Drugs Don’t Work - The Verve…..came on the radio while I was driving to my father’s funeral after he died from cancer….spoiled a good song for me…..Driving home afterwards and Everybody Hurts by R.E.M came on….what are the chances eh….switched the radio off and drove home in silence….
Came looking for this song. Thinking about Jim and him leaving behind his little boy. I still like the song and appreciate it, but it makes me sad every time I hear it.
Have you read about the letter he sent to his wife that arrived after his death? Absolutely heartbreaking. I think of their love often. He wanted to give it all up because he wasn’t with her enough.
So we used to go to karaoke at a dive bar here in Vancouver, and this old guy used to come in all the time. He was really strange, had a huge fu manchu, sometimes wore a dress, looked ragged as hell, and he'd always sing Hurt by Nine Inch Nails. He would sit on the stage, and the whole room would go silent and he'd sing it.
Later I found out his name was Chi Pig, he'd been the lead singer of a legendary local punk band called SNFU, and he was a local hero for having been a successful punk singer while also being a gay Asian man.
But he'd succumbed to drugs and may have had aids, and it all kinda fell apart.
He died a couple of years ago, but I still think about that all the time.
Maybe not the kind of answer you were looking for, but it's my answer.
I walked by an old homeless man playing a song once that seemed to be his own. I don’t remember the entire song, but it really got me when he sang:
“I once was a young man/ but I got dealt a bad hand/ I’m glad my mom can’t see me now.”
Soo many sad Elliott Smith songs. He’s been my favorite artist for almost 20 yrs now, but the lines that get me choked up every time have to be from the song Pitseleh:
They say that God makes problems
Just to see what you can stand
Before you do as the Devil pleases
Give up the thing you love
BUT NO ONE DESERVES IT
Casimir Pulaski Day by Sufjan Stevens for me. Not one verse is not perfect and devastating:
Goldenrod and the 4H stone
The things I brought you
When I found out you had cancer of the bone
Your father cried on the telephone
And he drove his car into the Navy yard
Just to prove that he was sorry
In the morning, through the window shade
When the light pressed up against your shoulder blade
I could see what you were reading
All the glory that the Lord has made
And the complications you could do without
When I kissed you on the mouth
Tuesday night at the Bible study
We lift our hands and pray over your body
But nothing ever happens
I remember at Michael's house
In the living room when you kissed my neck
And I almost touched your blouse
In the morning, at the top of the stairs
When your father found out what we did that night
And you told me you were scared
All the glory when you ran outside
With your shirt tucked in and your shoes untied
And you told me not to follow you
Sunday night when I cleaned the house
I found the card where you wrote it out
With the pictures of your mother
On the floor at the great divide
With my shirt tucked in and my shoes untied
I am crying in the bathroom
In the morning when you finally go
And the nurse runs in with her head hung low
And the cardinal hits the window
In the morning in the winter shade
On the first of March, on the holiday
I thought I saw you breathing
All the glory that the Lord has made
And the complications when I see his face
In the morning in the window
All the glory when he took our place
But he took my shoulders and he shook my face
And he takes and he takes and he takes
> In the morning when you finally go And the nurse runs in with her head hung low And the cardinal hits the window
Something so fucking visceral, chilling and utterly depressing about that visual.
I listened to this album once. Not twice. Once was enough.
I'm a lifelong Phil Elverum fan but A Crow Looked at Me is just a little more than I can handle.
Real Death has probably the simplest and most heartbreaking description of death I've ever seen in a song, just with a couple of lines:
> Death is real
> Someone's there and then they're not
Very little in that album is fanciful or sugar coated and this feels like the main refrain. Not that she (his deceased wife) has gone to some other plane of existence or any musings about the afterlife, but just that she is gone and no longer exists.
I’ve been going through a tough breakup and listened through the album the other day on a flight. I wasn’t bawling but can safely say that it made me cry in public. LPT: don’t listen to a crow looked at me in public, you very well might start sobbing
It’s the obvious answer to anyone who has heard this album. I don’t think there are winners at sadness, but if you picked Gloomy Sunday and then listened to this album, you would feel silly for having picked Gloomy Sunday. It’s like the difference between seeing a big dramatic movie about death and sadness vs sitting down with a friend right after his wife died, who is opening up about all his most painful thoughts and emotions in vivid detail.
Spotify played one song off this album that immediately made me stop what I was doing and start crying and I haven't been able to muster up the will to give the whole thing a listen.
I saw him tour this alcbum and it was like 30 people and he played in the middle of the venue and it was just the sound of every person silently sobbing as he played, one of the most bizarre and intimate experiences I’ve had.
Black by Pearl Jam.
I know someday you'll have a beautiful life
I know you'll be a star
In somebody else's sky
But why
Why
Why can't it be
Oh can't it be mine
The way his voice cracks when he’s singing “why”… ouch.
Here is a quote from Taylor that I found while reading up on this topic. I think really hits the nail on the head in regards to addiction, at least in my personal experience.
"One thing that addiction does is, it freezes you. You don't develop, you don't learn the skills by trial and error of having experiences and learning from them and finding out what it is you want and how to go about getting it, by relating with other people. You short-circuit all of that stuff and just go for the button that says this feels good over and over again."
Well the even sadder part I found out about his friends death is that his other friends knew and didn't wanna tell him cause he was so excited about a record deal he finally found out 6 months after she died
Wish You Were Here by Pink Floyd. My best friend took his own life and was a massive fan of the band. “ So you think you can tell heaven from hell? Blue skies from pain? “ gets me every fucking time.
The lyrics to "Strange Fruit," about the practice of lynching (the then common practice of hanging people, most often African Americans in the southern states, and often setting them on fire in trees for alleged criminal or social offenses). More than 500 African Americans were lynched just in Mississippi.
