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poopah - do you actually have the Dolly version of this? I’ve been trying to find it for ages and want to know if it’s around on any CDs. The Nancy Sinatra/Lee Hazlewood version is one of my favourite songs of all time.
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HenrySpencer
Hero in me by Jeffery Gaines
“And I sleep and dream of the person I might have been
and I’m free again
And I speak of someone whose been to the highest peaks
and back again
And I’ll swear that my grass is greener than anyones
till I believe again”
A song about livivng with regretful choices.
Agreed. A friend of mine said that she always imagined the lead singer performing this song pointing a gun to his head.
I’ll also agree that “Puff The Magic Dragon” is depressing.
As are “MacArthur Park” and “Cat’s In the Cradle”.
Judas Priest’s Beyond the Relems of death
and most of WASP’s Crimson Idol CD is pretty depressing, that’s why i don’t listen to it anymore, especially while drinking.
I do, but it’s on one of those big flat black vinyl round things with the teeny hole in the middle…
But it’s gotta be on CD out there…good luck!
Spooje, you just made me cry. I haven’t heard that song in…oh good lord, in 5 years. It was one of the songs they played on a retreat where I ended up physically collapsing. Summed up how I felt about myself perfectly at the time. Still does, in a lot of ways.
Fade to Black by Metallica
Blue Spanish Sky by Chris Isaak.
It’s a big blue spanish sky,
Lay on my back and watch clouds roll by.
I’ve got the time to wonder why,
She left me.
It’s a slow sad spanish song,
I knew the words but I sang them wrong.
The one I love has left and gone,
Without me.
Now she’s gone, our world has changed.
Watchin a blue sky, thinkin of rain.
It’s a slow sad spanish song,
I knew the words but I sang them wrong.
The one that I love has left and gone,
Without me.
It’s a big blue spanish sky,
I lay on my back and watch clouds roll by.
I only wish I could make you cry,
Like I do.
Like I do.
Like I do.
No-one’s mentioned Neil Young or Warren Zevon yet.
The 'phone don’t ring
And the sun refused to shine
Never thought I’d have to pay so dearly
For what was already mine
(Zevon - Accidentally Like a Martyr)
Too many Neil Young songs to mention, but start with Sleeps with Angels, Down by the River, Old Man.
picmr
Gilbert O’Sullivan - Alone Again (Naturally)
Elvis Presley - In the Ghetto
I’ll second the NIN, but the most depressing song I know about love is “Can’t See (Useless)” by (Oingo) Boingo.
Here’s some of the lyrics :
And I tried to find you, but it’s useless
And I tried to speak, but it was useless
And I felt so bad and I didn’t know why
And it didn’t get better as time went by
I was there for you, but you turned away
And I tried to find you, but you turned away
And I tried to find you, but it’s useless
And I tried to speak, but was useless
And I tried to find you, but it’s useless
And you’re so close, but I can’t see you
And you’re right there, but I can’t see you
And I feel so dumb and I didn’t know what to do
You were right there but I can’t see you
And I realize that it’s useless
And I want to fight, but it’s useless
And I know you’re there, but it’s useless
And you’re everywhere, but it’s useless
also, “Landslide” by Fleetwood Mac is pretty depressing too.
“Un bel di” (“One beautiful day”), from Puccini’s Madame Butterfly.
An already abandoned woman, still believing that her husband–who bought her on a relative whim, but whom she loves very much, and for whom she gave up her religion and family and bore a child–will be returning for her, sings about the day of their reunion.
The beauty of the music, the sincerity of her hope, the strength of her faith, and the dramatic irony (it’s already clear that she has been discarded without remorse) all conspire to make the most crushing moment in music.
It breaks my heart.
Operation Mindcrime. The whole album.
How will I laugh tommorow when I can’t even smile today?
I’ll third the Jeffery Gaines nomination. Man, that whole album kills me. Especially the song “Sorry the Very Next Day.”
“Cat’s in the Cradle” too.
Why no, Dr. Freud, I don’t have any issues with my father, what would make you say that?
pcubed
I think “Landslide” is fairly cheerful compared to “Silver Springs” - “I know I could have loved you, but you would not let me.”
But other than that, “Everything But the Girl” wins in my book for absolutely heartbreaking songs, including the wildly overplayed “Missing” :“You’re all gone, and I can’t move on” seems utterly bleak to me, since it’s “been years since” they were together.
From “Walking Wounded” there’s “Single,” which I think is the one that ends with “It’s gonna be alright, it’s gonna be alright…it’s never gonna be alright.” Just when you think it might be ending in an upbeat, “I’m gonna be Strong” sorta way she just sinks back into depression. Faboo.
I’m always impressed when a song that has utterly depressing lyrics manages to become a pop single without anyone wondering what it means and thinking it’s cheerful, such as “Looking at You” by Sunscreem and “Running Up that Hill” by Kate Bush. For awhile I was seeing someone and we thought that “Looking At You” was sort of “our song” but then we listened to the lyrics, which go “I scrathed your records, dear, and threw them in the nearest river…and I’m looking at you.” Not too romantic, but sho’ 'nuff catchy!
Kudos to Jophiel for “The Last Spike” interpretation. I hadn’t listened closely enough, I didn’t get the bit about a guy not coming back. I’ll have to listen to that album again when I go home.
But finally, here’s the lyrics to “The Heart Remains A Child” by Everything But The Girl. The last lines are kinda wailed in a totally depressing way:
i dreamed about you again last night
you never have the same face twice
but i always know it’s you
and you’re always looking better than you really do
and i walk around the whole next day
feeling like i’ve still got something to say
but i don’t know what it is
i don’t know how to reach you even if i did
do i wanna hear that you forgive me?
do i wanna hear you’re no good without me?
am i big enough to hear
that you never even think about me?
why should you ever think about me?
[extra verse removed for space reasons]
why don’t you love me?
why don’t you love me?
That should be “I scratched your records…” Sorry 'bout that.
Tori Amos’s entire “Little Earthquakes” album makes me want to assume a fetal position and rock endlessly in a corner. I like the album a lot, but wow… some lines that come to mind, from various tracks:
“When you gonna change your mind… when you gonna love you as much as I do…” (Winter, I think)
“Mother the car is here, somebody leave a light on…” (Mother)
And, last but not least, from Silent All These Years: “Years go by will I still be waiting for somebody else to understand/ Years go by if I’m stripped of my beauty and the orange clouds raining in my head/ Years go by will I choke on my tears till finally there is nothing left…”
Please pass the cyanide.
Rosebud - good call. And yep, first quote is from Winter.
I always thought one of the saddest things on that album was from the title track, in the middle: “Give me life, give me pain, give me myself again.”
Although in reading (not hearing) it, the Dream King, etc., stuff sounds a bit funny, the “Maybe she’s just pieces of me you’ve never seen” is so plaintive and sad.
She manages to carry off this whole baking/icing metaphor all the way through, it’s great. I guess I’m just a sucker for any variant on “I don’t know where you are and I miss you terribly.” Hey, maybe that’d be a good song title. Little wordy though…
“Watching TV”, from Roger Waters’ “Amused to Death” album. The song is about watching the 1989 student protests at Tiananmen Square on TV and seeing a pretty philosophy student die. I can’t say the song is particularly good; in fact it’s got several lines that are embarassingly bad. But despite all that it’s the only song that has ever, in and of itself, moved me to tears.