“Charlotte Sometimes” and anything off of Disintegration by the Cure
“Asleep” by the Smiths
“Joan of Arc” and “Teachers” by Leonard Cohen
“In the Kingdom of the Blind, the One-Eyed Man Is King” and “Ascension” by Dead Can Dance
“How to Disappear Completely” and “Bulletproof” by Radiohead
“Magician” by Lou Reed
“Something in the Way” by Nirvana
“Pony” by Tom Waits
Tom Waits has been mentioned a couple of times for good reason. Most of his songs are tinged with sadness if not outright doom. The one that really gets me every time though is ** “I Don’t Want To Grow Up” ** At the end of the song he sings “How the hell did I get here so soon?”. The song is just so sweet and sad and innocent at the same time.
Also, ** “Train Song” ** “…steeple full of swallows, that could never ring the bell”.
Also, a slight nitpick, the Pogues covered “The Band Played Waltzing Matilda.” And yes, that song will bring any bar to silence.
The Magdalene Laundries (covers the same ground as the recent film, The Magdalene Sisters) by Joni Mitchell----an absolutely shattering song and my first appreciation of Ms Mitchell. A stunning song. It can be found on an anthology of “Celtic songs,” whose title eludes me.
A tip of the hat to Rube E. for Dress Rehearsal Rag, a powerful fave of mine.
“The Magdalene Laundries” can be found on The Chieftans’ Tears of Stone album. I agree with Nanook–it’s a very moving song.
On another Celtic note, “Danny Boy” can be interpreted as a song of parental love as much as a song of romance. That’s how I always think of it, anyway, and it always puts a lump in my throat.
Are songs about any kind of love out, or only songs about romantic love?
I’ll throw in “No Man’s Land (Willie MacBride)”, as well… And I think that was also the Pogues. Man, those guys are depressing.
And if familial love is allowed, then also “Killkelly, Ireland”.
Add to S&G:
Flowers Never Bend with the Rainfall
*So I’ll continue to continue to pretend
My life will never end,
And flowers never bend
With the rainfall.
*
Neil Young:
Don’t Let it Bring You Down
*Don’t let it bring you down
It’s only castles burning,
Find someone who’s turning
And you will come around.
*
anybody EXCEPT Tom Jones:
The Green, Green Grass of Home
…For there’s a guard and there’s a sad old padre -
Arm in arm we’ll walk at daybreak.
Again I touch the green, green grass of home.
Yes, they’ll all come to see me in the shade of that old oak tree
As they lay me neath the green, green grass of home
this is a two-fer: depressing and nausating at the same time!
Emerson Lake & Palmer did a song called “Daddy” on their
In the Hot Seat CD.
It was to raise the public consciousness about child abduction.
It doesn’t have a nice ending.
As a parent I appreciate their sentiments but the lyrics are a bit too much.
What I want to know is, where can I get a copy of the mix tape made from all these suggestions? 
…or rather, 
My two bits: “Candido and America” by Eddie From Ohio
“Lonely Souls” - Unkle with Richard Ashcroft
“Not an Addict” - K’s Choice
“The Frail” - NIN (not The Fragile)
“Kid Fears” - The Indigo Girls
“October” and “Running to Stand Still”- U2
to the many fine suggestions of songs by Simon and Garfunkel, I would add “Old Friends”
Nothing Else Matters is depressing? I’ve never felt that way about that song.
To my ears News, by the Dire Straits, has a really sad feel to it.
Fade to Black, Metallica.
“Run Away Train” by Soul Asylum.
Lou Reed’s early '70s album Berlin. I enjoy some of the most depressing music ever made – Dylan’s Desolation Row, Neil’s Needle and the Damage Done – but this whole album just veils my soul. It’s a little about love – sort of – but still, try listening to the whole album in one sitting and see if you don’t feel like blowing your brains out. I hid this tape from myself for a long, long time.
Caroline Says
Caroline says,
As she gets up off the floor.
Why is it that you beat me?
It isn’t any fun.
The Kids
They’ve taken her children away,
Because they said she was not a good mother.
The Bed
And this is the place where she took a razor
And cut her wrists that strange and fateful night.
And the guy was either drunk or stoned through most of the recording sessions – or tried to sound like he was for emphasis – and it makes these songs even more dismal.
I third (fourth, twelfth – where are we now?) Johnny Cash’s “Hurt.”
Zeb
How about, for a song you might not of heard of, “Annie” by Ronnie Lane (w/Pete Townsend plus a bunch of guest artists on the album Rough Mix)
I think these haven’t been mentioned yet:
Hand of Doom ~ Black Sabbath
Dead Babies ~ Alice Cooper
Hero’s End ~ Judas Priest
Sally’s Pigeons ~ Cyndi Lauper
Revelation (Mother Earth) ~ Ozzy Osbourne
I Don’t Wanna Be Your Hero ~ Ozzy Osbourne
(Yeah, eclectic would be a polite way to put it. And also, yeah, I only skimmed through to the O section of our collection.)
And these may or may not be “about love”
Don’t Fear the Reaper ~ Blue Oyster Cult
Only Women Bleed ~ Alice Cooper
[sub]Lita Ford also does a decent cover of this one[/sub]
Nice call! I was going to say, The Pass by Rush, but Losing it is a better choice. Nonetheless:
It’s not as if this barricade
blocks the only road
It’s not as if you’re all alone
in wanting to explode
Someone set a bad example
made surrender seem alright
The act of a noble warrior
who’s lost the will to fight
lonelocust, I opened this thread to shout “I Don’t Wanna Grow Up.”
The verse that crushes me is:
(It’s “How the hell did it [a baby] get here so soon,” though.)
It’s got such a rollicking good tune to it that I heard it hundreds of times without ever really “getting” that it was about contemplating suicide. Then I heard the Holly Cole Trio’s doleful rendition, and all became clear. “Wait a minute-- this isn’t a song about extended adolescence!”
Crosby, Stills, and Nash - 4+20
A Perfect Circle - The Noose
Jim Croce - Gunga Din
My understanding is that it’s supposed to be.
Kate Bush’s CLOUDBUSTING (about Wilhelm Reich’s arrest from his young son’s POV- brilliant video with Donald Sutherland as WR & Kate as Son)
Leonard Cohen’s THE FUTURE (which I first heard as many did in NATURAL BORN KILLERS)
Jan and Dean - Dead Man’s Curve