It’s Memorial Day in Israel today, and in terms of sadness, you really can’t beat the songs they play on the radio today. You have “Flower”, “Winter of '73”, “Elifelet”, “The Medic’s Ballad”, and “Walking to Caesarea”. However, the saddest and most evocative one, at least to me, is “The Little Prince”:
*I met him in the middle of the desert
A beautiful sunset for a sad heart
I drew him a sheep and a tree on a page
And he promised he’d come back
The little prince from Company B
Won’t see another sheep eating a flower
And all his roses are now thorns
And his little heart is as cold as ice*
This makes me choke up when I try to sing it, and I’m not sure why, either; the lyrics are sad, but there’s just something in the way he sings it that is oh so heartbreaking…
On that note, his “Sacrifice” as well, Sinaed O’Connor’s version really tears it. And the Wilsons’ cover of “Daniel”, also.
Peter Gabriel’s “I Grieve” kills me; I heard it for the first time right before my roommate’s mom died, and I spent about an hour listening to it over and over that day.
Probably the one that is the best <worst?> for me is Loreena McKennit’s “Dante’s Prayer”. So. Fucking. Haunting.
When I die, well…yep. That’s the one. (The sad one, anyhoo; the one more fitting to my personality is Gabriel’s “Solsbury Hill”)
This topic pops up now and then, and I always have to chime in with John Prine’s Sam Stone. “There’s a hole in daddy’s arm where all the money goes. Jesus Christ died for nothin’, I suppose.” Wow.
And then there’s Patty Griffin’s Long Ride Home. “40 years go by with someone layin’ in your bed. 40 years of things you say you wish you never said. How hard would it have been to say some kinder words instead? I wonder as I stare up at the sky a turning red.” If that doesn’t get to you, I don’t know what will.
Another that chokes me up everytime is ‘Shannon’ by Henry Gross… about a childhood Irish Setter that drowned.
‘Shannon is gone, I hear she drifted off to sea.
She always loved to swim away.
Maybe she’ll find an island, with a shady tree,
Just like the one in our backyard.’
“Holes in the Floor of Heaven” - Stave Wariner. I always cry, even though it’s a great sentiment. The first first two lines always get me started, though: One day shy if eight-years-old, my grandma passed away
I was a broken-hearted little boy, blowing out that birthday cake…
Also, “Wild Irish Rose” and The Grand Tour" - George Jones (the Aaron Neville version of Grand Tour is pretty good, too, but doesn’t grab me in the gut like George Jones)
Joe Strummer’s version of “The Minstrel Boy” at the end of “Black Hawk Down”, especially after knowing what Shughart and Gordon did—and that they knew what would happen.
“And The Band Played Waltzing Matilda” reduces me to a puddle every time.