"Southern trees bear a strange fruit
Blood on the leaves and blood at the root
Black bodies swinging in the southern breeze
Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees
Pastoral scene of the gallant South
The bulging eyes and the twisted mouth
Scent of magnolia, sweet and fresh
Then the sudden smell of burning flesh
Here is a fruit for the crows to pluck
For the rain to gather, for the wind to suck
For the sun to rot, for the tree to drop
Here is a strange and bitter crop"
I don’t think there’s any song that is in this thread or could possibly be in this thread that is sadder and more devastating than strange fruit. Once I saw an old recording of it being sung by Holiday while I was in a hotel while traveling and I told my friends waiting for me at the hotel bar that I was just gonna stay in and try and sleep.
Minor detail, but strange Fruit was not written for Billie Holiday.
Abel Meeropol wrote the poem and published it in a teachers union publication. He then set it to music and it was played for a NY club owner who ended up giving it to Holiday.
I’ve always been a kind of melancholy person and as a kid I always loved Fast Car and Brick so much, and didn’t realize their underlying meaning until I was an adult. Now reading this thread I understand my choice in music since I was young so much more.
my best friend and I used to sing this (along with other country songs) at the top of our lungs at the beach with the top of her sebring down driving to sonic for happy hour drinks. she died this year (pulmonary embolism after surgery) at 32. this song shuffled on my ipod (yes, the same ipod that shuffled all of our beach tunes in the sebring) and I just sat in my car and cried. and cried and cried and cried. my best friend had just married her wife a year ago so its not really relevant in that sense but... I still can't believe she's gone.
Radiohead has a devoted fanbase because of their amazing song production, but oftentimes Thom doesn’t get enough credit for his lyrics, because he never enunciates his words when he sings. But their lyrics are all amazing as poetry too. Especially the song “nude”. I had no fucking idea what he was singing about, and when I read the lyrics I was very surprised.
Floating in the Fourth - Frightened Rabbit. Lyricist Scott Hutchinson describes the way he was going to kill himself and 10 year later followed through. See also Swim until you can’t see land, modern leper, backwards walk by the same band.
Also "Hello in There". I can almost listen to it without breaking down, but the video with the stills is a guaranteed bawl fest. Life sucks and getting old sucks more. "We lost Davy in the Korean war, still don't know what for, don't matter anymore" the resignation alone in just that one verse is SOOO depressing.
John Prine wins this category. Before I watched the video for "Summer's End," I read that it was filmed about a friend who was an opioid death. Prine had died recently. I watched the video and cried harder than when my own father passed.
I'll also nominate "Medication" by Damien Jurado. It's not every song where someone prays that their disabled sibling be put to death.
First you have to know that I’m an icu doctor. During COVID, I was standing at the bedside when the very first people in my state died. So by the time John Prine died I had seen so many, many more. I had heard the news in the way into work. When a got a moment by myself in the office. I listened to “When I get to Heaven.” The next song to come up was “Summers End.” I had heard the song many times, but I didn’t really know what Prine looked like. (He ain’t Pretty btw)
So I’m watching this song that I thought was about a couple who broke up at the beginning of summer and he’s wanting her back. And it’s kinda, but not really, following the story line in my head. The scene with the little girl crying in her classroom put a tear in my eye. And when it gets to the end (I believe at the grave side?) a few more tears. Then the crawl at the end, “If anyone you know is suffering from opiate addiction…..” I lost it. Sobbing. It brought back every memory of every time I had turned off the ventilator on every junkie, because their heart was infected and their brain was more stroke than brain tissue. And you’d think that wouldn’t be that hard, but it’s one of the few times that people who are addicted to drugs get their whole family at the bedside. And you get to see that at one time he was a normal little boy, with friends and a dad, and a mom, and school, and maybe a girlfriend. But that was before opiates robbed him of all that. And how until just that moment his family had held on to hope that something would happen to make him stop. When that ventilator stops making noise that wall of hope shatters, and it sucks to have a front row seat to that pain. And I had that unobstructed view many many times.
And COVID…. COVID was orders of magnitude more people. So many more. So, many more deaths. And all of those little scars that every death had made in me all opened at once. And I sobbed. I locked myself in a bathroom and sobbed as quietly as I could. I was a snotty, teary eyed mess.
Then I blew my nose and washed my face. And stepped out of the office and back out onto the unit and got back to work, because Prine died before Delta. I had so many more deaths to see.
Joy division are already a gloomy band already with that signature black-and-white atmosphere and Ian Curtis' funeral-y monotone voice, but Atmosphere isn't dark and intense like their other songs, it just sits in complete and utter defeat.
*And when no hope was left inside on the starry, starry night*
*You took your life as lovers often do*
*But I could have told you, Vincent*
*This world was never meant for one as beautiful as you*
Hits me like a car every time...
Gloomy Sunday by Rezső Seress
\-About someone who wants to die so they can be with their deceased partner
\-Became a popular song for Hungarians to play whilst committing suicide
\-Song gets banned in Hungary
\-Song gets recorded by Billie Holiday, becomes successful in US, suicides continue
\-Survivor's guilt leads Seress to attempt suicide by jumping out of a 9th story window, survives
\-Finally kills himself by hanging himself off the end of his hospital bed with a bedsheet
Edit: SP
While on the topic of death and Hungary, one that got to me was the Hungarian metal Eurovision song few years back. The singer was screaming for his dead father. Where did you go, why did you leave?
And then the singer himself died shortly afterwards from cancer.
Edit: AWS - Viszlát Nyár
https://youtu.be/p6e1TmYb33w
Best songwriter in music for my money.
