Taps.
I also think Amazing Grace if played on bagpipes.
Out of Time by Blur
Keep Me in Your Heart by Warren Zevon is my go-to sad song.
ETA: Sorry for the poor video quality. It was the first hit I found on YouTube so I went with it.
Confesiones de Invierno by Sui Generis.
Lyle Lovett’s Nobody Knows Me is a terribly sad song, once you realize what’s going on.
It sounds like a love song, but it’s really about a man who blows a great relationship for a one-time fling
Don’t Follow by Alice in Chains immediately comes to mind
She Moved Through the Fair. I particularly like Loreena McKennitt’s version.
The tune to this one is really simple and the arrangement is not all that haunting, and knowing the artist and his usual subject matter, something sad or mournful isn’t what you’d expect, but Jonathan Coulton’s [When You Go](When I’m 25 or 64 - Jonathan Coulton You Go.mp3)makes me want to sob huge gushing tears.
Unsurprisingly: Into the West actually does make me sob huge gushing tears.
Oh, and I can play Ashokan Farewell pretty well on the violin. I have it memorized, I think; I’d have to pull the violin out to confirm that.
The main theme from Schindler’s list is always one that I’ve found haunting.
The main theme from the Chinese film In the Mood For Love
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U66BEZIln8Q
Except it’s just been hijacked for a Mercedes TV commercial.
The first one that pops into mind is probably because of the actual song name, but …
Hungry Lucy - Alfred (Haunted)
All of the other tracks on that one are good and most have a haunting quality to them, as well.
Couple of movie themes:
Lara’s Theme (Somewhere My Love)
…but really it’s impossible to top Ashokan Farewell, and that’s the one I came here to post.
So true, to me the most effective use of Albinoni was in Gallipoli and Cosmos.
Goodbye to Love, Karen Carpenter, so sad and poignant when you think about her fate.
A couple of bluegrass numbers:
There Is a Time by The Dillards (as performed on The Andy Griffith Show).
And Jerusalem Ridge by Bill Monroe, even though it’s an uptempo number, has an undercurrent of sadness.
My boss and good friend was at the Military Tattoo on the East Coast (Halifax i think?) and he said for a finale they had a single bagpiper playing Amazing Grace under a soitary spotlight.
Second verse the lights went up as all of the pipers (from every other group, hundreds) joined in.
I have heard a recording of something like that…
Here is an example…
Haunting visual too…
Moorlough Shore as sung by Susan McKeown. It’s a different melody to the usual one attached to the lyrics.
She’s Got You - Patsy Cline
E Lucevan le Stelle - Puccini
The Lyrics: Kíla - Cé Tú Féin?
The Song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sbC5sXZhtVY
Or if it needs to be something more well known, the theme from Dr. Zhivago.
Most pipers would disagree with you on this, I think. It isn’t a pipe tune to start with, and it’s been badly over-played. (I’ve heard it called the “crematorium waltz.”)
Personally, I think Going Home on the pipes (also not a pipe tune originally, but what the hell) carries a great deal more sadness - but maybe that’s because it always makes me think of the funeral of Payne Stewart, where a piper playing “Going Home” walked off into the mist, leaving his footprints in the dew. That was a choker.
I’ve always found Lorena pretty poignant.