Rod Stewart “The Killing of Georgie”
New Order “Blue Monday”
Morrissey “Every Day is Like Sunday”
The Fray “How to Save a Life”
Leader of the Pack - girl watches boyfriend die in motorcycle wreck
Hazard by Richard Marx – lonely outsider falsely accused of killing his only friend
You’re No Son of Mine by Phil Collins
Smuggler’s Blues, maybe?
Oh – and Johnny Have You Seen Her? by the Rembrandts could be read as nothing more than “my girlfriend’s been cheating with you and I know it” but it’s always sounded way darker to me, as in “Johnny, I know you’ve done something awful to her and hidden the body somewhere but I can’t prove it.” I don’t know why it feels that way to me, but it always has.
Although I’m mostly keeping it to myself when people post songs I don’t consider pop, because as I said earlier, I know my definition is narrower than other people’s, I have to mention this, just like I did with Paranoid. Although POPular, this song would be classified as hard rock or heavy metal (except for the version done by the Cardigans :D)
Would you consider Depeche Mode pop? Because when I read your thread title they immediately popped into my head.
Yes, I consider them pop.
Just want to thank you for reminding me of this great song! I just added it to my IPod. And I never saw it the way you described it be I can totally see that now and it makes it even better.
njtt, I think you’re mishearing lyrics. The line is “I tell you to enjoy life I wish I could but it’s too late”, not “I tell you to end your life I wish I could but it’s too late”.
Maybe I’m putting an age on myself, but growing up, I heard Black Sabbath everywhere growing up - Which pretty much meets my definition of ‘pop’ - as in ‘music so popular you can’t get the hell away from it.’
Ditto Judas Preist, Ronnie James Dio / Rainbow, and a whole host of other bands that maybe today would be isolated under the label of heavy metal. But not then… and in my mind, not now, either.
Or maybe I grew up in some kind of heavy metal ‘Brigadoon.’ 
I was thinking of saying this. Personally, I put Black Sabbath pretty solidly in the heavy metal camp, and “dark” is practically a prerequisite in that genre.
Now Alice Cooper… not really pop, but closer, and certainly a lot of darkness there, although rather cartoonish.
Hardly. Have you really listened to his albums..? They go some very avant-garde places - Many of those places far blacker than just merely ‘dark.’. Even I, who grew up with his music, consider him pretty far ‘out there.’
Example, from Gail:
A dog dug up a bone and wagged it’s tail
I wonder how the dog remembers Gail
Yeah, I wouldn’t call Alice “cartoonish.”
From Pick Up the Bones:
Collecting pieces of my family in an old pillowcase…
This one has a skull, but it don’t have a face.
These look like the arms of father so strong
And the ring on this finger means my grandma is gone…
Yeah, no. 
While we’re talking about Phil Collins, what about Long Long Way to Go:
“While I sit and we talk and talk and we talk some more
Someone’s loved one’s heart stops beating in a street somewhere
So it would seem we’ve still got a long long way to go, I know
I’ve heard all I wanna hear today.”
Not exactly a pop song, but a pop artist.
Also *Dirty Laundry *by Don Henley:
“Can we film the operation?
Is the head dead yet?
You know, the boys in the newsroom got a
running bet
Get the widow on the set!
We need dirty laundry.”
I second the claim that the lyric is actually “I tell you to enjoy life”, not “I tell you to end your life”. But then again, it’s always been hard to tell with Ozzy’s vocals…
As for Lady Gaga, how, I repeat, how could anyone miss “Paparazzi”?
By not listening to her..?
Ouch! Good point. But it only takes one listen, even just hearing it on the radio by chance, to get the idea that she’s maybe venturing into murderous stalker territory. Eek!
If we’re talking Beatles, Eleanor Rigby is far darker than Maxwell, being about an old lonely lady who dies with no mourners and a priest with no followers. The animated version at the beginning of Yellow Submarine was reasonably good at showing it.
Lots of blues songs.
A Hard Rain is Gonna Fall is pretty damn dark - pellets of poison flooding their waters, clowns who die in the alley. The other WW III song on that album, Talkin’ World War III Blues is darn upbeat. The Ballad of Hollis Brown on Times They are a Changin’ about a farmer who murders his family and himself is pretty dark also.
OK, I’ll elaborate… He gets rather cartoonish at times, and quite intentionally. We could call it “black humor” if you prefer. I mean… “I Love the Dead”?
Voyager: Possibly so - Depends on one’s point of view, but certainly Eleanor Rigby is a real downer, and belongs here.
Then counterpoint that with Dead Babies. “Black humor” is about right, recognizing that Cooper’s version of ‘black’ is often stygian, and sometimes drips with blood, venom, and insanity.
And 10,000 Maniacs’ “The Latin One” probably should win this thread. A cheery, toe-tapping 80s pop song with Marchant’s lovely voice soaring above it all, singing about a WW1 gas attack on some poor bastard’s trench. The protagonist slowly, painfully trudges to some notional safety while a fellow who didn’t fit his mask in time drowns in his own lungs.
For extra cheer, the lyrics are from a poem by Wilfred Owen, who - you guessed it! - died in some godforsaken trench.
From about the same time:
D.O.A. by Bloodrock.
Not sure if it’s really ‘Pop’, but was listed on Casey Kasem’s Top 40.
Ah for the days of Junior High.