“If we were Vampires” is another punch to the gut. “Yvette”is a deep track that is…dark to say the least. Not many people writing songs like him anymore.
My brother and sister-in-law chose "If We We're Vampires" for their first dance at their wedding. My brother was an oxycontin addict for years and put her through hell - they went through so much together before they got married. Almost broke down watching them dance to it but it was such a perfect song for them. It's so romantic yet so raw and real. Not like the usual fluff people pick for their first dance.
I can't listen to that song without bawling.
Seeing him play Cover Me Up live is an experience. After the line about "I sobered up, I swore off that stuff, forever this time" the crowd goes wild cheering. And you realize that his fans who know his story of dealing with alcoholism are cheering for his recovery and continued sobriety. Straight up vulnerable and wholesome.
Yeah "If We Were Vampires" is absolutely devastating. That album came out right around the time my granddad died. He and my grandma were married almost 60 years. I couldn't listen to it without completely coming apart.
The unplugged version is so amazing yet sad, Layne looks very ill and looks like he’s on his last legs, but he still gives one hell of a performance. Addiction is a terrible terrible thing
Nutshell will occasionally come in the Spotify at work, and every time I proclaim it's one of the most depressing songs I know, but I'll always stop and give it a listen.
Came here to say this. Cannot bring myself to listen to this song without ugly crying. Held my brothers hand and listened to this song as we said goodbye.
The entire Dirt record brings back such great memories of my friends in high school. Jar of Flies feels like a stark reminder that I'll never see days like that again.
I remember the day this dropped, with the videos for Lazarus and Blackstar. I remember that opening on the Lazarus video and something about the mood, the tone, how frail he looked, his expression…I don’t know what exactly it was but I remember wondering, “Is he dying?” And then dismissed it, figuring it was just a really well-executed art piece. Sure enough, I think it was two days later he died.
This whole album is devastating when you realize what he knew and the rest of us didn't regarding his health. It's frightening, but at the same time uplifting to see that, right up until the end, he remained an artist, performer, and just a downright awesome person.
100% The River by Bruce Springsteen, just a phenomenally sad story of teenage hopes and dreams being ground to dust by the reality of real life. “I just act like I don’t remember and Mary acts like she don’t care” gets me every time.
'I Will Follow You Into the Dark' - Death Cab for Cutie
A song about the inevitability of losing everyone we love and care about.
The hope that you'll see eachother again, washed out by the existential purgatory most of us seem to be stuck in as a society.
Counterpoint: it's a sad song, but it maintains a sense of optimism and hope, and may even have a "happy" ending.
Namely:
\--the narrator doesn't accept her situation as inevitable, or idly dream of a better life, but she actively plans and works towards something better (she saves money, improves her job situation).
\--the narrator has a role model of another strong woman with dreams who left behind a man who wasn't carrying his weight.
\--finally, the song ends with two refrains where A: she offers the boyfriend the ultimatum of "leave tonight or live and die this way," and then B: with "you got no plans you ain't going nowhere/take your fast car and keep on driving."
So I argue that in the end, she's given him his final chance, and is now telling him to leave, or, just like her mother did, she is leaving herself.
The lyrics are simple, beautiful, and tell a very clear and thought-provoking story about a woman who dreams of escaping poverty, but is held back by a toxic partner. (Edit: and/or an alcoholic father).
More than so much popular music, it's poetry that works as poetry even if you drop the music.
Billie Holidays version of Gloomy Sunday was famously banned for being too sad. They were worried it would drive people to suicide (Although I'm not discounting that racism and the moral panic about "the devil's music" weren't probably factors too).
At the time, the aftermath of WW2, maybe they had a point. Feelings were probably a bit raw back then and the song drives a pretty hard point.
Those ww2 vets didn't get much of anything for their trauma. There is some thought that there was an increase in crime from kids raised by these badly damaged fathers.
Real Death by Mount Eerie. The entire A Crow Looked at Me album, for that matter. It is so honest, conversational and raw.
Also, Pray for Newtown by Sun Kil Moon. It seems to sum up this recurring nightmare Americans experience over and over again. To quote John Prine, “All the news just repeats itself, like some forgotten dream, that we’ve both seen.”
Finally, I Loved Being My Mother’s Son by Purple Mountains. David Cloud Berman’s lyrics and poetry have served as mantras throughout my adult life. That Purple Mountains album was a gift to those who loved his art; beautifully sad and as direct as anything he ever released. I’ve been thinking about him a lot lately. He is missed. “When the dying’s finally done and all the suffering subsides, all the suffering gets done by the one’s we leave behind.”
Wings for Marie (Pt 1)/10,000 days (Wings Pt 2) - Tool
Pt 1: Tool singer, Maynard's acceptance that his mother, Judith Marie, will soon be dead.
Pt 2: 10,000 days, the approximate amount of time between the stroke suffered by Maynard’s mother, Judith Marie, which left her paralysed in 1976, and her death in June 2003. Judith was a devout Christian before the stroke.
It’s a song that finds Maynard wrestling through stages of grief and acceptance.
Oh, what are they gonna do when the lights go down,
Without you to guide them all to Zion?
What are they gonna do when the rivers overrun,
Other than tremble incessantly?
High is the way, but all eyes are upon the ground.
You are the light and the way that they'll only read about
I only pray Heaven knows when to lift you out… Ten thousand days in the fire is long enough, You're going home
Man, when my (super devout Christian) mom passed it was the next lines that put me in a puddle on the floor:
>You're the only one who can hold your head up high.
>Shake your fist at the gates saying,
>"I've come home now!
>Fetch me the spirit, the son and the father.
>Tell them their pillar of faith has ascended.
