Most Depressing Songs Ever?
(taken from here)
So I was exercising with my ipod on shuffle and a cool little Eels song came up. Oh, what a cool little Eels song, thought I with the innocence of an ex-marmot. Then I started actually listening to the lyrics. Not only is the song depressing in a casual, general way…it’s kind of gross. (See below.)
Curious as to what you’d describe as the most depressing songs ever? Examples of lyrics, please. (BTW–when searching for appropriate image, this is too funny.)
Jeff
It’s a beautiful morning
The sky is black as ink
The city’s sleeping still
And soon they’ll wake up
To the stink
And soon they’ll wake up
To the stink of life passing them by
Wake up and smell the stink of their lives
The garbage trucks are coming
To take your shit to the dump
You’re smelling pretty now
Such a pretty little lump
A pretty little lump of flesh
Who’s lost your way
Another night another day
…etc.
- The Other Shoe
March 17, 2009 at 6:57 pm
Hard to beat the whole of Lou Reed’s Berlin album which includes The Bed:
This is the place where she lay her head
when she went to bed at night
And this is the place our children were conceived
candles lit the room brightly at night
And this is the place where she cut her wrists
that odd and fateful night
My favourite lyrics in the depressing-as-sublime mode would be those for the track Starless by King Crimson, last piece on their Red album which is a masterpiece (and one of Kurt Cobain’s favourites). Music for the heat death of the universe. The phrase “Starless and bible black” is from Dylan Thomas. And you really need to hear the music…
Sundown dazzling day
Gold through my eyes
But my eyes turned within
Only see
Starless and bible black
Old friend charity
Cruel twisted smile
And the smile signals emptiness
For me
Starless and bible black
Ice blue silver sky
Fades into grey
To a grey hope that omens to be
Starless and bible black
March 17, 2009 at 6:58 pm
This one always gets to me:
Dissapoint
by Assemblage 23
Just one more time
For the sake of sanity
Tell me why
Explain the gravity
That drove you to this
That brought you to this place
That pushed you down
Into the soil’s embrace
Give me the chance
I was denied
To sit and talk with you
For one last time
CHORUS
Did I disappoint you?
Did I let you down?
Did I stand on the shore
And watch you as you drowned?
Can you forgive me?
I never knew
The pain you carried
Deep inside of you.
I can’t forget
Having to see
The words that knocked the wind
Right out of me
It’s not enough
I’ve come undone
Trying to find sense
Where there is none
Just give me peace
You owe me that
To help ward off the fears
I must combat
(CH)
And so I ask
For one more chance
To understand
This senseless circumstance
Help me to see
This through your eyes
The reasons I’ve been trying
To surmise
Though you are gone
I am still your son
And while your pain is over
Mine has just begun
(CH)
March 17, 2009 at 7:21 pm
Unsure whether this is a contender for “most depressing” but still…
Buck 65: Corrugated Tin Facade (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MXQehR_0_Jc)
“Look at this mess
He thought he was cheatin’ God
She leaves in the autumn
His face like a beaten dog
Now he’s become everything that you hate
He’s just in time to be too late
His friends are like snowflakes
His lies are confessions
Behold the old man
and his ruined possessions
He can’t play guitar but he does try very hard
Pens from hotel rooms, old library card
Photos and whatnot, blood in his boots
Sun in his eyes, an achor instead of roots
Clocks on every wall, fish in the ocean
Solitude, faith, suspicion, commotion
The hole in his stomach tastes like words
He dreams and imagines his face like hers
He knows he can’t live without his greatest fears
And nothing’s more beautiful than a woman’s tears…
Cardboard boxes full of regrets
He feeds his remorse like you feed your pets
Voices in his head that all said, “live a day” but
The look in his eyes makes him a dead giveaway
The bough that he breaks, the line that he draws
He fell in love with the ugliness that nobody saw
As close as he came, as far as he stood,
He loved her with his mouth as hard as he could
Most people change when they enter the door
They walk home from work and remember the war
He’s digging a ditch, and spent the day piling
Dirt until it hurt and went away smiling
Alone and heartbroken, just the way he likes it
Only the loneliness knows him wholly
And nothing seems to work, wrong everywhere
He watches her brushing her long, heavy hair”
I particularly like the lines “Most people change when they enter the door / they walk home from work and remember the war”. ‘Out of Focus’ is another great, if quite depressing, song by Buck.
