Poor Poor Pitiful Me by Warren Zevon
I lay my head on the railroad tracks,
and wait for the Double E.
The railroad don’t run no more.
Poor poor pitiful me.
Zevon has more than a few songs about losers. Perhaps that’s why he’s so well loved.
Yeah, geez. At the very least, there’s Longview off of Dookie (“I sit around and watch the tube but nothing’s playing; change the channels for an hour or two”); the recurring thread throughout American Idiot’s Homecoming (“Nobody loves you; everyone left you; they’re all out without you; having fun”); and the off-the-wagon-again Hitchin’ A Ride from Nimrod (“Cold turkey’s getting stale; Tonight I’m eating crow”)…
Cripes, it’s hard to find a Green Day song that isn’t about losers. I mean, even the song everyone calls “Time of Your Life” is actually titled “Good Riddance”.
How about Billy Joel’s “Captain Jack?”
The subject is a guy who’s wasting his life, still living with his mother, and whose entire existence seems to revolve around drugs and masturbation.
How about “Talulah Gosh” by Talulah Gosh?
Every day she wakes up, her life will be a movie
All the things she does, written in her diary
But when the day is done, she cannot tell the truth
Pretend her life’s exciting, pretend she’ll never lose
“People Who Need People” by Barbra Streisand
That Butthole Surfers song about all the kids in love with dying and doing it in Texas
“Bobby Brown” by Frank Zappa
“Willing to Wait” by Sebadoh
“Summertime” by Sublime
“Cecilia” by Simon and Garfunkel
“Lump” by the Presidents of the United States
“Marie” by Sheryl Crow
Sam Stone by John Prine. This might also be the most depressing song ever.
“Pepper” by the Butthole Surfers on the Electric LadyLand album. I’m such a :wally for knowing that.
I always thought that “Going the Distance” by Cake was about a loser, of sorts.
Not really known at all, but this song, Manificent Loser by a one time local (he was the computer lab guy in my high school for two years) musician is great. It’s a more humorous view of being a loser:
<i>Now that I’ve learned to be a loser
I have no fear of better men
I can look the victor in the eyeball
And ask him, “do you want to play again?”
I’m the king of all good sports,
it’s a victory of sorts to say that
I’m a magnificent loser
I can take embarasment with glee
I’m a magnificent loser
and now everybody wants to play with me!</i>
Not really known at all, but this song, Manificent Loser by a one time local (he was the computer lab guy in my high school for two years) musician is great. It’s a more humorous view of being a loser:
*Now that I’ve learned to be a loser
I have no fear of better men
I can look the victor in the eyeball
And ask him, “do you want to play again?”
I’m the king of all good sports,
it’s a victory of sorts to say that
I’m a magnificent loser
I can take embarasment with glee
I’m a magnificent loser
and now everybody wants to play with me!*
I should also add that that link goes right to the mp3 available on his site.
“Dumb” by Nirvana.
Perhaps…I don’t think of Jimmy as a loser, though–just a kid torn up inside, trying to make sense of things in the proto-punk mod days. Remember, he survives in the end.
It was really the next album(The Who By Numbers) where Pete bared his tortured soul, in “However Much I Booze”:
I see myself on T.V., I’m a faker, a paper clown
It’s clear to all my friends that I habitually lie; I just bring them down
I claim proneness to exaggeration
But the truth lies in my frustration
The children of the night, they all pass me by
Have to drench myself in brandy
In sleep I’ll hide
But however much I booze
There ain’t no way out
Now the walls are all clawed and scratched
Like by some soul insane
In the morning I humbly detach myself
I take no blame
I just can’t face my failure
I’m nothing but a well f**ked sailor
You at home can easily decide what’s right
By glancing very briefly at the songs I write
But it don’t help me that you know
This ain’t no way out
A lot of the songs by Harry Chapin.
Van Zandt’s Waiting Round To Die works, too:
Now I’m out of prison, I got me a friend at last
He don’t steal or cheat or drink or lie
His name’s codeine, he’s the nicest thing I’ve seen
Together we’re gonna wait around and die.
Also, Atlanta Rhythm Section’s Cocaine Charlie, “a victim of the '70s…who is nothing but a memory.”
Come to think of it, the unnamed unclIe in The Grateful Dead’s Me and My Uncle (which I just learned was written by John Phillips) ended up with the short end of the stick:
I love my uncle, God rest his soul
Taught me good, Lord, taught me all I know
Taught me so well, I grabbed that gold
And I left his dead ass there by the side of the road (note 4)
'Loser" by Z, Dweezil and Ahmet Zappa’s band.
“I know I’m a loser, the Lord He treats me like a king,
I know I’m a loser, I’m gonna ride an angel’s wings”
Yeah. “Nobody Knows You When You’re Down and Out” is a good pick. And there’s “Trouble In Mind,” which I know as a Nina Simone song. The last verse is something like
My Melancholy Blues by Queen
Quite a few songs by 3 Doors Down.
“Loser”, off of The Better Life
“Running Out of Days”, off of Away from the Sun
Why do we like songs about losers?
“The Battle of Who Could Care Less” by Ben Folds Five.
<I>Do you not hear me anymore
I know it’s not your thing to care
I know it’s cool to be so bored
But it sucks me in when you’re aloof
It sucks me in, it sucks, it works
I guess it’s cool to be alone
</I>
Reminds me of a lot of people I went to high school with. Who are probably all still sitting around in the plaza in the middle of town bumming cigarettes off each other.
Ah shit, you’d think after six and a half years I’d know that you can’t use HTML on the SDMB.