Ok, with another thread asking what is the best love song of all time, I thought I’d ask the opposite, what is, in your opinion, the most depressing love song of all time? My personal nomination is “If You Could Read My Mind” by Gordon Lightfoot. Yes, it is a beautiful song, but it with lines like this,
"And if you read between the lines
You’ll know that I’m just tryin’ to understand
The feeling’s that you lack
I never thought I could feel this way
And I’ve got to say that I just don’t get it
I don’t know where we went wrong
But the feeling’s gone
And I just can’t get it back"
Good choice. How about “My Heart Will Go On,” especially the Celine Dion cover. Here she finds the love of her life, and he dies on that crappy boat ride, and forever after she gets to think of what might have been.
*I asked my love to take a walk
Just a little way with me
And as we walked
Then we would talk
All about our wedding day
Darling say that you’ll be mine
In our home we’ll happy be
Down beside where the waters flow
On the banks of the Ohio
I took her by her pretty white hand
I led her down the banks of sand
I plunged her in
Where she would drown
I watched her as she floated down
Darling say that you’ll be mine
In our home we’ll happy be
Down beside where the waters flow
On the banks of the Ohio
Returning home between twelve and one
Thinking, Lord, what a deed I’ve done
I’d killed the girl
I love, you see
Because she would not marry me
The very next day, at half past four
The sheriff walked right to my door
He says, “Young man
Don’t try to run
You’ll pay for this awful crime you’ve done”
Darling say that you’ll be mine
In our home we’ll happy be
Down beside where the waters flow
On the banks of the Ohio*
From personal experience, I recommend I Honestly Love You. I played that after I found out someone I was interested in and who I thought was interested in me already had a girlfriend. To make matters worse, I had a raging case of the flu, too!
“Honey” by some dude, the words of it I can’t remember either; something to do with planting a tree. It’s a true story, and he wrote it when his missus died. It was so sentimental, sincere, and depressing that it had me in floods of tears (of laughter, I’m afraid).
That would be Bobby Goldsboro. I hated that song. I have vague memories of someone spoofing it on a variety show back in the 60’s or early 70s - the spoof had considerably more redeeming social value.