March 17, 2009 at 7:27 pm
“Daisy Glaze” by Big Star is a (pretty much) happy-sounding, pretty pop song (and a beautiful one at that–I highly recommend it) but these are the words:
I’m drivin’ alone, sad about you
Not goin’ home, what’s to do
You better not leave me here
Better not leave me here
Ooh, I want you here
How can you leave me here
I lie in the stream, I’m floating fine
Receiving things in my beautiful mind
Sometime drags, sometime, sometime, so sublime
Lover, yes I am, lover, you know I am
Now I’m in a bar, it’s gotta be where they are
Gonna dance in the bar, they’re gonna fight on the floor
Faster than I can see
Now I’m gonna score, break for the door
who is this whore
Soon be beggin drags
And I’m thinking, Christ
Nullify my life, nullify my life
You’re gonna die, yes, you’re gonna die
Right now
You’re gonna die, gonna decease
March 17, 2009 at 7:52 pm
“Time” from Pink Floyd’s “Dark Side of the Moon” album is pretty darn depressing.
Time
(Mason, Waters, Wright, Gilmour) 7:06
Ticking away the moments that make up a dull day
You fritter and waste the hours in an offhand way.
Kicking around on a piece of ground in your home town
Waiting for someone or something to show you the way.
Tired of lying in the sunshine staying home to watch the rain.
You are young and life is long and there is time to kill today.
And then one day you find ten years have got behind you.
No one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun.
So you run and you run to catch up with the sun but it’s sinking
Racing around to come up behind you again.
The sun is the same in a relative way but you’re older,
Shorter of breath and one day closer to death.
Every year is getting shorter never seem to find the time.
Plans that either come to naught or half a page of scribbled lines
Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way
The time is gone, the song is over,
Thought I’d something more to say.
I liked it more when I was 19 than I do now.
March 17, 2009 at 8:12 pm
There was actually an entire depressing subgenre in the fifties of teenage death songs. “Patches”, for instance. Horrible stuff. Not just really depressing, but shamelessly pap about it, straight for operatic emotion.
I think the genre is going to come back, though, and I’m writing songs right now for my teen idol stardom singing about all the awful ways teens can die. I’m going to update their deaths, though, for a modern era. They will all die because they were stupid, or because they had sex, or – for the really good ones – because they had stupid sex.
March 17, 2009 at 8:38 pm
Warren Zevon, “My Shit’s Fucked Up”
Well, I went to the doctor
I said, “I’m feeling kind of rough”
He said, “I’ll break it to you, son [Warren sings, "Let me break it to you, son"]
Your shit’s fucked up.”
I said, “my shit’s fucked up?”
Well, I don’t see how-”
He said, “The shit that used to work-
It won’t work now.”
I had a dream
Ah, shucks, oh, well
Now it’s all fucked up
It’s shot to hell
Yeah, yeah, my shit’s fucked up
It has to happen to the best of us
The rich folks suffer like the rest of us
It’ll happen to you
That amazing grace
Sort of passed you by
You wake up every day
And you start to cry
Yeah, you want to die
But you just can’t quit
Let me break it on down:
It’s the fucked up shit
March 17, 2009 at 8:52 pm
I’ve got two. Is that allowed? I’m going forward anyway :)
First is another from The Eels, It’s a Motherf*cker.
It’s a motherfucker being here without you
Thinkin’ ’bout the good times, thinkin’ ’bout the bad
And I won’t ever be the same
The other is The Verve, Freshmen.
We’ve tried to wash our hands of all this
We never talk of our lacking relationships
And how we’re guilt-stricken, sobbing
With our heads on the floor
We fell through the ice when we tried not to slip
We’d say …
I can’t be held responsible
‘Cause she was touching her face
I won’t be held responsible
She fell in love in the first place
March 17, 2009 at 10:08 pm
When I was in Montreal, a TV crew was wandering around looking for people who knew Leonard Cohen lyrics, so I wound up being broadcast across the Great White North singing “Sisters of Mercy”:
And you won’t make me jealous
If I hear that they’ve sweetened your nights
We weren’t lovers like that
And besides it would still be all right
I’ve always thought those were among the saddest lyrics ever written, masking a world of envy and pain. Probably just me, though. Leonard may well have been playing it straight.
March 17, 2009 at 10:23 pm
Really? That sounds like true love on the part of the singer.
Jeff
March 17, 2009 at 10:46 pm
Oh……how could I forget Swans and the laugh-riot which is FAILURE. Benefits a great deal from Michael Gira’s lugubrious delivery.
