Caroline has a dime
She tries to call her friend now
But none of her calls are getting through
She lives in her room alone
Her best friend’s her imagination
She has dreams instead of moments now
Caroline on the line
Never getting through
She’s getting tired of reaching out
Everyday the same display
The world caught in her eye
Caroline always seems to cry.
I should add that thats “Caroline” by Jawbreaker
Nobody saw her go,
They said they should have noticed
'cause her dress was cut so low.
Well it only goes to show
how many real men any of us know.
She went up the stairs,
Stood up on the vanity chair,
Tied her lame belt around the chandelier,
And went out kicking at the perfumed air.
Diamond Smiles - Boomtown Rats
The rest of the song is just as depressing.
This song has always really affected me - I used to listen to it over and over when I was about 10 and going through a moody stage.
Come pick me up,
take me out,
fuck me up,
steal my records.
Screw all my friends
behind my back
with a smile on your face,
and then do it again…
I wish you would.
“Come Pick Me Up,” Ryan Adams
My favorite sad song by the Cure:
And all the smiles that I wear
and all the games that I play
and all the drinks that I mix
and I drink until I’m sick
and all the faces that I make
and all the shapes that I throw
and all the people I meet
and all the words that I know
make me sick to the heart
oh I feel so tired…
and the way the rain comes down hard
that’s how I feel inside
‘Open’ - The Cure
OK, how about one of the most depressing and negative lyrics ever, Everybody Knows by Leonard Cohen?
Everybody knows that the dice are loaded
Everybody rolls with their fingers crossed
Everybody knows that the war is over
Everybody knows the good guys lost
Everybody knows the fight was fixed
The poor stay poor, the rich get rich
That’s how it goes
Everybody knows
Everybody knows that the boat is leaking
Everybody knows that the captain lied
Everybody got this broken feeling
Like their father or their dog just died
Everybody talking to their pockets
Everybody wants a box of chocolates
And a long stem rose
Everybody knows
…
Everybody knows that you love me baby
Everybody knows that you really do
Everybody knows that you’ve been faithful
Ah give or take a night or two
Everybody knows you’ve been discreet
But there were so many people you just had to meet
Without your clothes
And everybody knows
…
And everybody knows that it’s now or never
Everybody knows that it’s me or you
And everybody knows that you live forever
Ah when you’ve done a line or two
Everybody knows the deal is rotten
Old Black Joe’s still pickin’ cotton
For your ribbons and bows
And everybody knows
…
And (in keeping with the rules) that’s just a sample. For the rest of the lyrics, check out
this site.
Various Joy Division lyrics, such as
An abyss that laughs at creation
A circus complete with all fools
Foundations that lasted the ages
Then ripped apart at their roots.
Beyond all this good is the terror
The grip of a mercenary hand
When savagery turns all good reason
There’s no turning back, no last stand.
from the song Heart and Soul. And from the song Twenty Four Hours there is:
Just for one moment, I heard somebody call
Looked beyond the day in hand
There’s nothing there at all.
And if that doesn’t do it for you, there’s always good old Pink Floyd with the lines in Time:
The Sun is the same in a relative way but your older
And shorter of breath and one day closer to death.
“I want you
It’s the stupid details that my heart is breaking for
It’s the way your shoulders shake and what they’re shaking for
it’s knowing that he knows you now after only guessing
I want you
It’s the thought of him undressing you or you undressing…
Go on and hurt me then we’ll let it drop
I want you
I’m afraid I won’t know where to stop
I want you
I’m not ashamed to say I cried for you
I want you
I want to know the things you did that we do too
I want you
I want to hear he pleases you more than I do
I want you
I might as well be useless for all it means to you
I want you
Did you call his name out as he held you down
I want you
Oh no my darling not with that clown”
From “I Want You” by Elvis Costello
The desert’s lovely, dark and deep and I got no more promises left to keep, but why tell me why I gotta drain a bottle dry before I can cry… before I can cry over you
So give me a sign, amigo can you tell me, did you go down laughin’ when you finally fell? We had tales to tell and songs to sing. Did you get your horns or did they give you wings?
Either works just as well, ashes of San Miguel.
Peacemakers, Ashes of San Miguel
Oh! Oh! This one gets me too.
Though we share this humble path, alone
How fragile is the heart
Oh give these clay feet wings to fly
To touch the face of the stars
Breathe life into this feeble heart
Lift this mortal veil of fear
Take these crumbled hopes, etched with tears
We’ll rise above these earthly cares
Cast your eyes on the ocean
Cast your soul to the sea
When the dark night seems endless
Please remember me
-Loreena McKennit, Dante’s Prayer
Jackson Browne, Late for the Sky
"Looking hard into your eyes
There was nobody I’d ever known
Such an empty surprise
To feel so alone
Awake again I can’t pretend
And I know I’m alone
And close to the end
Of the feeling we’ve known"
Paul Simon, Patterns
“From the moment of my birth
To the instant of my death,
There are patterns I must follow
Just as I must breathe each breath.
Like a rat in a maze
The path before me lies,
And the pattern never alters
Until the rat dies.”