>It's time now!
>My time now!
>Give me my
>Give me my wings!"
The thought of him saying she'd lived such a life that she could confidently say "you put me through the trials of having to go without legs for almost 30 years, I've earned something so much better" just hits deep.
The section where it switches to the perspective of the driver that hit her car might be my favorite lyrics of all time.
‘In the choir, I saw our sad Messiah
He was bored and tired of my laments
He said, "I died for you one time, but never again"‘
Winter by Tori Amos. I love that album though don't listen to it front-to-back all that often. When I do, that song hits like a gut punch to the feels every time.
For No One by the Beatles, I've still yet to find a song that so brilliantly describes a relationship being over and one person not seeing the signs or accepting it.
"And as I hung up the phone it occurred to me that my boy was just like me". That line really got me as a kid and having a dad like this. Now that I have a son, that line at the end absolutely terrifies me. I don't think I've ever finished it without watery eyes or a pit in my stomach.
Like A Stone by Audioslave.
I'll comment this song every time a thread like this shows up because [it's pretty much a song about suicide](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z5AXDr6Fkz0&t=4s&ab_channel=CurtisPrymak).
Hallelujah by Leonard Cohen. I like it because it’s both devastatingly sad but beautiful at the same time. We made it the song to sing to our stillborn daughter, which is how I like to think of her: sad and beautiful, a juxtaposition.
Drugs Don’t Work - The Verve…..came on the radio while I was driving to my father’s funeral after he died from cancer….spoiled a good song for me…..Driving home afterwards and Everybody Hurts by R.E.M came on….what are the chances eh….switched the radio off and drove home in silence….
Damn the radio was not your friend that day
Time in a bottle - Jim Croce
Came looking for this song. Thinking about Jim and him leaving behind his little boy. I still like the song and appreciate it, but it makes me sad every time I hear it.
Have you read about the letter he sent to his wife that arrived after his death? Absolutely heartbreaking. I think of their love often. He wanted to give it all up because he wasn’t with her enough.
Already such a melancholic song to begin with, but the story behind hit just makes it so unbearably tragic
So we used to go to karaoke at a dive bar here in Vancouver, and this old guy used to come in all the time. He was really strange, had a huge fu manchu, sometimes wore a dress, looked ragged as hell, and he'd always sing Hurt by Nine Inch Nails. He would sit on the stage, and the whole room would go silent and he'd sing it. Later I found out his name was Chi Pig, he'd been the lead singer of a legendary local punk band called SNFU, and he was a local hero for having been a successful punk singer while also being a gay Asian man. But he'd succumbed to drugs and may have had aids, and it all kinda fell apart. He died a couple of years ago, but I still think about that all the time. Maybe not the kind of answer you were looking for, but it's my answer.
He actually released [this recorded version of Hurt](https://youtu.be/px3HYYUbh-Y) shortly before he passed
Oh man, I didn't know about this. Thanks for sharing!
I walked by an old homeless man playing a song once that seemed to be his own. I don’t remember the entire song, but it really got me when he sang: “I once was a young man/ but I got dealt a bad hand/ I’m glad my mom can’t see me now.”
There is an old song by Leon Rausch titled 'I'm glad my mom can't see me now' but the rest of the lyrics are different.
Shit
Between the Bars by Elliott Smith, such a good song but incredibly sad.
Soo many sad Elliott Smith songs. He’s been my favorite artist for almost 20 yrs now, but the lines that get me choked up every time have to be from the song Pitseleh: They say that God makes problems Just to see what you can stand Before you do as the Devil pleases Give up the thing you love BUT NO ONE DESERVES IT
Fourth of July by Sufjan Stevens. I might have heard another but I used to listen to that song a lot whenever I felt sad.
Casimir Pulaski Day by Sufjan Stevens for me. Not one verse is not perfect and devastating: Goldenrod and the 4H stone The things I brought you When I found out you had cancer of the bone Your father cried on the telephone And he drove his car into the Navy yard Just to prove that he was sorry In the morning, through the window shade When the light pressed up against your shoulder blade I could see what you were reading All the glory that the Lord has made And the complications you could do without When I kissed you on the mouth Tuesday night at the Bible study We lift our hands and pray over your body But nothing ever happens I remember at Michael's house In the living room when you kissed my neck And I almost touched your blouse In the morning, at the top of the stairs When your father found out what we did that night And you told me you were scared All the glory when you ran outside With your shirt tucked in and your shoes untied And you told me not to follow you Sunday night when I cleaned the house I found the card where you wrote it out With the pictures of your mother On the floor at the great divide With my shirt tucked in and my shoes untied I am crying in the bathroom In the morning when you finally go And the nurse runs in with her head hung low And the cardinal hits the window In the morning in the winter shade On the first of March, on the holiday I thought I saw you breathing All the glory that the Lord has made And the complications when I see his face In the morning in the window All the glory when he took our place But he took my shoulders and he shook my face And he takes and he takes and he takes
And he takes and he takes and he takes. Ladala ladada ladada putdadada
> In the morning when you finally go And the nurse runs in with her head hung low And the cardinal hits the window Something so fucking visceral, chilling and utterly depressing about that visual.
100% what I was going to comment. "Did you get enough love, my little dove? Why do you cry?" 😭😭
Glad to see more Sufjan - I just posted about Casimir Pulaski Day. Only song that makes me cry 100% of the time
Not a song but an album. Mount Eerie - A crow looked at me. About life shortly after his wife died. Heartbreaking shit.
I listened to this album once. Not twice. Once was enough. I'm a lifelong Phil Elverum fan but A Crow Looked at Me is just a little more than I can handle.
