Favorite/Most Depressing Song Lyrics

Cafe Society
41

Some great choices so far, particularly the Radiohead ones (I’m going through a bit of a nutty Radiohead phase right now).

As for mine, naturally, a Leonard Cohen one - just as a random choice - they’s dozens of good and depressing ones ;):

I heard of a saint who had loved you,
so I studied all night in his school.
He taught that the duty of lovers
is to tarnish the golden rule.
And just when I was sure that his teachings were pure
he drowned himself in the pool.
His body is gone but back here on the lawn
his spirit continues to drool.

One Of Us Cannot Be Wrong

42

Here’s another Radiohead one.

“I jumped in the river.
What did I see?
Black-eyed angels swam with me.
A moon full of stars and astral cars.
All the things that I used to see.
And all my lovers were there with me.
All my pasts and futures.
We all went to heaven in a little row boat.
There was nothing to fear and nothing to doubt.”
~Pyramid Song

Somewhere I heard someone say that Thom Yorke could read the stock reports from the newspaper and make you cry. And it’s true.

43

Almost every song on Pink Floyd’s The Final Cut

Sweetheart, Sweetheart, are you fast asleep?
Good.
That’s the only time that I can really speak to you
There is something that I’ve locked away,
A memory that is too painful, to withstand the light of day

44

Sublight, I was in a really depressed mood this week, and pulled out The Final Cut for the first time in a few years - it’s easily the most miserable record I’ve ever heard, and was perfect for the mood. By the nuclear war-ending, I almost felt happy knowing that at least I’m not Roger Waters :wink:

45

Yay! Here comes even more Radiohead!

*A heart that’s full up like a landfill
A job that slowly kills you
Bruises that won’t heal

You look so tired, unhappy
Bring down the government
They don’t, they don’t speak for us
I’ll take a quiet life
A handshake of carbon monoxide

No alarms and no surprises
No alarms and no surprises
No alarms and no surprises
Silent.

Silent.*

–No Surprises

46

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, my 4th favorite all-time song is Messages by OMD, which contains such uplifting lines as:

So don’t ask me if I think it’s true that
communication can bring hope to those
who have gone their separate ways.

Of course, the music is equally depressing, probably the saddest music I have ever heard in a medium-paced song.*

*Saddest, but not most *depressing[i/]. Some country music, while musically not sad, has a weird meter and pace to it that I theorize actually makes me well on the road to being depressed. It makes my brain feel slow even if my thoughts are happy.

47

I agree with The Final Cut being a terribly depressing album. And it wasn’t purely based on the fact that it was Roger’s last album with the band.

To stay on track with Pink Floyd, how about Goodbye Cruel World on The Wall. No depressing metaphors, just something of a suicide note and at the end of the song, Roger is cut off in the middle of saying goodbye. That was pretty disturbing to me.

48

Here’s another from *John Prine - “Mexican Home”

*My father died
on the porch outside
on an August afternoon
I sipped bourbon and cried
with a friend by the light of the moon
so its hurry! hurry!
step right up
it’s a matter of life or death
the sun is going down
and the moon is just holding its breath.

CHORUS:
Mama dear
your boy is here
far across the sea
waiting for
that sacred core
that burns inside of me
and I feel a storm
all wet and warm
not ten miles away
approaching
my Mexican home.
…
*

49

SAMSTONE has submitted a couple of John Prines sunny lyrics but this one IMHO is the absolute saddest song I’ve ever heard

HELLO IN THERE-John Prine

We had an apartment in the city,
Me and Loretta liked living there.
Well, it’d been years since the kids had grown,
A life of their own left us alone.
John and Linda live in Omaha,
And Joe is somewhere on the road.
We lost Davy in the Korean war,
And I still don’t know what for, don’t matter anymore.

Chorus:
Ya’ know that old trees just grow stronger,
And old rivers grow wilder ev’ry day.
Old people just grow lonesome
Waiting for someone to say, “Hello in there, hello.”

Me and Loretta, we don’t talk much more,
She sits and stares through the back door screen.
And all the news just repeats itself
Like some forgotten dream that we’ve both seen.
Someday I’ll go and call up Rudy,
We worked together at the factory.
But what could I say if asks “What’s new?”
“Nothing, what’s with you? Nothing much to do.”