I, I’ve been lonely
And I, I’ve been blind
And I, I’ve learned nothing
So my hands are firmly tied
To the sinking leadweight
of failure
I’ve worked hard all my life
Money slips through my hands
My face in the mirror tells me
It’s no surprise that I’m
Pushing the stone up the hill
of failure
They tempt me with violence
They punish me with ideals
And they crush me with an image of my
life that’s nothing but unreal
Except on the goddamned slaveship
of failure
I’ll drown here trying
to get up for some air
But each time I think I breathe
I’m laid on with a double share
of the punishing burden
of failure
I don’t deserve to be down here
But I’ll never leave
And I’ve learned one thing
You can’t escape the beast
In the null and void pit
of failure
When I get my hands on some money
I’ll kiss it’s green skin
And I’ll ask it’s dirty face
“Where the hell have you been?”
“I am the fuel that fires the engine
of failure.”
I’ll be old and broken down
I’ll forget who and where I am
I’ll be senile or forgotten
But I’ll remember and understand
You can bank your hard-earned money
on failure
I saw my father crying
I saw my mother break her hand
On a wall that wouldn’t weep
But that certainly held in
The mechanical moans of a dying man
Who was a failure
My back hurts me when I bend
Because I carry a load
My brain hurts me like a knife-hole
Because I’ve yet to be shown
How to pull myself out from
The sucking quicksand
of failure
Some people live in hell
Many bastards succeed
But I, I’ve learned nothing
I can’t even elegantly bleed
Out the poison blood
of failure
March 17, 2009 at 11:12 pm
I have a ton of sad songs, but mostly they aren’t depressing per se, just melancholy.
However, old Tom has one that never fails to leave me crushed.
Cold was the night, hard was the ground
They found her in a small grove of trees
Lonesome was the place where Georgia was found
She’s too young to be out
On the street.
Why wasn’t God watching?
Why wasn’t God listening?
Why wasn’t God there for
Georgia Lee?
Ida said she couldn’t keep Georgia
From dropping out of school
I was doing the best that I could
But she kept running away from this world
These children are so hard to raise good
Why wasn’t God watching?
Why wasn’t God listening?
Why wasn’t God there for
Georgia Lee?
Close your eyes and count to ten
I will go and hide but then
Be sure to find me. I want you to find me
And we’ll play all over
We will play all over again
There’s a toad in the witch grass
There’s a crow in the corn
Wild flowers on a cross by the road
And somewhere a baby is crying
For her mom
As the hills turn from green back
To gold
Why wasn’t God watching?
Why wasn’t God listening?
Why wasn’t God there for
Georgia Lee?
March 17, 2009 at 11:37 pm
Townes Van Zandt was the master poet of depressing though uplifting songs.
Waiting Round to Die is one of my favorites:
Sometimes I don’t know where this dirty road is taking me
Sometimes I can’t even see the reason why
I guess I keep on gamblin’, lots of booze and lots of ramblin’
It’s easier than just a-waitin’ ’round to die
One-time friends I had a ma, I even had a pa
He beat her with a belt once cause she cried
She told him to take care of me, she headed down to Tennessee
It’s easier than just a-waitin’ ’round to die
I came of age and found a girl in a Tuscaloosa bar
She cleaned me out and hit it on the sly
I tried to kill the pain, I bought some wine and hopped a train
Seemed easier than just a-waitin’ ’round to die
A friend said he knew where some easy money was
We robbed a man and brother did we fly
The posse caught up with me, drug me back to Muskogee
It’s two long years, just a-waitin’ ’round to die
Now I’m out of prison, I got me a friend at last
He don’t steal or cheat or drink or lie
His name’s codeine, he’s the nicest thing I’ve seen
Together we’re gonna wait around and die
March 18, 2009 at 12:16 am
Almost anything off of Annie Lennox’s “Songs of Mass Destruction” CD. I can’t listen to it in its entirety, or I get damn near suicidal. It sucks my soul right from me.
