Ah…that was one of my early depression anthems! Still hits close to home. Hiding in my room, safe within my womb now comes with internet.
“I Am a Rock,” Simon & Garfunkel.
Built Then Burn (Hurrah! Hurrah!) - Thee Silver Mount Zion Memorial Orchestra & Tra-La-La Band
Blind Willie Johnson: Dark was the Night, Cold was the Ground.
It has vocals, but no words. You can’t use words to express primal sorrow.
If you’re depressed over a girl (or guy), i.e. lovelorn in general, nothing can beat Concrete Blond’s ‘Joey’…
Two pages in and not a single mention of Aimee Mann?!
Feeling inadequate? “Guys Like Me”
Feeling hopeless? “It’s Not”
Feeling washed up? “Columbus Avenue”
Feeling like an early life crisis? “31 Today”
Feeling like you just don’t give a crap? “Looking for Nothing”
And the gold standard, Oscar-certified:
In short, Aimee really knows how to make melancholy her bitch.
Buckets of Rain, Neko Case, live in Austin.
“Life is sad, life is a bust
All you can do is do what you must
You do what you must do and you do it well”
I love that. LIFE IS SAD, LIFE IS A BUST, OH WELL, JUST KEEP DOING WHAT YOU HAVE TO DO. It cheers me up. I think that often what is at the root of depression is thwarted expectations.
Worse Things Happen at Sea by Frank Turner - listening to him escalate to hopelessness by the end of it.
Also Anymore by Frank Turner as well.
Really depends on my current obsessions, because my brain only really lets me like one artist at a time.
Rush’s The Pass is a good one (Christ what have you done?)
Johnny Cash’s Hurt, Bonnie Raitt’s I Can’t Make You Love Me, Dropkick Murphy’s Upstarts and Broken Hearts, Fleetwood Mac’s Silver Springs, Linda Rhonstadt’s Long, Long Time. Anything off Springsteen’s The River album. U2’s Stuck in a Moment. Queen’s Show Must Go On.
(That is a seriously weird list).
I’ll second this, but please make it Rod’s version (not sure about the strange sense of humor part, though).
Ah, I too am “battling” depression (but I’m effing KICKING its ass!).
When I’m done enjoying Tom Waits or Morrissey’s pain, I have some hopeful “anthems”:
Almost anything by Neil Finn (/Crowded House), esp. “Weather With You”. The whole Woodface album got me through a horrible week back in the day.
Jeb Loy Nichols (also his old band Fellow Travelers). While “As The Rain” is a good wallow-y tune, just try to listen to *“Heaven Right Here” or “Days Are Mighty”* and not feeling Hope. The entire albums* Just What Time It Is* or Things And Time are full of Hopeful Shit.
Just caught The Mowgli’s at Summerfest. “Buncha buds jumpin round havin a singalong”. Okay, too positive… if you’re suicidal, it might push you over the line. But, being in recovery, they helped restore my beleaguered faith in homo sapiens.
Ha! In college we had the vinyl LP and had to manually restart the song each time it ended. I used my electronics knowledge to convert it to a cassette, repeating it 9 times.
We listened to it 3 times before each exam, and 9 times before each seriously heavy-duty final exam. Before the MCATs we discussed whether or not to listen to it 27 times, but settled on 9.
Looking at the Rain – Gordon Lightfoot