# Pop Songs with Slow Depressing Music **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [April 12, 2018, 7:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pop-songs-with-slow-depressing-music/812312 "2018-04-12T19:28:02Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Lamoral](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lamoral/32/16078_2.png) [@Lamoral](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamoral)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2018, 5:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pop-songs-with-slow-depressing-music/812312/81 "2018-04-14T05:29:30Z")
> [@WOOKINPANUB](#): > > ] > I’ve always thought the music on _Ode to Billy Joe_ is quite melancholy; especially that haunting violin riff (probably not the correct term) right after the last verse that (to me) represents the sound of something or someone falling. If you know the song, hopefully you know to what I’m referring. That’s a really, really good song. It’s not really “depressing”, though. It’s gripping. It’s an epic story-song that gradually builds up to a spooky climax (and I’m not sure if I can think of any other song, ever, that’s quite like it). Musically, it builds tension by almost never straying from a dominant 7th chord, so that the vocals take precedence over the chord changes and you’re kind of perpetually wondering what’s going to happen next. Kind of like the late great Harry Nilsson’s _Lime In The Coconut,_ which I think literally has just one chord (a dominant seventh which might also add a ninth in some measures, I seem to recall.) The arrangement gets dissonant towards the end. Strings doing glissandos and pull-offs always do have the effect of sounding like “someone falling.” Really good song. ---
**Author:** ![Weedy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/weedy/32/301_2.png) [@Weedy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Weedy)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2018, 6:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pop-songs-with-slow-depressing-music/812312/82 "2018-04-14T06:56:51Z")
Angel by Sarah McLachlan Say Something - Great Big World with Christina Aguilera both Top 40 hits. Other Australian and British ones I can think of didn’t chart in the US. So maybe it is less of an American thing. ---
**Author:** ![Crazy\_Canuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crazy_canuck/32/5282_2.png) [@Crazy\_Canuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crazy_Canuck)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2018, 8:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pop-songs-with-slow-depressing-music/812312/83 "2018-04-16T20:01:36Z")
> [@pulykamell](#): > > I also find NIN’s [Hurt](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kPz21cDK7dg) to be pretty depressing Sorry, but even Trent Reznor agrees with me that [Johhny Cash’s cover of that song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vt1Pwfnh5pc) is far superior. I would also put forward the entire discography of Leonard Cohen, the grocer of despair himself. The heavily covered Hallelujah is the obvious track, though I’ve think that Famous Blue Raincoat is the best fit for this thread. ---
**Author:** ![Infovore](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/infovore/32/420_2.png) [@Infovore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Infovore)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2018, 8:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pop-songs-with-slow-depressing-music/812312/84 "2018-04-16T20:53:58Z")
How about the Gary Jules version of “Mad World”? ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2018, 9:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pop-songs-with-slow-depressing-music/812312/85 "2018-04-16T21:05:12Z")
> [@Crazy\_Canuck](#): > > Sorry, but even Trent Reznor agrees with me that [Johhny Cash’s cover of that song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vt1Pwfnh5pc) is far superior. I never said anything about which version was superior. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pop-songs-with-slow-depressing-music/812312.md?page=4)