March 18, 2009 at 12:44 am
Here is one with a tell-tale title ‘Everything is Sorrow’ by The Boo Radleys
And you know you shouldn’t have another cigarette but
Nothing else makes sense, nothing else will recompense
And you get your loneliness out of a magazine, you never
Felt nothing at all, no-one else will ever know another one
Has dragged you home and sworn that you’re the only
One you dream they’ll play a special part you’ll write their
Name across your heart but then it’s back inside your
Head the thought that it will turn out bad a fleeting
Glimpse of what is bound to be. Now the phone has lost
Its voice you’re on your own again spend your time on
Endless bedroom floor soliloquies the only voices youll
Hear all day will it always be this way (yes) once you
Recognise the truth that all is sad and youre the proof you
Might as well fight the day kick back at the pricks that say
All is school and work no more break your back it’s not
Your war disengage the only way to win opened up my
Paintbox it had all turned to blue I worked in birkenhead
For you it brings me tears even now you tried to kill me
Break my will you almost won I hate you still the hated
Suffer not whats worse the hater carries round the curse it
Eats me up the cancer that is you. Don’t paint blue all the
Time know the truth read the signs live your life as a lie
You don’t have to die.
March 18, 2009 at 1:00 am
I’m a sucker for sad songs.
Ray Lamontagne has a couple of great depressing songs.
“Jolene”
Cocaine flame in my bloodstream
Sold my coat when I hit Spokane
Bought myself a hard pack of cigarettes in the early morning rain
Lately my hands they don’t feel like mine
My eyes been stung with dust, I’m blind
Held you in my arms one time
Lost you just the same
Jolene
I ain’t about to go straight
It’s too late
I found myself face down in the ditch
Booze on my hair
Blood on my lips
A picture of you, holding a picture of me
in the pocket of my blue jeans
Still don’t know what love means
Still don’t know what love means
Jolene
Ah, La, La, La, La, La
Jolene
Been so long since I seen your face
or felt a part of this human race
I’ve been living out of this here suitcase for way too long
A man needs something he can hold onto
A nine pound hammer or a woman like you
Either one of them things will do
Jolene
I ain’t about to go straight
It’s too late
I found myself face down in the ditch
Booze in my hair
Blood on my lips
A picture of you, holding a picture of me
In the pocket of my blue jeans
Still don’t know what love means
Still don’t know what love means
Jolene
La, La, La, La, La, La, La
Jolene
La, La, La, La, La, La, La
Jolene
March 18, 2009 at 4:13 am
Mr. Coulthart, you have excellent taste.
Anne – Is that the same “Jolene” as the Dolly Parton song? (You also have excellent taste, by the way. TVZ = brilliant.)
From an old blog post about sad songs:
http://junkiesthievesandcrazies.blogspot.com/2008/04/sad-songs.html
——-
Nick Cave – Long Time Man
It’s a fairly typical murder ballad until you get these lines, “She looked up at me and began to smile/She said, ‘Baby, I love you’/Then she closed her baby blue eyesâ€, and you can almost feel sorry for the wife-killing protagonist. Almost.
Johnny Cash and June Carter – If I Were A Carpenter
Because when they sang this song they meant it. Absolutely and completely
John Parrish and PJ Harvey – That Was My Veil
“Was she a pretty girl/Did she have pretty hair/Was she soft spoken/Was there a love there?†And you go, “Polly, what are you doing to me?â€
Mark Lanegan Band – Wedding Dress
“Would you put on that long white gown/And burn like there’s no more tomorrows?/Will you walk with me underground/And forgive all my sicknesses and my sorrows?/Will you be shamed if I shake like I’m dying/When I fall to my knees and I’m crying/Will you visit me where my body rests/Will you put on that long white dress?†…and everyone knows she won’t. That the backing vox are done by Lanegan’s ex-wife, well…
Radiohead – Lucky
The odd one out on my list. I don’t particularly like Radiohead, but I can get behind this song. “It’s going to be a glorious day,†everyone knows it’s not.
Tindersticks – Traveling Light
Almost any Tindersticks song would work here. They don’t call them miserablists for nothing.
——–
Tom L. gave us a list too…
http://junkiesthievesandcrazies.blogspot.com/2008/05/thomas-ligotti-knows-sad-songs.html
March 18, 2009 at 5:48 am
Neddal, No it’s a completely different Jolene, though Dolly’s Jolene could also qualify I suppose.
March 18, 2009 at 7:13 am
There’s a great book called
I Hate Myself And Want To Die: The 52 Most Depressing Songs You’ve Ever Heard. The author draws a useful distinction between sad and depressing. ‘Hurt’ by Johnny Cash: sad. ‘Hurt’ by NIN: depressing.
The saddest song I know is Eric Bogle’s ‘And The Band Played Waltzing Matilda’ (memorably covered by the Pogues on Rum, Sodomy and the Lash) but it’s moving rather than depressing.
