–Red Sovine also did “Phantom 309” which Tom Waits does a great job on in “Nighthawks at the Diner.”
“The Three Bells” was done by The Browns (one of 'em was Jim Ed Brown who would go on to a nice Country career on RCA Records).
And if you’re going to bring up hokey depressing songs I’m surprised no one brought up “Daisy A Day” by Jud Strunk.
Plain old disturbing hits would have to include (IMHO) “Gloomy Sunday.” Ray Charles had a version of this Rezo Suress song on one of his mid-60’s albums.
“In Pictures” by Alabama, about a (divorced, I think) father who has to watch his baby grow up in pictures since he doesn’t have custody. Any similarly-themed country piece (there’s at least two more). When I was a little girl (up until age 12 or so) my dad was a long-haul trucker (now he does day trips), so my dad basically watched me grow up in pictures and on alternate weekends. I have this horror of not being able to watch my own kids grow up. Thus, if I ever get married, I will have to be a stay at home mom…
“Greenfields” by Gary Allan makes me depressed, but only because it’s got a haunting melody and reminds me of somebody who’s now dead.
“Outside The Frame” by Paul Brandt. Outside the frame/You’re getting on with your life/And I know that I never will/Because inside my heart/I picture us frozen in time/Just you and I standing still/But everything’s changed
Outside the frame/I keep waiting for something to change/But the fact of the matter remains/Outside the frame
“The Beaches Of Cheyenne” sends a shiver down my spine, despite being a nice midtempo song with a cheerful fiddle. All because of the plot, the disappearance of the wife of a deceased rodeo rider, and one stanza: They never found her body, just her diary by the bed/It told about the fight they’d had and the words that she had said/When he told her he was riding she said "Then I don’t give a damn/“If you never come back from Cheyenne” Just the idea of issuing that kind of ultimatum and it COMES TRUE. Losing someone and always having to remember that your last words were a fight.
Recoil’s last CD, Liquid, can depress you even if you never hear it. Recoil is Alan Wilder, formerly of Depeche Mode. One day he was driving his family somewhere when a military plane crashed near them.
Apparantly his thought processes went something like this: “Oh no, we were almost killed! The pilot of the doomed plane knew he was about to die, what was he thinking as the plane went down? I’d better make a CD about all of this.”
I listened to samples of it, and decided I’d better not buy it.
[B}Heroin** Lou Reed and the Velvet Underground
Heroin, be the death of me
Heroin, it’s my wife and it’s my life
Because a mainline in my vein leads to a center in my head
And then I’m better off than dead
Because when the smack begins to flow
I really don’t care anymore
About all the Jim-Jims in this town
And all the politicians making crazy sounds
And everybody putting everybody else down
The Pretender Jackson Browne
Caught between the longing for love
And the struggle for the legal tender
Where the sirens sing and the church bells ring
And the junk man pounds his fender
Where the veterans dream of the fight
Fast asleep at the traffic light
And the children solemnly wait
For the ice cream vendor
Out into the cool of the evening
Strolls the Pretender
He knows that all his hopes and dreams
Begin and end there
The Parting Glass Irish Traditional
Of all the money ere I had,
I spent it in good company,
And all the harm I’ve ever done,
alas was done to none but me
and all I’ve done for want of wit,
to memory now I can’t recall
so fill me to the parting glass, goodnight and joy be with you all.
Of all the comrades ere I had,
they’re sorry for my going away,
and all the sweethearts ere I had ,
they wish me one more day to stay,
but since it falls unto my lot
that I should go and you should not,
I’ll gently rise and softly call, goodnight and joy be with you all.
If I had money enough to spend
and leisure time to sit awhile
there is a fair maid in this town
who sorely has my heart beguiled
Her rosey cheeks and ruby lips,
I alone she has my heart in thrall
so fill me to the parting glass goodnight and joy be with you all.
There are SO many out there… some of mine have already been mentioned… alone again, naturally – yipes…
the greatest man I never knew … it’s icky reba mcintire, but geez… the mascara will run. “The man I thought would never die, has been gone almost a year… He never said he loved me, guess he thought I knew…”
the green, green grass of home … my folks had this on 8 track, and I bawled whenever I heard it.
I just can’t say goodbye … this song… it is by Chet Atkins, and if you’ve never heard it, you need to. It used to make me cry before my father died… and now, it is such a screaming bawlfest, but so pretty. I love it… a quote: “Wind blows through the trees, streelights, they still shine bright. Most things are the same, but I miss my dad tonight.”
If I had only known… another by reba, way too sad.
downtown train … bruce springsteen
Memory in the making … John Kilzer “Overdosing on perfume that arises from your pillow – how much further down can love go?”
