[QUOTE=OtakuLoki]
I love that book. I really do. Now I need to find this album.
Another folk/country song that I love I just remembered.
Leslie Fish is a rather prominent filk singer - that is she sings what are basically folk song on an SF or fantasy tilt. She’s also been doing, for several years, now, a series of albums where she records various of Kipling’s poems to music. It works out to be a very effective way to listen to Kipling, I think. My favorite one of hers in that vein is Birds of Prey March. The music is a cheerful marching tune. The lyrics are so bitter and bleak… I keep wondering why the various war protestors haven’t started trying to get this poem more well known.
If we’re talking Kipling in bitter mood, then it’s got to be ‘Mesopotamia’:
*“Our dead shall not return to us while Day and Night divide -
Never while the bars of sunset hold.
But the idle-minded overlings who quibbled while they died,
Shall they thrust for high employments as of old?..”
“Their lives cannot repay us - their death could not undo -
The shame that they have laid upon our race.
But the slothfulness that wasted and the arrogance that slew,
Shall we leave it unabated in its place?”*
I’m gonna second (third?) ‘30000 feet’ by Assemblage 23.
More that haven’t been mentioned…
“Perfect Fit” - The Dresden Dolls
“Chop Suey” - System Of A Down
“Black Dollar Bills” - Hope Of The States
“Kettles” - Arcade Fire
“Fitter Happier” - Radiohead
“Exit Music” - Radiohead
I can’t be depressed by Honey because all I can think of is Howard Stern and Robin Quivers analyzing it circa 1986. “Robin! I can’t talk to you right now. I’m listening to this Bobby Goldsboro song.” and later “Oh, Howard, Honey didn’t just grow the tree, she loved it!” hee hee hee.
However, there’s this Kelly Clarkson song Because of You that I’m hearing all the time that bums me out big time, maybe because it’s the story of my life.
Ghost in this House by Alison Krauss is about the saddest song I’ve ever heard – not depressing, just purely sad – about a relationship that is over. It’s so pretty. You can listen to a bit of it here.
I was going to say Hurt off the same NIN album was about the most depressing thing I ever heard…until I heard JCs remake.
Couple more tearjerkers from the days of flannel:
Pearl Jam - Black
Nirvana - Where Did You Sleep Last Night (MTV Unplugged version)
Surprised there hasn’t been any mention of the following:
Guns N Roses - November Rain
Stevie Nicks (also done by Tori Amos and The Dixie Chicks) - Landslide
Tori Amos - Jackie’s Strength, Hey Jupiter, Caught a Light Sneeze, pretty much anything she writes
Elvis’ biggie, for me, is “Deep Dark Truthful Mirror,” because it just happened to be in my car CD player after the worst breakup I’ve ever experienced. The one where she basically told me that she couldn’t NOT just be brutally honest with me about me, and the person I was.
Oh, man. I agree with so many on here already. Hurt by Cash, Mad World, The Noose by APC, Brick, and a few others. But I have a few others I don’t think anyone else has ever heard (and if you have, well, yay?).
Second Coming has two that has just . . . bleh. Quick excerpts.
Confessional:
She sees a sky of perfect blue
A winter chill runs through my veins
Her stone white skin will draw me near
It begins to rain…
The Song:
Never hurts to be awake
When you’re dying in my arms
My love she’s slipping
Years have gone to waste
Years to take her place
Tea Party has some real winners, too. God, I used to listen to them way too much back when I was a teenager.
Psychopomp:
a frozen sun
will guide you there
as shadows hide
the deep despair
…
so sleep tonight
in idle dreams
the pain will drown
your silent screams
Emerald:
confess what you crave
a life without pain
you’d kill for the taste
but the hurt still remains
One last song, that I always nominate for Saddest Song, but one people may have actually heard of.
Sad Happy, by Cold. Written by the lead singer for a fan who told him that their music kept her going while she was dealing with being sexually abused by a family member. Ug.
She was only seventeen
and forced to blame it on herself
as she hides away to tame the pain she feels
…
She was only trying to breathe
her broken nails had sliced his skin
as he bruised her face she fades away again
The one that does it most to me is Warren Zevon’s Please Stay. So much fear of dying alone.
Also Pink Floyd’s Final Cut from the album of the same name.
And if I, opened my heart to you,
showed you my weak side,
what would you do?
Would you sell your story to Rolling Stone? [ LYRICS DELETED BY MODERATOR ]
*The eastern world, it is explodin’.
Violence flarin’, bullets loadin’
You’re old enough to kill, but not for votin’
You don’t believe in war, but what’s that gun you’re totin’
And even the Jordan River has bodies floatin’
MOTHER OF PEARL!! ::: Moderator swears in disgust :::
Look, folks, please note Forum Rules and specifically Post #2. You may NOT quote an entire song lyric, not even if you give full attribution. You may post a couple of lines and then provide a link to a site that has copyrights to the full lyrics.
This is not a mild request, this is one of our fundamental rules about copyright and fair usage.
OK, so I’m going back through a buncha posts. I don’t have the time or the energy to check out who’s quote how much, I’m chopping out anything over a couple of lines. “Fair usage” rules give about 5%, if I recall, which for most songs would be two or three words; I presume they allow a bit more for lyrics, but a line or two is all we allow here.
I’d have to also nominate Missing by Everything but the Girl as being a pretty desolate little lyric:
*Can I confess
I’ve been hanging 'round your old address
And the years have proved
To offer nothing since you moved
You’re long gone
But I can’t move on