So they gathered the crippled, the wounded, the maimed,
And they shipped us back home to Australia.
The armless, the legless, the blind, the insane,
Those proud wounded heroes of Suvla.
And as our ship sailed into Circular Quay,
I looked at the place where me legs used to be,
And thanked Christ there was nobody waiting for me,
To grieve, to mourn and to pity.
March 18, 2009 at 7:46 am
Neddal: Tindersticks! One o’ my favorites.
March 18, 2009 at 7:47 am
John: This might be my favorite line ever: “My brain hurts me like a knife-hole”.
March 18, 2009 at 8:44 am
Like John Goodman’s character in the Talking Heads musical True Stories, I really like songs that make me wanna lay on the floor. That said, the line between depressing and simply beautiful–or hilarious–blurs substantially depending on my mood. A lot of my favorites have joyous music to offset the bleak lyrics, so rather than going with the Tiger Lillies or some such I submit Children’s Story by Tom Waits:
Once upon a time, there was a poor child,
With no father and no mother,
And everything was dead,
And no one was left in the whole world.
Everything was dead.
And the child went and searched day and night,
And since nobody was left on the earth,
He wanted to go up in to the heavens,
And the moon was looking at him so friendly,
And when he finally got to the moon,
The moon was a piece of rotten wood.
And then he went to the sun,
And when he got there,
The sun was a wilted sunflower.
And when he got to the stars,
They were little golden flies, stuck up there like the shrike sticks among the black thorn.
And when he wanted to go back down to Earth,
The Earth was an overturned piss-pot, And he was all alone.
And he sat down and he cried.
And he is there to this day.
All alone.
Okay, there’s your story.
Night night.
(Laughs)
Although, in all honesty, it’s pretty goddamn funny when you hear it performed. Damn. As someone else pointed out, Nick Cave always does in a pinch:
Across clinical benches with nothing to talk
Breathing tea and biscuits and the Serenity Prayer
While the bones of our child crumble like chalk
O where do we go now but nowhere
I remember a girl so bold and so bright
Loose-limbed and laughing and brazen and bare
Sits gnawing her knuckles in the chemical light
O where do we go now but nowhere
You come for me now with a cake that you’ve made
Ravaged avenger with a clip in your hair
Full of glass and bleach and my old razorblades
O where do we go now but nowhere
Not too off topic, but I really liked Guy Maddin’s Saddest Music in the World. I’m inclined to agree with the good Dr. F____ that there’s a distinction between depressing and sad, but I think this film encompasses the trinity I mentioned earlier: it’s depressing, but also hilarious and beautiful.
March 18, 2009 at 11:05 am
Gloomy Sunday by Rezso Seress holds the record for number of suicides linked to listening to the song. Said to be a combination of the dirge like tune and the gloomy lyrics it was actually banned in several countries.
Full story here:
http://chrisdolley.livejournal.com/49222.html
There’s even a link to Billie Holiday singing the song.
March 18, 2009 at 11:27 am
I’d like to submit Skip James’s 1931 recording of “Hard Time Killing Floor Blues.” There’s not a glimmer of hope in the world of that song.
March 18, 2009 at 11:45 am
Brian – You go wrong with Skip James…Devil Got My Woman, his ver. of Crow Jane, etc…
Anne – I will have to investigate. You have links?
Was discussing this w/a friend of mine and she said, re: Waltzing Mathilda, “What can really beat that Pogues song? Seriously. All the heartbreak, baby our love was awesome, now it’s over, why’d you go and shoot yourself songs kind of wither up and die next to that one.”