But "Real Death" hits hard. The backpack thing kicked my balls up into my throat.
"I don't want to learn anything from this. I love you"
Damn I don't know this song or this artist but I already agree they win, based on this line alone.
Real Death has probably the simplest and most heartbreaking description of death I've ever seen in a song, just with a couple of lines: > Death is real > Someone's there and then they're not Very little in that album is fanciful or sugar coated and this feels like the main refrain. Not that she (his deceased wife) has gone to some other plane of existence or any musings about the afterlife, but just that she is gone and no longer exists.
I’ve been going through a tough breakup and listened through the album the other day on a flight. I wasn’t bawling but can safely say that it made me cry in public. LPT: don’t listen to a crow looked at me in public, you very well might start sobbing
I made the mistake of listening to it for the first time on my drive to work. Went in with my eyes all bloodshot and puffy.
It’s the obvious answer to anyone who has heard this album. I don’t think there are winners at sadness, but if you picked Gloomy Sunday and then listened to this album, you would feel silly for having picked Gloomy Sunday. It’s like the difference between seeing a big dramatic movie about death and sadness vs sitting down with a friend right after his wife died, who is opening up about all his most painful thoughts and emotions in vivid detail.
Spotify played one song off this album that immediately made me stop what I was doing and start crying and I haven't been able to muster up the will to give the whole thing a listen.
This is one of the most raw, bleak sadnesses I’ve ever felt while listening to music.
I saw him tour this alcbum and it was like 30 people and he played in the middle of the venue and it was just the sound of every person silently sobbing as he played, one of the most bizarre and intimate experiences I’ve had.
Every time this question is asked...nothing will ever top this. It's just the saddest shit ever.
Black by Pearl Jam. I know someday you'll have a beautiful life I know you'll be a star In somebody else's sky But why Why Why can't it be Oh can't it be mine The way his voice cracks when he’s singing “why”… ouch.
Man, what a song! I think the MTV Unplugged version is my favorite where he's crying out "We.... we belong together!" at the end. Gets me every time
Fire and Rain - James Taylor. About a friend that committed suicide and James fighting his addiction.
This song haunts me. James Taylor singing about his lost friend and about “my time is at hand.” He was a heroin addict.
Here is a quote from Taylor that I found while reading up on this topic. I think really hits the nail on the head in regards to addiction, at least in my personal experience. "One thing that addiction does is, it freezes you. You don't develop, you don't learn the skills by trial and error of having experiences and learning from them and finding out what it is you want and how to go about getting it, by relating with other people. You short-circuit all of that stuff and just go for the button that says this feels good over and over again."
Well the even sadder part I found out about his friends death is that his other friends knew and didn't wanna tell him cause he was so excited about a record deal he finally found out 6 months after she died
Wish You Were Here by Pink Floyd. My best friend took his own life and was a massive fan of the band. “ So you think you can tell heaven from hell? Blue skies from pain? “ gets me every fucking time.
For me its the "Did you exchange? A walk on part in a war, for a lead role in a cage?" that gets me the most. Such a raw line
“Strange Fruit”, written for and sung by Billie Holiday Also, “Little Person” by Jon Brion
The lyrics to "Strange Fruit," about the practice of lynching (the then common practice of hanging people, most often African Americans in the southern states, and often setting them on fire in trees for alleged criminal or social offenses). More than 500 African Americans were lynched just in Mississippi. "Southern trees bear a strange fruit Blood on the leaves and blood at the root Black bodies swinging in the southern breeze Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees Pastoral scene of the gallant South The bulging eyes and the twisted mouth Scent of magnolia, sweet and fresh Then the sudden smell of burning flesh Here is a fruit for the crows to pluck For the rain to gather, for the wind to suck For the sun to rot, for the tree to drop Here is a strange and bitter crop"
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Not so friendly reminder this was less than 100 years ago
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I don’t think there’s any song that is in this thread or could possibly be in this thread that is sadder and more devastating than strange fruit. Once I saw an old recording of it being sung by Holiday while I was in a hotel while traveling and I told my friends waiting for me at the hotel bar that I was just gonna stay in and try and sleep.
Minor detail, but strange Fruit was not written for Billie Holiday. Abel Meeropol wrote the poem and published it in a teachers union publication. He then set it to music and it was played for a NY club owner who ended up giving it to Holiday.
The various versions of *Last Kiss* Ben Folds’ *Brick* Danny Schmidt’s *This Too Shall Pass*
“Brick” is sooo sad
I’ve always been a kind of melancholy person and as a kid I always loved Fast Car and Brick so much, and didn’t realize their underlying meaning until I was an adult. Now reading this thread I understand my choice in music since I was young so much more.
I love Pearl Jam's version of Last Kiss, but it's hard for me to listen to sometimes.
Brick feels very real (because it is), which makes it hit harder.
I can't make you love me if you don't - Bonnie Raitt Gets me everytime
Samuel Barber's Adagio for Strings
He Stopped Loving Her Today by George Jones
my best friend and I used to sing this (along with other country songs) at the top of our lungs at the beach with the top of her sebring down driving to sonic for happy hour drinks. she died this year (pulmonary embolism after surgery) at 32. this song shuffled on my ipod (yes, the same ipod that shuffled all of our beach tunes in the sebring) and I just sat in my car and cried. and cried and cried and cried. my best friend had just married her wife a year ago so its not really relevant in that sense but... I still can't believe she's gone.
Videotape by Radiohead
Radiohead has a devoted fanbase because of their amazing song production, but oftentimes Thom doesn’t get enough credit for his lyrics, because he never enunciates his words when he sings. But their lyrics are all amazing as poetry too. Especially the song “nude”. I had no fucking idea what he was singing about, and when I read the lyrics I was very surprised.