Repeat Chorus:

So if you’re walking down the street sometime
And spot some hollow ancient eyes,
Please don’t just pass 'em by and stare
As if you didn’t care, say, “Hello in there, hello.”

50

Savatage has a couple of really sad songs that just get to me. Unfortunately I only know a couple of people up here who have even heard of them.

and

and

All from the Streets: A Rock Opera album

51

Obsidian Flutterby, I’m actually more partial to Dead Winter Dead myself. BUT, the grand award for most depressing song lyrics of all goes to Marillion’s Misplaced Childhood album.

“I saw a war-widow in a launderette, washing the memories from her husbands clothes… she had medals, pinned to a threadbare great coat, a lump in her throat, with cemetery eyes…”

I buried my grandfather humming that bit in my head. It was quite cathartic, actually.

52

How is it that nobody has mentioned the certified hands-down winner of Most Depressing Album Ever Made, Lou Reed’s “Berlin”? (Honest to God, when it first came out, people were calling their buddies to say, “You gotta get this album. This is the most depressing album ever made. It’s real sit-right-down-and-shoot-yourself music.” And then their buddies would go, “Most depressing album ever made? Meet me at Cactus; we’re on a mission!”)

“Berlin” appears to be the album Reed put together in the early 70s when he was living in Germany, hiding from the fallout of his success with “Walk on the Wild Side”. It’s apparently a memoir of this guy’s relationship with a totally screwed up woman who hangs out with the soldiers at the U.S. Army base and later commits suicide. Permit me to attempt the reconstruction of some of the lyrics–I apologize if they’re not accurate, but the CD is buried at the bottom of a box and only removed twice a year when we get fresh Prozac and have spent a lovely day communing with nature. We handle it with tongs.

Caroline says
As she gets up from the floor
You can hit me all you want to
But I don’t love you any more

But she’s not afraid to die
All of her friends call her Alaska
When she takes speed they laugh and ask her
What is in her mind

They’re taking her children away
Because they said she was not a good mother
They’re taking her children away
Because of the things she would do with the others

The black Air Force sergeant was not the first one

My castle, kids and home
I thought she was Mary Queen of Scots
I tried so very hard
Just goes to show how wrong you can be

I’m gonna stop wasting my time
Somebody else would have broken both of her arms

Oh, yeah, good stuff. From the woozy, boozy opening, a distorted, slowed-down, drugged-out rendition of the traditional Call to Chug in a German pub, to the children’s agonized screams of “Mommy, Mommy!” to the full orchestra topped off by despairing flutes, “Berlin” is one of those thoroughly miserable, enormously cathartic experiences.

Another one that gets my vote, although this is more lightly horrific than depressing, is the magnificent “Gaslighting Abbie” from Steely Dan’s latest album, “Two Against Nature”:

There’s a few items we need in town–allez-vous, girl
There’s no time to waste
Such as fresh cable and fifteen watt bulbs
Couple dozen–it’s a big old place

You can choose the music
I’ll set up my gear
Later on we’ll chill and watch the fireworks from here

Eew. I’m going to go pick up an old Nancy Drew now. Maybe slip some Carpenters into the CD player.

53

I always get depressed listening to U2 - Love Is Blindness

*Love is blindness
I don’t want to see
Won’t you wrap the night
Around me
Oh my love
Blindness

A little death
Without mourning
No call
And no warning
Baby…a dangerous idea
That almost makes sense*

54

I know the Cure has been mentioned at least a couple of times, but my vote for most depressing goes to “A Letter to Elise” from Wish, probably because the only guy who ever dumped me told me that this song expressed his feelings at the time.

55

How Soon Is Now? by The Smiths

You go home,
you cry and you want to die.
It’s my favourite song.

Global Citizen

56

'its commin round again
its slowly creeping in again
time and its command
soon enough it comes
settles in its place
the shadow inmy face puts pressure in my day

CHORUS
this life, well its slipping right through my hands
these days turned out nothing like i had planned

its commin round again
its slowly creeping in
time and its command
settles in its place
the shadow inmy face
puts pressure in my day

soon enough it calls
here it is again
slowly creeping in, time and its command
soon enough it comes
settles in its place
puts pressure in my day
im dignified and lame

this life, well its slipping right through my hands
these days turned out nothing like i had planned
control, well its slipping right through my hands
these days turned out nothing like i had planned

these days - powderfinger, its not sung slowly or depressing its just very beautiful, melancholy, and passionate.