The Pogues/Trad. song is Waltzing Mathilda – well known to anyone in Ireland/Australia/Newfoundland…
http://www.metacafe.com/watch/yt-dKj2ZPEY7pY/the_pogues_and_the_band_played_waltzing_matilda_live/
When I was a young man I carried my pack
And I lived the free life of a rover
From the murrays green basin to the dusty outback
I waltzed my matilda all over
Then in nineteen fifteen my country said son
Its time to stop rambling cause theres work to be
Done
So they gave me a tin hat and they gave me a gun
And they sent me away to the war
And the band played waltzing matilda
As we sailed away from the quay
And amidst all the tears and the shouts and the
Cheers
We sailed off to gallipoli
How well I remember that terrible day
the blood stained the sand and the water
And how in that hell that they called suvla bay
We were butchered like lambs at the slaughter
Johnny turk he was ready, he primed himself well
He us with bullets, he rained us with
Shells
And in five minutes flat hed blown us all to hell
Nearly blew us right back to australia
But the band played waltzing matilda
As we stopped to bury our slain
And we buried ours and the turks buried theirs
Then started all over again
Now those
In mad world of blood, death and fire
And for weeks I kept myself alive
Then a big turkish shell knocked me arse over tit
And when I woke up in my hospital bed
And saw what it had done, I wished I was
Dead
Never knew there were worse things than dying
no more Ill go waltzing matilda
the green far and near
For to hump tent and pegs, a man needs two legs
No more waltzing matilda for me
So they collected the cripples, the wounded
Maimed
And they shipped us back home to australia
, the blind insane
Those proud wounded heroes of suvla
And as our ship pulled into circular quay
I looked at the place where legs used to be
And thank christ there was nobody waiting for me
To grieve and to mourn and to pity
And the band played waltzing matilda
As they carried us down the gangway
But nobody cheered, they just stood and stared
turned all their faces away
And now every april I sit on my porch
And I watch the parade pass before me
my old comrades, how proudly they march
Reliving dreams of past glory
The forgotten heroes a forgotten war
And the young people ask , what are they
Marching for?
And I ask myself the same question
And the band plays waltzing matilda
And the old men answer to the call
But year after year their numbers get fewer
Some day no one will march there at all
Waltzing matilda, waltzing matilda
Wholl a-waltzing matilda with me?
Her list, buy the way is…
Hope There’s Someone – Antony and the Johnsons
There’s nothing sadder than hope. Hoping that you don’t have to sleep, or die, alone takes it beyond simple melancholy to a kind of visceral, transcendent sorrow.
Faith – The Cure
Propelled only by a relentless bass, the song wallows in hopeless isolation. Everything about it is subdued, resigned to that stark, gray place where there’s nothing left… but faith.
Heroes – David Bowie
We all know there’s no hope for Bowie’s star-crossed lovers. Even if they can beat them for one day, there’s no question how it’ll end up; nothing will keep them together.
Fade Into You – Mazzy Star
Perhaps the penultimate exquisitely forlorn song, the kind of gentle ache that you can get lost in forever.
Atmosphere – Joy Division
Bleak and beautiful in that particular way only Joy Division could do. Over the restrained cascade of the melody, Ian Curtis implores, admonishes: don’t walk away in silence.
The Band Played Waltzing Mathilda – The Pogues
So sad that I can’t actually listen to it. The horrific cost of war, the Battle of Gallipoli in this case, is presented in a wholly human context; there are no grandstanding political condemnations here, only tragedy and waste.
Untitled – The Cure
A wistful, pretty melody married to some of Robert Smith’s bleakest lyrics: “I’ll never lose this pain/Never dream of you againâ€.
March 18, 2009 at 4:54 pm
Neddal – Ray Lamontagne’s “Jolene” comes from his debut album Trouble. You can watch a video of Ray singing Jolene here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lVGlzECWe7c He’s got a great anguished voice.
Also concur on The Band Played Waltzing Matilda – an extemely moving song.
March 18, 2009 at 7:49 pm
I would choose a Joy Division Song by default, but which one?
After a few moments consideration and a quick crack of the whip upon Google’s hindparts I’d go for what is coincidentally my favourite song of theirs, ‘Decades’, which I see, with my 30th birthday looming, as a treatise on being trapped within an oppressive middle age while looking back on a failed youth now gone.
I might be looking at that through somewhat subjective spectacles, admittedly.
—-
Here are the young men, the weight on their shoulders,
Here are the young men, well where have they been?
We knocked on the doors of Hell’s darker chamber,
Pushed to the limit, we dragged ourselves in,
Watched from the wings as the scenes were replaying,
We saw ourselves now as we never had seen.
Portrayal of the trauma and degeneration,
The sorrows we suffered and never were free.
Where have they been?
Weary inside, now our heart’s lost forever,
Can’t replace the fear, or the thrill of the chase,
Each ritual showed up the door for our wanderings,
Open then shut, then slammed in our face.
Where have they been?
—-
March 20, 2009 at 9:18 pm
I agree with the commenters who have drawn the distinction between sad songs and depressing songs, though sometimes I’m not sure the artists who produce individual songs are aware of the difference.
The saddest song I know is “Kilkelly,” by Peter Jones (my favorite version is by Maloney, O’Connell and Keane). It’s just a series of letters from an Irish father to his son in America, one a decade from 1860 to 1892. The last line – “we’d all love to see you again” kills me every time.
But for pure, unadulterated, depressing schmaltz, I cannot believe nobody has mentioned Terry Jacks’ “Seasons in the Sun.” Death as camp.
March 23, 2009 at 5:25 pm
Late to this, but anyway, sad songs. Nick Drake, Black-Eyed Dog.
“A black eyed dog he called at my door
The black eyed dog he called for more
A black eyed dog he knew my name
A black eyed dog he knew my name
A black eyed dog
A black eyed dog.
I’m growing old and I wanna go home
I’m growing old and I don’t wanna know
I’m growing old and I wanna go home.
A black eyed dog he called at my door
A black eyed dog he called for more.”
TIndersticks, oh yes, lots. Raindrops perhaps most of all for me, the total weary despair of that first line, “Silence is here again tonight.”
Not who you’d normally think of for this sort of thing, but Billy Bragg’s Tank Park Salute brings a tear.
Sufjan Stevens’ Casimir Pulaski Day is not the most chirpy of songs, either.
April 1, 2009 at 10:23 am
I’m inclined to say, as a general observation, that any song performed by any band whose name looks like it came out of a random word generator or involves any disorder listed in the DSM-IV should be disqualified. That being said, if we’re talking over-the-top schmaltz, while it’s hard to beat “Seasons in the Sun”, I’d put “Honey” up against it in a smackdown. After our songster’s girlfriend/wife suffers multiple unexplained crying fits, “One day when I wasn’t home/while she was there and all alone/the angels came.” Ack pthpht.
May 25, 2009 at 5:20 am
One of my personal favorites is “Any Other Way” by the Captains Intangible. Not much to it and it’s hard to find, but it’s good (to me atleast).
So I’m f**King off/don’t miss me/don’t
So you gave it your all/still fell apart/don’t cry/don’t
It won’t change a thing to want it any other way.
It won’t change a thing
Don’t
It won’t change a thing to want it any other way.
Like I said not much but it’s melancholy, you have to listen to it, I hope you enjoy.
June 14, 2009 at 3:07 pm
Saddest song ever for me is Gary Jules’s ‘Mad World’ or Gilbert O’Sullivan’s ‘Alone Again (Naturally)’.
Mad World:
All around me are familiar faces
Worn out places, worn out faces
Bright and early for their daily races
Going nowhere, going nowhere
Their tears are filling up their glasses
No expression, no expression
Hide my head I want to drown my sorrow
No tomorrow, no tomorrow
And I find it kinda funny
I find it kinda sad
The dreams in which I’m dying
Are the best I’ve ever had
I find it hard to tell you
I find it hard to take
When people run in circles
It’s a very, very mad world, mad world
Children waiting for the day they feel good
Happy birthday, happy birthday
Made to feel the way that every child should
Sit and listen, sit and listen
Went to school and I was very nervous
No one knew me, no one knew me
Hello, teacher, tell me what’s my lesson
Look right through me, look right through me
And I find it kinda funny
I find it kinda sad
The dreams in which I’m dying
Are the best I’ve ever had
I find it hard to tell you
I find it hard to take
When people run in circles
It’s a very, very mad world, mad world
Enlarge your world
Mad world
Alone Again (Naturally) (thing is about this song, it has almost a happy beat).:
In a little while from now,
If I’m not feeling any less sour
I promised myself to treat myself
And visit a nearby tower,
And climbing to the top,
I will throw myself off
In an effort to, make it clear to who
Ever what it’s like when your shattered
Left standing in the lurch, at a church
where people saying,
“My God that’s tough, she stood him up
No point in us remaining.
We may as well go home.”
As I did on my own,
Alone again, naturally
To think that only yesterday,
I was cheerful, bright and gay,
Looking forward to, but who wouldn’t do,
The role I was about to play
But as if to knock me down,
Reality came around
And without so much as a mere touch,
Cut me into little pieces
Leaving me to doubt,
Talk about God in His mercy
For if He really does exist
Why did He desert me
In my hour of need?
I truly am indeed,
Alone again, naturally
It seems to me that
There are more hearts
Broken in the world
That can’t be mended
Left unattended
What do we do? What do we do?
