That’s the exact phrase I use to refer to pretty much the entire catalog of the Eels (best known for their hit single Novocaine for the Soul).
Mark Oliver Everett (a.k.a. “E”), the singer/songwriter/only permanent member of the group, suffered from not only the death of his famous physicist father at a very young age, but also his sister’s suicide in 1996, his mother’s death from cancer in 1998, and his cousin’s death as a flight attendant on the 9/11 plane that hit the Pentagon.
He has drawn quite frankly and freely on that pain in his band’s recordings.
Electro-Shock Blues is probably their most depressing (and absolutely brilliant) album. Some of the more notably miserable songs from that and other discs include:
Dead of Winter The Medication is Wearing Off Elizabeth on the Bathroom Floor Checkout Blues Suicide Life The Stars Shine in the Sky Tonight Things the Grandchildren Should Know If You See Natalie Blinking Lights (For Me)
What separates the Eels from many other bands, IMHO, is that while their songs are some of the saddest things I’ve heard in my life, they almost always manage to work in some minuscule glimmer of hope.
I don’t know! It probably has something to do with Björk’s haunting voice or Chris Cunningham beautiful and frightening music video for it. I understand that the lyrics and message of the song are meant to be uplifting and that they are for most people but there’s just something about it that makes me extremely depressed. (In a good sort of way, if that sheds any light on it.)
I just remembered two more sad songs: Where The Birch Trees Lean and Weightless Again by The Handsome Family.
Ugh. I have a real love/hate thing going on with those two.
I saw Cowboy Junkies this past summer and Margo Timmins joked about how every time she was asked to dedicate a song to someone having a happy event, she had to sing “Anniversary Song” no matter if it was a marriage, birth, graduation, birthday, new puppies or whatever. Because, as she said, it was the only ‘happy’ song they really had in the catalogue to sing.
I find most of it melancholy but not really depressing.
Just to add to the thread, Merrilee Rush’s “Angel of the Morning” is always good for blunting my mood.
No depressing song thread is complete until someone chimes in with John Prine’s Sam Stone or Hello In There.
And I was just listening to Patty Griffin right before I opened this thread singing Long Ride Home. Patty can inject a sense of emptiness and regret into a lyric like nobody’s business.
Queen’sThese Are the Days of Our Lives .I can’t watch the video without tearing up.When Freddie looks into the camera for the final time and sings “I still love you” and then walks off is very sad. Don’t try So Hard and The Show Must Go On from the same album are hard to deal with also.*No-one But You *,the bands goodbye song to Freddie, makes me cry also.
The opening lyrics
A hand above the water
An angel reaching for the sky
Is it raining in heaven -
Do you want us to cry?
and later…
And now the party must be over
I guess we’ll never understand
The sense of your leaving
Was it the way it was planned?
The whole damn song is a tear jerker for any Queen fan I think.
Of NIN’s catalog, I’m most depressed by “Eraser” (especially the “(polite)” mix), and it is indeed the most depressing song I know. Maybe it’s just me, and the memories it sets off.
“I’m the Happiest Girl in the Whole USA” by Donna Fargo. The lyrics are upbeat, but the tune and singing style make it sound like she’s holding a gun to her head in the sound booth.
“Hate Me” by Blue October, but it might mostly be the video.
“Willing to Wait” by Sebadoh. Just have a mental image of the girl he’s obsessed with hooking up with basically anyone who isn’t him, and frequently.
There are a number of Irish songs that don’t have particularly sad tunes, but terribly upsetting words (here acknowledging Willie McBride is Scottish).
The time has come is about a hunger striker asking permission from his wife to allow him to die.
Spancil Hill is a deeply moving song representing the awful tragedy of the Irish diaspora’s irreversible emigration, told through the author imagining returning to his home town in Ireland. And it’s true if that cite is correct.
I agree about “And the band played Waltzing Matilda”, though should point out that it was written by Australian Eric Bogle. The last verse is often missed out, but is devastating when included:
Finally, for the umpteenth time, I reval that the saddest song I’ve ever heard is John Doe No. 24 by Mary Chapin Carpenter, the true story of a deaf, dumb and blind man found wandering the streets of Jackson, Illinois in the 1940s, who spent 50 years in institutions before dying, still nameless. Her lyrics are beautifully efficient in conveying the terrible tragedy of his life, and her speculation on what his early life may have been life are gorgeous. It never fails to reduce me to a sobbing pile of mush.
Sorry for the double post. My grandfather died this morning, so I’m in a melancholic mood.
I forgot Jacques Brel. I think Terry Jacks’s version of “Seasons in the sun” is an abomination - both the performance and the crap translation - when compared to Brel’s original Le Moribund.
Oh, and Ne me quitte pas. In English this has been badly translated as “If you go away” and performed by people like The Seekers. The original is not a proposition, though: he’s begging her to stay.
"Do not leave me!
Do not leave me!
Do not leave me.
Do not leave me.
Do not leave me."
It’s so hard to watch. It was written from his own life, and he wept with genuine emotion every time he performed it. The desperation and glimmer of false hope in the song is almost unbearable.
And another one that is beautifully observed, Madeleine - his performance always gives me a lump in my throat.
The strength of these songs is that they don’t even need you to understand French to get what they’re about, and to be profoundly moved by them.
Don’t try So Hard and The Show Must Go On from the same album are hard to deal with also.*No-one But You *,the bands goodbye song to Freddie, makes me cry also.