57

i think that rory gallagher’s ‘daughter of the everglades’ is a real
downer…i love it!
http://www.8ung.at/bluesrock/daughter_of.txt

58

Lifting the mask from a local clown
Feeling down like him
Seeing the light in a station bar
And travelling far in sin
Sailing downstairs to the northern line
Watching the shine of the shoes
And hearing the trial of the people there
Who’s to care if they lose.
And take a look you may see me on the
ground
For I am the parasite of this town.

Parasite, Nick Drake

And in my dreams you’re alive and you’re crying,
As your mouth moves in mine, soft and sweet,
Rings of flowers round your eyes and
I’ll love you for the rest of your life

Two-Headed Boy Pt 2, Neutral Milk Hotel

Sunny day, highway
If it rains it’s all the same
I can’t feel a thing
I can’t feel a thing

I’ve got a big black car

The lights above, oh yes
I see the stars above

Big Black Car, Big Star

I am puzzled as the newborn child
I am troubled as the tide
Should I stand amid the breakers?
Should I lie with death my bride?
Hear me sing, “Swim to me, Swim to me, Let me enfold you:
Here I am, Here I am, Waiting to hold you”

Song to the Siren, Tim Buckley

59

I’m pretty big on “Killing Me Softly”

|Strumming my pain with his fingers
|Singing my life with his words
|Killing me softly with his song
|Killing me softly,
|with his song
|Telling my whole life,
|with his words
|Killing me softly
|With his song.

I suppose it can be seen as rebirth or validating/redemptive articulation; however, I tend to veiw it as a total sense of worthlessness that someone so effortlessly plays your entire soul and being as a peice of entertainment, a casual remark, an insignificant part of themselves.

|And there he stood this young boy
|A stranger to my eyes

The idea that not only has this being absorbed everything you know you can be or would ever want to be, but that they have accomplished this in their youth, and in one stroke totally annihilated your purpose, and didn’t even require you for reference to accomplish this.

I find this song to be so honestly raw and vulnerable, almost the essence of emotional longing itself - the articulation of a tear.
Ones complete aknowledgement of submission, when they have tried so hard to form an identity; only to be sideswiped by the unexpected, suddenly realizing they’re the living dead; the worst of all fates. Then to cast your vision around at others and simply cry hoping they die in ignorance, and knowing that your truth is now a curse; your only compassion can be your withdraw and deception.

There’s so much in this song, but that’s the general idea of it to me.

-Justhink

60

Favorite lyrics?
Anything by Alanis Morrisette. I’m thinking of “All I Really Want”:

“Do I stress you out
my sweater is on backwards and inside out
and you say ‘how appropriate’
I don’t want to dissect everything today
I don’t mean to pick you apart you see
but I can’t help it
and there I go jumping before the gunshot has gone off
slap me with a splintered ruler
and it would knock me to the floor if I wasn’t there already
if only I could kill the killer…”

Most depressing lyrics?
Beyond a shadow of a doubt, “Waste”, by Staind.

"Your mother came up to me
she wanted answers only she should know
it wasn’t easy to deal with the tears that rolled down her face
I had no answers
because I didn’t even know you
but these words they can’t replace
the life you waste
how could you paint this picture?
was life as bad as it should seem that there were no more options for you?
I can’t explain how I feel
I’ve been there many times before
I’ve tasted the cold steel of my life crashing down before me
but these words they can’t replace the life you waste

did Daddy not love you
or did he love you just too much
did he control you
did he live through you at your cost?
did he leave no questions for you to answer on your own—

well fck them and fck her and fck him and fck you
for not having the strength in your heart to pull through
I’ve had doubts I have failed I’ve f*cked up I’ve had plans
but that doesn’t mean I should take my life with my own hands…"

It’s a song about a kid who killed himself with the Staind song “Outside” playing over and over and over.

Yeah, that’s one hell of a downer…
:frowning: