I’ve been over in MPSIMS, re-reading the “May 5th” thread. More than once the song “And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda” was mentioned, so I finally went to look it up. I’d thought it must be simply about old veterans getting fewer each year. but it’s way more than that.
It may be fictional but it’s still real, if that makes any sense, and I think it’s the saddest song I’ve ever heard. Before that I thought the most depressing was “Cat’s in the Cradle”, but this other went way beyond.
What, if any, song is the saddest to you? And why?
Two songs that took me ages to be able to sing without getting choked up and crying in the middle are Janis Ian’s “Jesse” as sung by Joan Baez (she sings it slower, but I sing it even slower) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=frrKR6dZ3pI and the Peter, Paul, and Mary song “Christmas Dinner” Christmas Dinner - YouTube
Puff, the Magic Dragon always makes me misty, especially so since my Jackie Papers have grown up and gone on. The River by Missy Higgins, and Black and Blue (Epitaph something something) by Kris Kristofferson both evoke such overwhelming loneliness and despair.
It came out about that time in my life, and I swear to God it felt like she was singing about me. A horrible, gut-wrenching time in my life where I started to figure out there were no happy-ever-afters for girls like me. After all these years, the song still brings me to tears.
A guy walks around town in his cleanest dirty shirt, and the smell of fried chicken takes him back to something he’s lost, and church bells remind him of the disappearing dreams of yesterday.
Whenever an unwanted memory of my younger years pops up, I always think to myself the lyric in that song, “It was long ago and far away, the world was younger than today.” And that usually helps put it in perspective.
