Wow, Clark K! How could I have forgotten Townes Van Zandt?? No one could write a sad song like he could. Like Marie:
Well, the man’s still grinnin’ says he lost my file
I gotta stand in line again
I want to kill him but I just say no
I had enough of that line my friend
I head back to the bridge, its getting kinda cold
I’m feelin’ too low down to lie
I guess I’ll just tell Marie the truth
hope she don’t break down and cry
Marie she didn’t wake up this morning
she didn’t even try
she just rolled over and went to heaven
my little boy safe inside
I laid them in the sun where somebody’d find them
caught a Chesapeak on the fly
Marie will know I’m headed south
so’s to meet me by and by
I saw Townes perform that song at Schuba’s in Chicago in the fall of '95. There wasn’t a dry eye in the house when he finshed.
I cannot hear “Because You Love Me” without blubbering like a baby! It came out when my dad died and it is exactly how I felt about how he supported me in all my decisions and made me strong and confident. He was my strength when I was weak.
He’s the one who held me up and never let me fall!
He saw the best there was in me.
Lifted me up when I couldn’t reach and I truly am everything I am because he loved me. I’m grateful for each day he gave me.
I miss you dad.
The saddest song I’ve ever heard is Merle Haggard’s “California Cottonfields”. It’s a semi-autobiographical number about the dashed hopes of Okies (like his father) who moved to California in search of a better life for their families. Some sample lyrics:
The whole song just exudes hopelessness. For me, it literally captures all of the power and misery of The Grapes of Wrath in one three minute song. Just incredible. When Merle Haggard was still young, his voice was just so plaintive and powerful.
The entire album “Recovering the Satellites” by Counting Crows makes me want to throw myself off a bridge. It’s all about Adam Duritz coming to grips with his fame and the awful toll it took on his life. I once made a 3000 mile drive home after a woman told me she couldn’t love me, with not much in the car besides Counting Crows and Willie Nelson. I honestly don’t know how I made it home without driving my truck into a bridge abutment.
I heartily second Don McLean’s “Vincent”.
Re: “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry”. Here’s one portion of the lyrics as they were written:
I’ve heard it said by people who know more than me that Hank Williams may have actually sung “Like me, he’s lost the will to live,” and if you listen closely you can hear it. To me, that’s just heartbreaking. The sad young man who lived in wretched physical pain most of his life wrote this terribly sad song… and it couldn’t sufficiently convey how sad he was. Breaks my heart every time I hear that weary ambivalence about continuing to live in his voice.
A personal favorite is Scott Miller’s “Fade Away”, an acher about watching his sister die (of cancer, I believe). When he sings:
I just about lose it.
Wow. Maybe I should listen to some happier music once in a while.
The other night dear, as I lay sleeping
I dreamt I held you in my arms
when I awoke dear, I was mistaken
and I hung my head and I cried
You are my sunshine, my only sunshine
you make me happy when skies are grey
you’ll never know dear, how much I love you. please don’t take my sunshine away
(she left him)
I can understand why that might be sad. It was the song that our daughter used to sing to our grandson before he died of brain cancer.
The saddest song I’ve heard is “Goodbye” by EJ and BT. When the person I loved most walked out of my life, she left this song playing as she closed the door:
Now that it’s all over, the birds can nest again.
I’ll only snow when the sun comes out.
I’ll shine only when it starts to rain.
If you want a drink, just squeeze my hand,
and wine will flow into the land
and feed my lambs.
For I am a mirror.
I can reflect the moon.
I will write songs for you.
I’ll be your silver spoon.
I’m sorry I took your time.
I am the poem that doesn’t rhyme.
Just turn back a page, I’ll waste away.
*
Mad World - Gary Jules from Donnie Darko soundtrack. This one deserves another mention, Mogwei22, its one of those songs which is so haunting and sorrowful you dont even know what is going on until your spine wilts with depression. I dont even like that style of music, but we watched the music video on the DVD several times more. I’ll share the remaining lyrics.
My choice:
Probably the strongest point is Rob Halford’s passionate and emotional vocals. No wonder they call him God.
Well, its not the saddest ever, but I recently heard Those Were The Days by Mary Hopkin which was popular in my youth and now that I am 40 it sure made me feel meloncholy.
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by Amidar *
**I must put in a mention for Richard Thompson, who has written perhaps the two most depressing songs ever.
One of my favorites is a little known ditty by RT, even though he hasn’t ever recorded it. It’s called, “Bad News Is All the Wind Can Carry” :
This house is torn and shuttered
Luck has run out the door
No daylight can shine
In this empty room of mine
Bad news…is all the wind can carry…
Some people say she wandered
And that she’d a price likewise
I’ll cut their tongues, I’ll hang them high
They’ll rot away with all their lies
Bad news…is all the wind can carry…
I heard a sound this morning
I bowed my head to weep
I saw a man dig my love’s grave
The hole was dark, the hole was deep
Bad news…is all the wind can carry…
I’ll steal a ship and rig her
Up close I’ll lash the wheel
I’ll lay me down beneath the stars
Until the bottom meets the keel
Bad News…is all the wind can carry…
Dropped D on the guitar, a Celtic feel; supposedly written after his girlfriend had been killed, thrown from the van in which Thompson’s band, Fairport Convention, was traveling between gigs. Dark, even by RT’s standards.
Randy Newman put two damned sad songs on Little Criminals–Texas Girl At The Funeral Of Her Father and In Germany Before The War. But Short People balances it out a little.
That’s not why I find the song sad…well, it partially is. We are able to identify with her (She lived a repressed life, but now she can finally be herself) but that’s juxtaposed to the middle verse
She felt repressed, but at the same time, her parents were doing the best they could. Or at least, thought they were doing the best they could. But a lot of it has to do with the way John sings the “answer” part ie. (Never a thought for ourselves. Never a thought for ourselves.)
I guess it’s sad because I see both sides of the story, and it’s depressing that the only way she can be happy is to leave, but according to them, all they did was try to make her happy. Does that make sense?
