Are you feeling restless, depressed, anxious, or just generally bummed out these days? (Really, who could blame you, given that the world feels perpetually on the verge of collapse, and the ever-more-pervasive sense that the only thing keeping this country’s social fabric together is a shared rubbernecking toward the plights of starlets?) Is your mood coloring the music you listen to? The Deciblog unearthed a press release from the Peter Gabriel-helmed “cultural suggestion engine” The Filter saying that it had noticed a dramatic uptick in depressing music being spun by its users, with CEO David Maher-Roberts saying “We’re seeing more of our users than ever before rating depressing or slightly miserable tracks more highly than happier types of music. It’s logical to assume that this is a reflection of what’s happening in the economy.” Well, it’s not just the economy, I suspect. The Filter, being the savvy Web startup that it is, marked the occasion with a list of depressing songs that included Evanescence’s “My Immortal” and Radiohead’s “How To Disappear Completely”; the Deciblog countered with its own list of sad metal songs, which contains exactly zero tracks I am familiar with. Great, now I’m even more depressed!
Anyway, there is one track that was ignored by both The Filter and Decibel, which I understand because it’s kind of old. But really, is there anything more gut-wrenchingly melodramatic, more liable to send you into a tailspin of “God, what’s the point,” than Mark Dinning’s “Teen Angel”? The 45-spinning video only adds to the sadness:
Sure, it doesn’t talk about economic woes; its wistfulness is quite specific. But being the “Please, God, I’m Only 17″ of its era has to count for something.
Dramatic Rise In Popularity Of Depressing Music [The Deciblog]
Steve Earle, Ellis Unit One
Honestly, the depressing songs in my mind are things like “Courtesy of the Red White and Blue” — or anything that takes the potential of the American experiment as writ large and embraces only the cartoonish japery.
Probably not a frequent choice, but I’ve always been devastated by Tori Amos’ “Winter” — “Hair is grey and the fires are burning / so many dreams on the shelf / You say ‘I wanted you to be proud of me’ / I always wanted that myself…”
“Atmosphere” by Joy Division
“The Disease” by Echo and the Bunnymen
“It’s The Life” by Grant Lee Buffalo
and “Via Chicago” by Wilco always makes me cry
maybe “11:59 – it’s january” by scrawl, although i suppose there’s definitely some gallows humor in the song.
Warren Zevon does a cover of Winwood’s “Back in the High Life” that really takes it right out of ya:
Although there’s something to be said for PP&M’s “Leaving on a Jet Plane.” As a kid, this would get me weeping uncontrollably:
OOOH! Just remembered this one. This, I promise you, will destroy you.
And then, really, take your pick from Reed’s “Magic and Loss” and Beck’s Sea Change.
Can we do happy songs next week?
@thearcanemodel:
sample lyric: “tonight auld lang syne means, ‘leave before the kissing starts.’” i mean, damn.
John Prine’s “Hello In There”. If you wanna get bummed out, fast, give that one a spin.
Two songs that I can barely listen to:
“Cat’s In The Cradle” – Harry Chapin – I can handle it, but my Mom will weep uncontrollably upon hearing the chorus
“Runaway Train” – Soul Asylum – When I was a little kid this video put the fear of God in me. Still does, as a matter of fact. I would never in a million years listen to this song willingly, and unwilling listens make me squirm and drift into some sort of catatonic state for 4:30.
Otis Redding’s version of “A Change is Gonna Come” leaves me catatonic.
Also, Joni Mitchell’s “River.” I just can’t handle it.
“End of the Rainbow” by Richard Thompson
“Detective Daughter” by Emily Haines seems to well up a few tears as of late.
@joshservo: Sea Change gets me squirtin a few as well.
“God Of Wine” by Third Eye Blind
“Strange Days” by Matthew Good Band
“Black” by Pearl Jam
“medicine bottle” by red house painters
Kate & Anna McGarrigle, “I Eat Dinner”
Bobby Womack, “If You Think You’re Lonely Now”
Dolly Parton, “Do I Ever Cross Your Mind”
Connie Francis, “Among My Souvenirs”
Tommy James & The Shondells, “Crimson & Clover”
Mary J. Blige, “I Love You” (or just about anything else on “My Life”)
Gilbert O’Sullivan – “Alone Again (Naturally)”
God, just writing the title makes my chest feel like it did in my pre Zoloft/counseling days.
“Four-color Love Story” by the Metasciences (you can get the whole album free off their myspace), because those bastards really DID kill Sue Dibny.
Also, “Keep on Rocking in the Free World,” right about “there’s one more kid…”
And, and obvs choice, but “Luka.”
Metallica-Turn the Page
Emmet Swimming – “Bullet in Your Hand”
Afghan Whigs – “When We Two Parted” – (bonus if it’s the live version with the end of “Ex-Factor” thrown in for additional devastation)
Warrant – “I Saw Red” (acoustic version)[come on - you gotta feel for the guy]
Stereophonics – “Since I told You It’s Over”
John Lennon – “Mother”
“A Day in the Life,” The Beatles
“Hurt,” the Johnny Cash version.
