# The saddest (true) songs in the world **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [June 22, 2008, 12:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-saddest-true-songs-in-the-world/453737 "2008-06-22T00:59:36Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![IvoryTowerDenizen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ivorytowerdenizen/32/17937_2.png) [@IvoryTowerDenizen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/IvoryTowerDenizen)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2008, 8:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-saddest-true-songs-in-the-world/453737/41 "2008-06-23T20:58:40Z")
[QUOTE=Zsofia] Oh, how about _The Foggy Dew_? I like the Sinead O’Connor version with the Chieftans. _And Britannia’s Huns With their long range guns_ [/QUOTE] Excellent- what I came to post. ---
**Author:** ![Mama\_Zappa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/71e660/32.png) [@Mama\_Zappa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mama_Zappa)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2008, 11:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-saddest-true-songs-in-the-world/453737/42 "2008-06-23T23:10:45Z")
[QUOTE=Baker] **Tears in Heaven** gets my vote. I watched the memorial service for the bombing victims in Oklahoma City, and _Tears_ was sung at that. The camera cut once to a young woman who was the mother of two children who died in the day care center. Poor gal was clutching their pictures to her chest, doubled over in pain, with long red hair hanging down. I haven’t heard the song since without crying a little. [/QUOTE] My vote too - I can’t listen to it any more since my kids were born. Sorry I read your post, now I’m crying. In a moment of irony a few weeks ago… the DJs on the radio were talking about songs that really stick it to ya. My mind immediately went to Tears In Heaven, though that wasn’t mentioned. I walked into the office a few minutes later. Dashed down to the cafeteria to get a soft drink. That was playing in the background. Yep, just exactly the perfect song to relax to. Damn. ---
**Author:** ![xash](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/c6cbf5/32.png) [@xash](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/xash)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2008, 2:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-saddest-true-songs-in-the-world/453737/43 "2008-06-24T02:14:53Z")
Me and a Gun - Tori Amos: > **[Tori Amos - Me And A Gun Lyrics | AZLyrics.com](https://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/toriamos/meandagun.html)** > > Tori Amos "Me And A Gun": 5 am Friday morning Thursday night Far from sleep I'm still up and driving Can't go home Obviously S... > **[Me and a Gun](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Me_and_a_Gun)** > > "Me and a Gun" is a song by American singer-songwriter and musician Tori Amos. It was released as the first single from her debut studio album Little Earthquakes and is her debut single under the name Tori Amos. It was released on October 21, 1991 by Atlantic Records in North America and EastWest Records in the UK. > The song is three minutes and 44 seconds long. Amos wrote the song about being raped in Los Angeles when she was 21. After she performed at a bar, a patron asked her if he could have ... ---
**Author:** ![Robot\_Arm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robot_arm/32/18280_2.png) [@Robot\_Arm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robot_Arm)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2008, 3:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-saddest-true-songs-in-the-world/453737/44 "2008-06-24T03:23:20Z")
Two that are at least worth mentioning: Warren Zevon’s cover of **Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door** , recorded when he knew he was dying of cancer. **A Dying Cub Fan’s Last Request** , by Steve Goodman, is a funny song, sung from the point of view of an old man describing his ideal funeral at Wrigley Field, filled with references to the Cubs’ decades of futility and ending with a pyre of baseball bats and his ashes being blown over the outfield wall. Here’s a [video](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7xBxZGQ1dJk) of him singing the song on one of the outfield rooftops, with Wrigley Field in the background Goodman died of leukemia at 36, and some of his ashes were scattered at Wrigley. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2008, 4:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-saddest-true-songs-in-the-world/453737/45 "2008-06-24T04:45:21Z")
**Wish You Were here** - written by David Gilmour and Roger Waters for their friend, Syd Barrett, who had had a mental breakdown and was slowly going insane. But really Zevon’s entire last album fits this category. The album was made in the last year of his life. He had been given only weeks to live, so he went into the recording sessions pretty much every day with the fear that he wouldn’t survive until the next one. The final track was recorded in his home studio because he wasn’t capable of travel. He died shortly after the record was released. One track on the album is a personal goodbye to a woman he was no longer in contact with. Another was a story about death row, as a metaphor for his cancer. Yet another, recorded with his buddies and all having a grand time, laments that he party can’t go on forever. And of course, “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door”, in which Zevon can be heard in the background during the ending shouting, “Open up! Open up for me!” And of course “Keep Me in Your Heart”, where he begs everyone to remember him - for a while. Saddest album ever. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2008, 12:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-saddest-true-songs-in-the-world/453737/46 "2008-06-24T12:26:39Z")
_Biko_ - Peter Gabriel “September '77 Port Elizabeth weather fine It was business as usual In police room 619 … Yihla Moja, Yihla Moja -The man is dead” Brings back the 80s for me like nothing else can, not even Johnny Clegg. I can smell the tires burning, I can see the purple stains from the watercannons. I can feel the sjambok cracking down on my skin… ---
**Author:** ![BwanaBob](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bwanabob/32/2985_2.png) [@BwanaBob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BwanaBob)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2008, 2:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-saddest-true-songs-in-the-world/453737/47 "2008-06-24T14:05:36Z")
Celine Dion did a tearjerker in French called “Le Fils de Superman” (The Son of Superman). Supposed to be based on a true story about a little kid who did a header out of an apartment building window in his Superman costume and died. They bury him in his costume. Makes me sad as hell when I think about it. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-saddest-true-songs-in-the-world/453737.md?page=2)