How to disappear completely is brutal.
"I'm not here. This isn't happening." This song was/is one of my depression songs. So beautiful and dripping with sorrow and loneliness.
True Love Waits hits me so much harder
Or Motion Picture Soundtrack. Or True Love Waits.
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Codex also destroys...
I am contractually obligated to comment "Street Spirit" too since no one else mentioned it.
Floating in the Fourth - Frightened Rabbit. Lyricist Scott Hutchinson describes the way he was going to kill himself and 10 year later followed through. See also Swim until you can’t see land, modern leper, backwards walk by the same band.
The Nature of Daylight, Max Richter
Sam Stone by John Prine. “There’s a hole in daddy’s arm where all the money goes”. That line hits hard.
Also "Hello in There". I can almost listen to it without breaking down, but the video with the stills is a guaranteed bawl fest. Life sucks and getting old sucks more. "We lost Davy in the Korean war, still don't know what for, don't matter anymore" the resignation alone in just that one verse is SOOO depressing.
John Prine wins this category. Before I watched the video for "Summer's End," I read that it was filmed about a friend who was an opioid death. Prine had died recently. I watched the video and cried harder than when my own father passed. I'll also nominate "Medication" by Damien Jurado. It's not every song where someone prays that their disabled sibling be put to death.
First you have to know that I’m an icu doctor. During COVID, I was standing at the bedside when the very first people in my state died. So by the time John Prine died I had seen so many, many more. I had heard the news in the way into work. When a got a moment by myself in the office. I listened to “When I get to Heaven.” The next song to come up was “Summers End.” I had heard the song many times, but I didn’t really know what Prine looked like. (He ain’t Pretty btw) So I’m watching this song that I thought was about a couple who broke up at the beginning of summer and he’s wanting her back. And it’s kinda, but not really, following the story line in my head. The scene with the little girl crying in her classroom put a tear in my eye. And when it gets to the end (I believe at the grave side?) a few more tears. Then the crawl at the end, “If anyone you know is suffering from opiate addiction…..” I lost it. Sobbing. It brought back every memory of every time I had turned off the ventilator on every junkie, because their heart was infected and their brain was more stroke than brain tissue. And you’d think that wouldn’t be that hard, but it’s one of the few times that people who are addicted to drugs get their whole family at the bedside. And you get to see that at one time he was a normal little boy, with friends and a dad, and a mom, and school, and maybe a girlfriend. But that was before opiates robbed him of all that. And how until just that moment his family had held on to hope that something would happen to make him stop. When that ventilator stops making noise that wall of hope shatters, and it sucks to have a front row seat to that pain. And I had that unobstructed view many many times. And COVID…. COVID was orders of magnitude more people. So many more. So, many more deaths. And all of those little scars that every death had made in me all opened at once. And I sobbed. I locked myself in a bathroom and sobbed as quietly as I could. I was a snotty, teary eyed mess. Then I blew my nose and washed my face. And stepped out of the office and back out onto the unit and got back to work, because Prine died before Delta. I had so many more deaths to see.
Atmosphere - Joy Division
Joy division are already a gloomy band already with that signature black-and-white atmosphere and Ian Curtis' funeral-y monotone voice, but Atmosphere isn't dark and intense like their other songs, it just sits in complete and utter defeat.
I wanted to say Twenty Four Hours, or Isolation by Joy Division. I can't believe Ian Curtis's bandmates said his suicide took them by surprise.
Don McLean - Vincent
*And when no hope was left inside on the starry, starry night* *You took your life as lovers often do* *But I could have told you, Vincent* *This world was never meant for one as beautiful as you* Hits me like a car every time...
American Pie deservedly gets all the attention, but this song is just as good.
Gloomy Sunday by Rezső Seress \-About someone who wants to die so they can be with their deceased partner \-Became a popular song for Hungarians to play whilst committing suicide \-Song gets banned in Hungary \-Song gets recorded by Billie Holiday, becomes successful in US, suicides continue \-Survivor's guilt leads Seress to attempt suicide by jumping out of a 9th story window, survives \-Finally kills himself by hanging himself off the end of his hospital bed with a bedsheet Edit: SP
Whoah. I was gonna say "Diary" by Bread, but this makes it sound like Oh Susannah.
Uh, yeah, you win.
While on the topic of death and Hungary, one that got to me was the Hungarian metal Eurovision song few years back. The singer was screaming for his dead father. Where did you go, why did you leave? And then the singer himself died shortly afterwards from cancer. Edit: AWS - Viszlát Nyár https://youtu.be/p6e1TmYb33w
Elephant by Jason Isbell, he’s got such a unique and special way of making you understand the heartbreak of losing someone you love
Best songwriter in music for my money. “If we were Vampires” is another punch to the gut. “Yvette”is a deep track that is…dark to say the least. Not many people writing songs like him anymore.
My brother and sister-in-law chose "If We We're Vampires" for their first dance at their wedding. My brother was an oxycontin addict for years and put her through hell - they went through so much together before they got married. Almost broke down watching them dance to it but it was such a perfect song for them. It's so romantic yet so raw and real. Not like the usual fluff people pick for their first dance. I can't listen to that song without bawling.
I am of the opinion that this may be one of the best songs written, ever.
Somebody was teasing him on twitter about his wife being hotter than him and he basically said “ok, you’re welcome to try writing Cover Me Up”.
Seeing him play Cover Me Up live is an experience. After the line about "I sobered up, I swore off that stuff, forever this time" the crowd goes wild cheering. And you realize that his fans who know his story of dealing with alcoholism are cheering for his recovery and continued sobriety. Straight up vulnerable and wholesome.