Mike & The Mechanics, The Living Years
"I wasn’t there that morning
When my Father passed away
I didn’t get to tell him
All the things I had to say
I think I caught his spirit
Later that same year
I’m sure I heard his echo
In my baby’s new born tears
I just wish I could have told him in the living years"
Suicide is Painless
(Theme from MASH)
Through early morning fog I see,
Visions of the things to be,
The pains that are withheld for me,
I realize and I can see…
[REFRAIN]:
That suicide is painless.
It brings on many changes.
And I can take or leave it if I please.
I try to find a way to make,
All our little joys relate,
Without that ever-present hate,
But now I know that it’s too late, and…
[REFRAIN]
The game of life is hard to play,
I’m gonna lose it anyway.
The losing card I’ll someday lay,
So this is all I have to say.
[REFRAIN]
The only way to win is cheat,
And lay it down before I’m beat,
And to another give my seat,
For that’s the only painless feat.
[REFRAIN]
The sword of time will pierce our skins.
It doesn’t hurt when it begins.
But as it works its way on in,
The pain grows stronger…watch it grin, but…
[REFRAIN]
'Cause suicide is painless.
It brings on many changes.
And I can take or leave it if I please.
…And you can do the same thing if you choose.
this one alway brings a tear to my eye. Reminds me of Scotland:
Tell her to find me an acre of land
(On the side of a hill, a sprinkling of leaves)
Parsely, sage, rosemary, & thyme
(Washed is the ground with so many tears)
Between the salt water and the sea strand
(A soldier cleans and polishes a gun)
Then she’ll be a true love of mine
Tell her to reap it in a sickle of leather
(War bellows, blazing in scarlet battalions)
Parsely, sage, rosemary & thyme
(Generals order their soldiers to kill)
And to gather it all in a bunch of heather
(And to fight for a cause they’ve long ago forgotten)
Then she’ll be a true love of mine
Are you going to Scarborough Fair?
Parsley, sage, rosemary & thyme
Remember me to one who lives there
She once was a true love of mine
Bonnie Raight (sp?)
I can’t make you love me if you don’t,
I can’t make your heart feel something it won’t…
Saddest damn song ever. I hear it playing in grocery stores and start crying.
The lines in the OP were the first to pop in my head when I saw the thread title. They are the saddest lines I know. I just posted those in another thread about sad, angsty music. Did you see them there or are you just another fan of the Handsome Family?
To quote more Hansome Family, from “Weightless Again”
I want to kiss you, but I wasn’t sure
Like those Indians, lost in the rainforest
Forced to drag burning wood wherever they went
They had all forgottten how to start a fire
This seems cruel given your user name, but you did ask:
Joni Mitchell * Song for Sharon*
A woman I knew just drowned herself
The well was deep and muddy
She was just shaking off futility
Or punishing somebody
My friends were calling up all day yesterday
All emotions and abstractions
It seems we all live so close to that line
And so far from satisfaction
The always cheerful Eric Bogle The Band Played Waltzing Matilda
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.
But the band played “Waltzing Matilda,”
As they carried us down the gangway,
But nobody cheered, they just stood and stared,
Then they turned all their faces away.
Jackson Browne* For a Dancer*
I don’t know what happens when people die
Can’t seem to grasp it as hard as I try
It’s like a song playing right in my ear
That I can’t sing
I can’t help listening
I can’t help feeling stupid standing 'round
Crying as they ease you down
Cause I know that you’d rather we were dancing
Dancing our sorrow away
(Right on dancing)
No matter what fate chooses to play
(There’s nothing you can do about it anyway)
Then there’s “Brick,” by Ben Folds Five
“They told me, ‘Son, it’s time to tell the truth,’ and
She broke down, and I broke down,
'Cause I was tired of lying.”
With all the things/that one can deserve/it’s enough to wonder/why you punish your girls/sure, he’s facing you, now/not the wall/but wasn’t that better than facing/ nothing at all?
John XXIII, by Sarah Slean
Madeleine, does your story end/with this aftermath music/and my broken French/heal her, if you can/pray the lions aren’t waiting/take her hand…I want to be brave
Madeleine, also by Sarah Slean
Things have changed this time around/I’m on the rocks and looking down/And I can’t see for all the darkness 'round here
A song I can’t remember, by Morcheeba
I’ll nominate another couple of good songs by The Cure:
“Siamese Twins,” from Pornography
I chose an eternity of this
Like falling angels
The world disappeared
Laughing into the fire
Is it always like this?
Flesh and blood and the first kiss
The first colours
The first kiss
…
The walls and the ceiling move in time
Push a blade into my hands
Slowly up the stairs
And into the room
Is it always like this?
Dancing in my pocket
Worms eat my skin
She glows and grows
With arms outstretched
Her legs around me…
In the morning I cried
“Pictures of You,” from Disintegration (this entire album is my favorite for depressing songs)
Remembering
You fallen into my arms
Crying for the death of your heart
You were stone white
So delicate
Lost in the cold
You were always so lost in the dark
Remembering
You how you used to be
Slow drowned
You were angels
So much more than everything
Hold for the last time then slip away quietly
Open my eyes
But I never see anything
He stopped loving her today
they placed a wreath upon his door