasons why we create tears. Crying can be basal tears, fiscal, psychic. Basal tears are the same tears you see in the eyes of a dog or other mammals. They're mostly for keeping the eyes lubricated but they also fight unwanted bacteria. The second type are reflexive tears, these are the tears that form after you get something in your eye like onion vapours or tear gas. But the type of tears that most artists refer to are the psychic tears. These are the type of tears people create when they become very emotional. These tears help release many of the hormones that are developed when someone becomes distressed. Have you ever felt a bit relieved after crying? That's because you're literally relieving yourself through your tears. Unlike the previously mentioned basal or reflexive tears, these psychic tears encapsulate more of the excess hormones your body has created from emotions.

This answer isn't completely satisfying to some though. As some musicians have sung me this follow-up question:

“So why do I feel so sad?
If it couldn't be that bad,
Tell me why?” -Alicia Keys.

Well, Alicia, that's a very good topic considering science still has yet to cover a lot of ground on the issue of sorrow. Still, there are a few strong theories related to the issue. One of the most notable theories is that it's a social attribute to indicate to others that we're troubled. Since our civilization is based very much on cooperation, showing signs of sadness has developed into a good way of getting others around you to help. It's usually difficult to vocally communicate our need for help so sometimes we do so by our facial expressions. Interestingly enough , our facial expressions have developed so acutely to our society that North Americans and Asians have slightly different expressions for sadness and happiness. One particular study had found that Japanese people are more subtle when expressing feelings facially than North Americans. The Japanese tend to also concentrate and represent more so on the eyes, like those cute big ones in anime, than Americans who focus more on the mouth, like the cliché yellow smiley face.

“Why am I sad today ?
Why am I on the way
Down to the limit of time
I'm sleepless tonight” -Fool's Garden

Good question, Mr. Freudenthaler. Sure, sometimes we're alone, sad and sleepless. Obviously, there's no social reason for us to be expressing our sorrow so why do we do it anyway? The reason we get sad when we're alone is due to the fact that it creates an environment for the stressed human for greater processing of information. By being put in the state of sadness humans can concentrate and analyze their situation or what made them stressed better. This, of course, is beneficial to humans since it helps give motivation on how we can rectify the sadness instead of bearing any more troubles. When humans are happy the mind's information processing is lessened, distracted and some theories believe much of it is blocked. Like that overused cliché “ignorance is bliss,” happy people may not be ignorant but are just distracted by what's positive in their lives. A person in sorrow may have lost that positive distraction or just seriously need to re-evaluate their lives before they unintentionally hurt themselves further.