Alone again, naturally
Now looking back over the years,
And what ever else that appears
I remember I cried when my father died
Never wishing to hide the tears
And at sixty-five years old,
My mother, God rest her soul,
Couldn’t understand, why the only man
She had ever loved had been taken
Leaving her to start with a heart
So badly broken
Despite encouragement from me
No words were ever spoken
And when she passed away
I cried and cried all day
Alone again, naturally
Alone again, naturally
June 22, 2009 at 5:58 am
Check out this the manic street preachers Motorcycle Emptiness. Depresses me
Culture sucks down words
Itemize loathing and feed yourself smiles
Organive your safe tribal war
Hurt maim kill and enslave the ghetto
each day living out a lie
life sold cheaply forever, ever, ever
under neon loneliness motorcycle emptiness
under leon loneliness motorcycle emptiness
life lies a slow suicide
orthodox dreams and symbolic myths
from feudal surf to spender
the wonderful world of purchase power
just like lungs sucking on air
survivals as natural as sorrow, sorrow sorrow
under neon loneliness motorcycle emptiness
under neon loneliness motorcycle emptiness
All we want from you are the kicks youve given us (x4)
under neon loneliness motorcycle emptiness (x2)
Drive away and its the same
everywhere death row, everyones a victim
your joys are counterfeit
this happiness corrupt political shit
living life like a comotose
ego loaded and swallow, swallow swallow
under neon loneliness motorcycle emptiness (x3)
under neon loneliness everlasting nothingness
February 5, 2010 at 8:40 pm
Happy Birthday, A Dirge
Happy Birthday
Oh, Happy Birthday
Anguish, pain and despair
people dying everywhere,
Oh, Happy Birthday
Happy Birthday
February 15, 2010 at 1:28 am
IRVINE by KELLY CLARKSON
From her album MY DECEMBER (that her label didnt want to release) they said it wasnt mainstreet and didnt have a single hit. She didnt care and released it anyway. I believe one of the most emotional albums ever from SOBER (about leaving a relationship) to JUDAS (about a freindship gone wrong) to HAUNTED (about a friend who committed suicide) to MAYBE (hope for a relationship after its over) to IRVINE (an open plea to god)! She is just amazing!!!
Are you there?
Are you watching me?
As I lie here on this floor
They say you feel what I do
They say you’re here every moment
Will you stay?
Stay ’till the darkness leaves
Stay here with me
I know you’re busy, I know I’m just one
But you might be the only one who sees me
The only one to save me
Why is it so hard?
Why can’t you just take me?
I don’t have much to go
Before I fade completely
Can you feel how cold I am?
Do you cry as I do?
Are you lonely up there all by yourself?
Like I have felt all my life
The only one to save mine
How are you so strong?
What’s it like to feel so free?
Your heart is really something
Your love, a complete mystery to me
Are you there watching me?
As I lie here on this floor
Do you cry, do you cry with me?
Cry with me tonight
Are you there?
Are you watching me?
August 29, 2010 at 1:24 pm
Cure my Tragedy
By the band: Cold
Remember all the times that we used to play?
You were lost and I would save you
I don’t think those feelings will ever fade
You were born a part of me
I was never good at hiding anything
My thoughts break me
Do you understand what you mean to me?
You are my faith
[Chorus]
Won’t you cure my tragedy? [x2]
Don’t take her smile away from me
She’s broken and I’m far away
Won’t you cure my tragedy? [x2]
if you make the world a stage for me
then I hope that you can hear me scream
Won’t you cure my tragedy?
When I sit and think of the days we shared
and the nights you covered for me
Every little thing that I ever did
You would stand by me
Everytime you cried it would take my wind
My heart would break
If I could be strong like you were for me
You are my faith
[Chorus]
Won’t you cure my tragedy? [x2]
Don’t take her smile away from me
She’s broken and I’m far away
Won’t you cure my tragedy? [x2]
if you make the world a stage for me
then I hope that you can hear me scream
Won’t you cure my tragedy?
Can you hear me scream? [x2]
[Chorus]
Won’t you cure my tragedy? [x2]
Don’t take her smile away from me
She’s broken and I’m far away
Won’t you cure my tragedy? [x2]
if you make the world a stage for me
then I hope that you can hear me scream
Won’t you cure my tragedy?
I can’t take this anymore
I can’t feel this anymore
Won’t you take and give her pain to me
‘Cause my whole life I’ve made mistakes
Can you hear me scream? [x2]
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January 4, 2011 at 6:43 am
I agree that the song was really depressing. I know the difference between sad and depressing songs but this one is really depressing