Each kills me every time.
The lyric that gets me every time is from “Bohemian Rhapsody” – “Mama, I don’t want to die, but sometimes I wish I’d never been born at all.”
Fuck, but that just kills me.
Ah, forgot “You Just Haven’t Earned it Yet, Baby” from the Smiths.
@slowburn: Good call on the Otis track.
“little time bomb” by billy bragg will forever be the saddest song i’ve ever heard. the kind of like spitting cover is a very, very close second.
+ Watch video
Sleater Kinney “Good Things.” The songs that get me the most always need to acknowledge the fleeting moments of happiness that come with the darkness, or something like that.
Also, the Duane Allman version of “These Days” is a little bit sadder than Nico’s.
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@drinkypuss: oops, Gregg Allman.
First two tracks on Disintegration: “Plainsong” and, natch, “Pictures of You.” Although some of the bummer-ness has been sucked out of the latter thanks to its belated radio-friendliness. (The album-length original still wrenches me, however.)
Oh, and: “It’s Not Easy Being Green.”
Dixie Chicks, “Top of the World” (written by Patty Griffin):
Gloria Balsam’s “Fluffy”?
[boomp3.com]
as i type i’m listening to plant and Krauss’ “Raising Sand” record, which strikes mea as a pretty damn sad album.
But for a song, i’ll go with Gary Jules’ “Mad World. Or Willie Nelson’s “Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain.”
Arvo Pärt – “Silouans Song”
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A whole muxtape of sad songs:
[epicharmus.muxtape.com]
@slowburn: When Gawker did this earlier this summer, I posted the version of “A Change Gonna Come” by Sam Cooke. Man.
“Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want”, Moz & the Smiths Band.
I’m going to go stare deeply into a Seurat painting in the Chicago Museum now.
@cosmiclove: Sam Cooke, or Otis Redding? Are there two singer’s versions, or am I getting the songs confused?
@OingoBobo: Yeah, both singers do that song.
I dunno about all time, but “Re: Stacks” by Bon Iver will forever be associated with the crushingly depressing season finale of House this year for me.
“The Living Years” – Mike + The Mechanics
“For Martha” – The Smashing Pumpkins
Also, don’t ask my why, but “Adam’s Song” by Blink 182 is really damn depressing.
Most Patty Griffin songs would qualify for this list, but the list would’ve to be topped by Gram Parsons’ “$1000 Wedding”, the Beach Boys’ “Til I Die”, or David Axelrod’s “Loved Boy” (with Lou Rawls on vocals). I can barely get through the latter – about Axelrod’s son, who died at the age of 17 – without starting to cry.
Also, no mention of Big Star’s “Holocaust” yet? Really?
I found THE most depressing song in the entire universe, this very year. It is “Somber” by David Cook, the acoustic version. First verse: “Inside I’m empty and outside I’m numb / And I keep on waiting for the pain to succumb / Inside I’m lonely, outside I’m alone / As the world falls apart in the end / Hate floods my body and thoughts cloud my mind / Can’t shake the cobwebs that I find, yeah / The darkness flutters around my head / Sometimes, I wonder, Am I dead?”
*ahem* Can ANYONE top that? I don’t think so. It’s on YouTube if you want to hear it. Search for “Somber(Acoustic)”. Axium was his band name. If you already feel extremely depressed, DON’T! Just don’t even go there.
There is a serious lack of Cocteau Twins here…”Victorialand” as a whole, for instance.
Viper and His Amazing Orchestra’s cover of ‘Dance of the 7 Veils’
After that ‘Raining in Baltimore’ by the Counting Crows. My best friend told me he considered that song a suicide watch.
I forgot this one: “Waiting Around to Die”, Townes Van Zandt.
C’mon folks, Bruce Springsteen- “The River.” Especially the version on Live/ 1975-85.
When the harmonica kicks in, it’s earth shattering.
The whole of Plush’s More You Becomes You always sends me to the saddest possible plane of being in the universe (“The Sailor“, especially), some place where complete misery overlaps into near-hilarity (I hope?). “Don’t Make Plans This Friday” by Silkworm, Transaction de Novo by Bedhead, “Broken-Hearted Wine” by Codiene, Chris Bell’s “I Am The Cosmos”, and this, always this:
uh. sad songs make my day!
i’ll go for stina nordenstam’s ‘so this is goodbye’.
i started crying the other day listening to freedom by wham! although usually it’s any version of walk away renee (especially billy bragg’s) that gets the waterworks going.
i’d have to disagree on a personal level with the article, though–i used to spent my days listening mostly to cat power and pj harvey where these days it’s hard for me to listen to anything sad at all.
i also like that the ‘please god i’m only 17′ webpage refers to it as a ‘wonderful story.’
@OingoBobo: “Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want”, Moz & the Smiths Band.
An excellent song ruined by John Hughes and the angsty entitlement of suburban youth.
This may have been mentioned already because I was too lazy to read through all of the comments, but the saddest song of all time has to be Mad World off of the Donnie Darko soundtrack