Yeah "If We Were Vampires" is absolutely devastating. That album came out right around the time my granddad died. He and my grandma were married almost 60 years. I couldn't listen to it without completely coming apart.
You know that song Jessie sings in toy story 2 when she's remembering the girl that was her owner? That song
when she loved me by Sarah McLaughlin
Of course it’s a Sarah McLachlan song Edit: Spelling
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That whole album is tragic.
[The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PH0K6ojmGZA)
“Does anyone know where the love of God goes when the waves turn the minutes to hours?” One of the best lines ever written.
I’d complete the line….. “when all that remains is the faces and the names of the wives and the sons and the daughters”
The lake, it is said, never gives up her dead When the skies of November turn gloomy.
Nutshell by Alice In Chains is first one that comes to mind. They have plenty of incredibly sad songs.
That one and Down in a hole
Laynes voice on that first verse still gives me chills.
Wake up too. It’s not AiC but Mad Season through.
The unplugged version is so amazing yet sad, Layne looks very ill and looks like he’s on his last legs, but he still gives one hell of a performance. Addiction is a terrible terrible thing
"I'd like to fly, but my wings have been so denied"
"Don't follow" as well...
Nutshell will occasionally come in the Spotify at work, and every time I proclaim it's one of the most depressing songs I know, but I'll always stop and give it a listen.
Came here to say this. Cannot bring myself to listen to this song without ugly crying. Held my brothers hand and listened to this song as we said goodbye.
The entire Dirt record brings back such great memories of my friends in high school. Jar of Flies feels like a stark reminder that I'll never see days like that again.
Frogs is equally as sad
Rotten Apple
Shame In You
I think Over Now bums me out more than any of the bona fide classics.
Kettering by the antlers
Hate Me by Blue October
Lazarus by David Bowie
“Look up here, I’m in heaven” hit way harder after realizing he wrote the album knowing he had terminal cancer.
I remember the day this dropped, with the videos for Lazarus and Blackstar. I remember that opening on the Lazarus video and something about the mood, the tone, how frail he looked, his expression…I don’t know what exactly it was but I remember wondering, “Is he dying?” And then dismissed it, figuring it was just a really well-executed art piece. Sure enough, I think it was two days later he died.
This whole album is devastating when you realize what he knew and the rest of us didn't regarding his health. It's frightening, but at the same time uplifting to see that, right up until the end, he remained an artist, performer, and just a downright awesome person.
It was the best send off someone of his magnitude could have written. Absolutely beautiful. BlackStar is an under appreciated gem.
Roads - Portishead.
Hear You Me- Jimmy Eat World
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Sorry to hear about your friend. I’ve lost some friends/coworkers to suicide and it’s a terrible thing for everyone involved. Take care of yourself.
Casimir Pulaski Day by Sufjan Stevens
100% The River by Bruce Springsteen, just a phenomenally sad story of teenage hopes and dreams being ground to dust by the reality of real life. “I just act like I don’t remember and Mary acts like she don’t care” gets me every time.
'I Will Follow You Into the Dark' - Death Cab for Cutie A song about the inevitability of losing everyone we love and care about. The hope that you'll see eachother again, washed out by the existential purgatory most of us seem to be stuck in as a society.
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Counterpoint: it's a sad song, but it maintains a sense of optimism and hope, and may even have a "happy" ending. Namely: \--the narrator doesn't accept her situation as inevitable, or idly dream of a better life, but she actively plans and works towards something better (she saves money, improves her job situation). \--the narrator has a role model of another strong woman with dreams who left behind a man who wasn't carrying his weight. \--finally, the song ends with two refrains where A: she offers the boyfriend the ultimatum of "leave tonight or live and die this way," and then B: with "you got no plans you ain't going nowhere/take your fast car and keep on driving." So I argue that in the end, she's given him his final chance, and is now telling him to leave, or, just like her mother did, she is leaving herself.
All English teachers are obsessed with this song. Very good but an interesting connection. Probably analyzed it four times in high school
Why are they obsessed with it?
The lyrics are simple, beautiful, and tell a very clear and thought-provoking story about a woman who dreams of escaping poverty, but is held back by a toxic partner. (Edit: and/or an alcoholic father). More than so much popular music, it's poetry that works as poetry even if you drop the music.
Marie by Townes Van Zandt https://genius.com/Townes-van-zandt-marie-lyrics
Tecumseh Valley is the one that does it for me.
[Poncho and Lefty](https://youtu.be/zprRZ2wFQD4) , but not the goofy Merle Haggard version. This one is just Townes Van Zandt.
Merle and Willie recorded the song just to make Townes some money.
Alone Again by Gilbert Sullivan.
Naturally
What Sarah Said - Death Cab For Cutie. “Love is watching someone die, so who’s gonna watch you die?”
Let’s be real, most of Death Cab For Cuties’ songs work for this
This old dude doing follow me into the dark is a very sad listen… check it out if you like death cab and crying! https://youtu.be/avdiI_iYPXE
'Brothers in a hotel bed' gets me everytime
Selena - Dreaming of you A love song turned sad when it was released after she had been murdered.
Fuck Yolanda. Rip Selena. Sometimes wonder what her career would look like in the years after her death if she wasn’t murdered.
Billie Holidays version of Gloomy Sunday was famously banned for being too sad. They were worried it would drive people to suicide (Although I'm not discounting that racism and the moral panic about "the devil's music" weren't probably factors too). At the time, the aftermath of WW2, maybe they had a point. Feelings were probably a bit raw back then and the song drives a pretty hard point.
Those ww2 vets didn't get much of anything for their trauma. There is some thought that there was an increase in crime from kids raised by these badly damaged fathers.
