For a somewhat more gruesome take on the same theme…sad Kermit.
'Nother couple from me…
Don Edwards’ Coyotes (famed from Grizzly Man), and the Tiger Lillies’ (!) Graveside.
If I Could Change Your Mind by the Alan Parsons Project
Forever Autumn by Jeff Wayne from The War of the Worlds
Pretty much anything from Lou Reed’s amazing Magic and Loss
For the Smiths, I would add “There is a Light That Never Goes Out.”
Nick Cave and the Bad Seed’s “Where Do We Go Now But Nowhere.”
Stroke 9 “Make It Last” sorry about the video, I couldn’t find anything less odd. Just minimize the window while the song plays.
There’s just something so hopeless about being willing to settle for that. Either of them, really.
Then there’s a much more recent song that makes me want to shake the singer and tell her “No! It’s not okay to let yourself be treated that way!” Sally Shapiro “He Keeps Me Alive” download it here
And there’s “To Be Alone With You” by Sufjan Stevens. Though part of the depressing comes from realizing via songmeanings.com that a lot of people don’t even understand who the song is about.
And therin lies the tragedy.
Damn. Ya got me.
“Daddy, tell me why…”
…and I don’t like country. But. Damn.
Billy Falcon - Heaven’s Highest Hill
For his story about how the song came to being, you can listen to the live version here: http://youtube.com/watch?v=93Au3ROWt5I
I would tend to disagree with you. I listen to Smiths songs WHEN I’m depressed, and they tend to lift me up out of it. It’s accurate when people say these songs are song’s that saved my life.
I think on the surface, from an outsider’s point of view, these songs seem to be depressing. I think it’s just because that they’re so REAL, and are about when bad/trying times happen. The point though with the Smiths music is that even during bad/trying times, and inevitably they do come in peoples lives, that beauty and love are possible.
So NO. a big NO. Smiths music is NOT depressing.
You are not a real Smiths fan are you? I can tell because, Smiths fans know in their hearts that the music is NOT depressing. Just the opposite, actually.
I dunno. I’m a “real” (whatever that means) Smiths fan and I think they’re depressing. Some of them are uplifting, sure, but that doesn’t mean you’re wrong to feel sad or depressed when you hear them.
That’ll Never Be Me (3:00 mark) from Say Anything?
Yes, I am a Smiths fan, and while the jingly-jangly melodies of Johnny Marr can be quite uplifting, the lyrics are downright depressing (iiiiiin my liiiife, why do I give valuable time, to people who don’t care if I, liiive or I diiiiieee)… however, they never depress me and also have that paradoxical effect.
McCartney-Another Day
so sad, so sad…
Thanks for the interesting responses - many I really want to hear for myself. Certainly is hard to pick just one isn’t it?
I’ll add another - “I’m already home” by Tim McGraw. a country song, it’s not pro-war, it’s just heartbreaking.
http://www.lyricsmagnet.com/song/TIM+MCGRAW/I’M+ALREADY+HOME_lyrics_yaysri.html
and the urban legend about the suicide song refers to “Gloomy Sunday”, I think. which reminds me of a Northern Exposure episode where the DJ got freaked because someone got so depressed over a song he played - and the song was “Pencil necked geeks”! I think.
In terms of traditional songs, by far the most depressing has got to be Farewell Nova Scotia.
In particular this verse, where the singer is commenting, in essense, that he envies his three dead brothers because at least they are at peace:
They played this song at my grandfather’s funeral.
I’d always heard that as a lament that even when the singer was dead his body still wouldn’t be at rest.
Yup, never thought about it in that way (my read was always that the singer was lamenting the fact he had to keep roaming), but you could be right.
In a way that is almost worse, as the singer it would seem is anticipating his own inevitable death at sea. :eek:
Train Song by Eliza Carthy is definitely a downer. And another vote for Mad World.
I can’t believe there’s three pages and only one vote for “And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda”, a song that makes me pull over when it comes on the iPod sometimes because it isn’t safe for me to drive and cry at the same time. I mean, really, is it more depressing when you break up with your boyfriend, or when
So they collected the cripples, 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 pulled into Circular Quay
I looked at the place where my legs used to be
And thank Christ there was nobody waiting for me
To grieve and to mourn and to pity
Oh, I didn’t mean it as a more cheerful interpretation. Just an alternate one. If it weren’t for the rest of the song being more about normal sailing away from home I’d thought that verse would be great as part of a wreck song, where the sailor is anticipating his imminent death at sea, not an inevitable one.