Sufjan Stevens’ “John Wayne Gacy, Jr.” has to be in the running.
Cold Missouri Waters, as recorded by Richard Shindell. Chokes me up every time I hear it.
I vote for Zombie by The Cranberries
Joseph Kilna MacKenzie’s Sgt. MacKenzie was about his great grandfather.
The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll by Bob Dylan is a pretty depressing true story.
Hell, quite a few songs by Bob Dylan are depressing true stories. Ballad of Ira Hayes comes to mind.
I don’t know how ‘true’ you’d consider it but
Goodnight Saigon by Billy Joel is kinda sad.
That was the one I came in to mention.
In heaven there is no beer.
How do you know this is a ‘true’ song?
Springhill Mining Disaster (or whatever that song is correctly called) is heartbreaking. Luke Kelly’s version is particularly touching.
Keep Me In Your Heart by Warren Zevon.
Final track, final album, final good bye…
Billy by Justin Hayward (on a solo album, not with the Moody Blues).
A friend of mine who is a professional photographer now, and was an amateur photographer when he was drafted and sent to Vietnam recently put together a slide show of his pictures set to Goodnight Saigon. The song was very true for all Vietnam vets in the room.
I sincerely hope he chooses to share this show somehow, either on-line or in a museum.
I find Neil Young’s “Ohio” sad. esp. the lyric - ‘what if you knew her and found her dead on the ground’.
And a second for Kilkelly Ireland. beautiful, beautiful song. much sadder because true.
Of course many folk songs were based on true tragedies. Interesting that some of them get jollied up over time. (like the song about the Titanic which we sang at camp with the gusto of a fight song).
Songs about real people that have passed on will often make me cry - I know of two songs about Stephen Biko (South African freedom fighter) that hit me hard. Also the song about Joe Hill - “But Joe I said you’e ten years gone. ‘I never died’ said he”
“AT SEVENTEEN”
By Janis Ian
I learned the truth at seventeen
That love was meant for beauty queens
And high school girls with clear skinned smiles
Who married young and then retired
The valentines I never knew
The Friday night charades of youth
Were spent on one more beautiful
At seventeen I learned the truth…
And those of us with ravaged faces
Lacking in the social graces
Desperately remained at home
Inventing lovers on the phone
Who called to say “come dance with me”
And murmured vague obscenities
It isn’t all it seems at seventeen…"
Tom Paxton’s Born on the Fourth of July, inspired by Ron Kovac’s book
Now I wheel myself down to the crossroads of town
To watch the young girls and their lovers.
And my mind is afire, it’s alive with desire.
Christ, I’d barely begun. Now it’s over.
In my wheelchair for life, my mechanic wife,
I’m supposed to be cheerful and stoic.
I’m your old tried and true, Yankee Doodle to you.
Clean cut, paralyzed and heroic.
I was born on the 4th of July, no one more loyal than I.
When my country said so I was ready to go,
And I wish I’d been left there to die.
*Freshman * by the Verve Pipe
Yeah, this one always gets me. Jeffrey Miller’s mother was the secretary to the Principal in our high school.
That was not a fun day. I am teary-eyed just thinking about it now.
I just saw her in concert Thursday. Most of her songs are in the sad but true vein…what a life she’s had.
I don’t like Mondays by the Boomtown Rats. It is sad and so confusing in its tragic-ness that it always makes me reflective
Great call on Tom Paxton’s “4th of July”, Annie-Xmas. Lots of folks used to say that book “Born on the Fourth of July” should be required reading in all high schools. Wrenching story in either form. (I never saw the Tom Cruise movie based on Kovic’s story - didn’t see the need to put myself through it but I heard it was pretty good.)
Paxton wrote one of the songs about Stephen Biko that I find very moving, and he wrote one about his friend, singer Phil Ochs’, suicide. That’s also a very sad-but-good song.
I don’t know the name of the song or the singer (can’t find out right now, since it is too late here to call my friend that played it for me) but it was a country song about a soldier that was being spit on and treated like crap because he was a soldier. Wish I could remember, because I recall feeling upset about it.
But as corny as it sounds, I tend to feel sad about songs that I feel relate to me personally. So a song I find sad is Only Time Will Tell by Asia, because it fits a relationship I had years ago. Its not easy to forget having your heart torn out.