I was listening to Dolly Parton’s Jolene today and impressed once again by just how desperate the lyrics are; the singer has thrown away all pride and is strictly throwing herself on the mercy of a woman she can’t compete with.
Tammy Wynette’s Til I Can Make it on My Own (in which a woman basically promises and pleads for her ex to let her stalk him for a while) is also pretty pathetic (not to say it’s a bad song, just sung by someone in despair) while Clapton’s Layla has got him on his knees. What are some other songs that come to mind as sung by an absolutely pitiful and desperate narrator?
Country music is a goldmine for this type of song.
Oak Ridge Boys’ “I’ll Be True To You” about a woman who pretty much drinks herself to death over a heartless man, who, when he realizes it, vows the same devotion to her, to late.
T. Graham Brown’s “I Tell It Like It Used To Be” narrated by a man who refuses to face up to the fact that the woman has left him.
Vern Gosdin’s “Chisled In Stone” - well, the song isn’t so much desperate, but the been there done that guy he meets at the bar just about breaks my heart.
The Smiths’ “How Soon Is Now” is pretty desperate…
“I am human and I need to be loved” indeed.
Just not sure how much of a hit it was, but it gets covered a lot and is the theme for Charmed, so I guess pretty well known.
I would nominate Steely Dan’s Big Black Cow, although the protagonist has already moved past desperation and just wants out. He’s been in love with a woman who is a drug-addict, a partier, and a prostitute. Despite this, he has supported her by waiting for her to come staggering back late at night to him – her “precious one” – who must “make everything right,” by listening to her problems, consoling her and “talking it out till daylight.”
Finally he just says, in effect “I’ve had enough. I don’t care anymore why you run around. Just finish your drink (your big Black Cow) and get outta here.”
Including every single damn song Alison Krauss & Union Station insist on doing. She makes jokes about how miserable all their songs are, but it really wears down on you after a while. I used to think “Baby, Now That I’ve Found You” was a really romantic song until I paid more attention to the lyrics and realized how desperate it is.
Most of Meat Loaf’s epic Paradise by the Dahsboard Light smacks of desperation – albeit adolescent, hormone-charged desperation. It blossoms into full-fledged adult desperation with the final segment Prayin’ for the End of Time.