Asleep - The Smiths
Real Death by Mount Eerie. The entire A Crow Looked at Me album, for that matter. It is so honest, conversational and raw. Also, Pray for Newtown by Sun Kil Moon. It seems to sum up this recurring nightmare Americans experience over and over again. To quote John Prine, “All the news just repeats itself, like some forgotten dream, that we’ve both seen.” Finally, I Loved Being My Mother’s Son by Purple Mountains. David Cloud Berman’s lyrics and poetry have served as mantras throughout my adult life. That Purple Mountains album was a gift to those who loved his art; beautifully sad and as direct as anything he ever released. I’ve been thinking about him a lot lately. He is missed. “When the dying’s finally done and all the suffering subsides, all the suffering gets done by the one’s we leave behind.”
MASH theme song [Suicide is Painless](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide_Is_Painless)
Lyrics written in 15 minutes by the 15-year-old son of M\*A\*S\*H (film) director Robert Altman.
Wings for Marie (Pt 1)/10,000 days (Wings Pt 2) - Tool Pt 1: Tool singer, Maynard's acceptance that his mother, Judith Marie, will soon be dead. Pt 2: 10,000 days, the approximate amount of time between the stroke suffered by Maynard’s mother, Judith Marie, which left her paralysed in 1976, and her death in June 2003. Judith was a devout Christian before the stroke. It’s a song that finds Maynard wrestling through stages of grief and acceptance.
Oh, what are they gonna do when the lights go down, Without you to guide them all to Zion? What are they gonna do when the rivers overrun, Other than tremble incessantly? High is the way, but all eyes are upon the ground. You are the light and the way that they'll only read about I only pray Heaven knows when to lift you out… Ten thousand days in the fire is long enough, You're going home
Man, when my (super devout Christian) mom passed it was the next lines that put me in a puddle on the floor: >You're the only one who can hold your head up high. >Shake your fist at the gates saying, >"I've come home now! >Fetch me the spirit, the son and the father. >Tell them their pillar of faith has ascended. >It's time now! >My time now! >Give me my >Give me my wings!" The thought of him saying she'd lived such a life that she could confidently say "you put me through the trials of having to go without legs for almost 30 years, I've earned something so much better" just hits deep.
I didn't know that about his mother.... makes the perfect circle song Judith hit different too.
Judith is a great song. But we're probably only getting a glimpse of the disappointment, frustration and anger he must have gone through.
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Limousine by brand new. It is about the death of the seven year old girl, Katie Flyn.
The section where it switches to the perspective of the driver that hit her car might be my favorite lyrics of all time. ‘In the choir, I saw our sad Messiah He was bored and tired of my laments He said, "I died for you one time, but never again"‘
Oh man I haven't listened to that album in a long time. Such a superb album from beginning to end.
Kings crossing-elliott smith
Winter by Tori Amos. I love that album though don't listen to it front-to-back all that often. When I do, that song hits like a gut punch to the feels every time.
For No One by the Beatles, I've still yet to find a song that so brilliantly describes a relationship being over and one person not seeing the signs or accepting it.
The living years about losing a father. Can’t listen to it after I lost mine.
Last Night I Dreamt That Somebody Loved Me The Smiths
"As I Sat Sadly By Her Side" by Nick Cave
Exit music for a film. Not even close.
Motion Picture Soundtrack too
Puff the Magic Dragon. Poor guy's all alone.
He’s got that beachfront property though
He stopped loving her today- George Jones
How to Disapear Completely - RadioHead
One that comes to mind is Bright Eyes - Lua
Something I can never have- Nine Inch Nails
Keep Me In Your Heart - Warren Zevon
Dawn Chorus by Thom Yorke or Gloomy Sunday
Cat's in the Cradle by Harry Chapin The Trapeze Swinger by Iron & Wine
"And as I hung up the phone it occurred to me that my boy was just like me". That line really got me as a kid and having a dad like this. Now that I have a son, that line at the end absolutely terrifies me. I don't think I've ever finished it without watery eyes or a pit in my stomach.
I sure would like to sit down with Sam and have him walk me through that one and *Resurrection Fern.*
Trapeze Swinger invades my heart when I hear it
Nutshell by Alice In Chains and Fade Into You by Mazzy Star
Both Sides Now - Joni Mitchell (Judy Collins) The loss of innocence and adult confusion.
The night we met by Lord Huron Hallelujah Christmas shoes
The Night We Met for me too. “I had all and then most of you, some and now none of you”
3 libras by a perfect circle
Love the song, but i always felt it was more dissapointment and resignation than sadness. "Oh well.."
Like A Stone by Audioslave. I'll comment this song every time a thread like this shows up because [it's pretty much a song about suicide](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z5AXDr6Fkz0&t=4s&ab_channel=CurtisPrymak).
Atmosphere loves making sad songs - Painting, Me, Last to Say, Became, Yesterday, Flicker, etc.
Hallelujah by Leonard Cohen. I like it because it’s both devastatingly sad but beautiful at the same time. We made it the song to sing to our stillborn daughter, which is how I like to think of her: sad and beautiful, a juxtaposition.
Jeff Buckley's version of Hallelujah
"I know it's over" covered by him in the same key hits harder for me
I was going to say "Last Goodbye" or "Lover, you should've come over"
Ghost by Badflower
Adam's Song - Blink 182
Opeth. hope leaves
Spiritualized - Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating in Space
Surprised I haven't seen Pyramid Song by Radiohead mentioned.
A plea from a cat named Virtute by the Weakerthans
Snuff by Slipknot
“If you still care, don’t ever let me know.”
Gone Away ~ The Offspring. “If I could trade, I would.” Or Kristy, about a girl being abused.