What it takes, by Aerosmith… it is a great post breakup song… “tell me what it takes to let you go…”
:SOBS:
Last Kiss by Pearl Jam made me break down on the highway the first time I listened to the words. (break down crying that is, not my car). Don’t Speak by No Doubt fucks me up a lot, cuz I went thru a nasty break up right when that song hit big.
Some of the ones on this list I don’t get. Jack and Diane? I guess the words are depressing, but for me at least, the beat and rythym are too fast and upbeat to be depressing.
Lightning Crashes performed by the band LIVE is the most depressing and moving thing I have ever heard. Of course the song was written about someone my age who died during childbirth. The odds were that both my mother and I weren’t going to make it when I was born (we both did, I only suffered a dislocated shoulder). Guess that song touches me more than it does most.
Whether or not anybody else can, “I can feel it”.
Alantus
Oh yeah, Lightning Crashes gets me going sometimes.
When Mark Wills’ “Wish You Were Here” first came out, I would bawl every time I heard it. I didn’t get over it until they started putting it in heavy rotation and I’d hear it every fifteen minutes. But now that it’s no longer overexposed I’ve lost my tolerance and I have to switch stations when I hear it.
Argh… fella bilong missus flodnak just insisted on dragging out one of his Ralph McTell albums. We made it through “Streets of London” (synopsis: you think you’re lonely and unhappy, so let me tell you about people who live lives of such abyssimal misery that you’re in seventh heaven by comparison) and the one with the “A working class hero is something to be” refrain (synopsis: life sucks, and everybody’s a fucking sheep) before I told him to just pass the damn razor blades and get it over with. Gah.
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by DRY *
**
You’re losing all your highs and lows, ain’t it funny how the feeling goes away?
but it does have a call to hope and not as sad as Karen Carpenter’s rendition of Goodbye to Love
“I’ll say goodbye to love. No one ever cared if I should live or die. Time and time again the chance for love has passed me by and all I know of love is how to live without it…I’ll go on as best as I can.”
Whoof. Just read this whole thread. Fortunately, they took all the sharp objects away already…
I used to do a late-night radio show that ranged from mellow to downright suicidal. And I’ve played a shocking quantity of what’s been mentioned here. (and they wondered why my audience share had a high mortality rate…)
Anyway, on the Puff theme… has anyone listened to Jane Siberry’s “Oh, My, My”, off her Maria album? 22 minute odyssey through modern life, weaving in Puff and Mary had a Little Lamb as symbols of lost innocence… Truly beautiful.
Also worth mentioning are Kate Bush’s “You’re the One”, about her picking up her stuff from her guy’s apartment when he’s not home, knowing he’s the only man she’ll love.
Katell Keinig, on her album O Seasons, O Castles, did a song called The Gulf Of Araby. A real plunge into political nihilism.
Recently discovered Mojave 3’s “Prayer for the Paranoid”.
Another great one.
I could go on for hours…
Gloomy Sunday.
Oh yeah! That one DEFINITELY has to be one of mine. When I listen to the album, if I’m down, somehow, it brings me back up. I guess I just think “At least my life isn’t as bad as Nicky’s or Mary’s”.
Most of the rest of mine are country (yeah, my musical tastes run the gamut 
)
Love, Me by Collin Raye. It makes me think of my grandparents. I don’t know why, because it’s not their story, but for some reason, it does, and it brings tears to my eyes every time.
The Little Girl by John Michael Montgomery. The first time I heard this song, I was driving up to meet my now ex. I almost wrecked my truck, I was crying so hard.
Letting Go by Suzy Boggus. This was me when I graduated from HS almost 10 years ago. It still gets to me, because it brings the memories back.
She Misses Him by Tim Rushlow. Just because a loved one is near doesn’t mean that they’re still there. Alzheimers takes away so much. And that’s what this song is about. My step-mother worked as a care unit coordinator of an Alzheimers unit for over a year, and I got to see the effects first hand. So this song really hits home to me, and makes me pray every night that I never have to suffer, or make my family suffer, from this dreadful disease.
There are a lot more, too… but I don’t want to ramble on all night…
Way way back I posted that “Cat’s in the Cradle” was the saddest but I remembered an incident that puts another already mentioned song right at the top as well. Claptons’ “Tears in Heaven” was sung at the memorial service a week after the Murragh Federal Building bombing. I saw a young mother who had lost two little children from the day care. During that song she doubled up, her head on her lap, as she clutched portraits of the boys.
How about:
The Rose - Bette Midler
Father’s Son - George Michael
Blackbird - The Beatles
Freebird - Lynrd Skynrd
Everybody Hurts - REM
I also have one that my grandmother taught me as a child, I don’t know its origins or if it was ever recorded but it was about a boy in a wheelchair. I still think of it now, and it haunts me. Here are some of the lyrics, as best as I can remember:
“All alone, sat the boy in the wheelchair…Watching all the other kids run and play”
Another part of the song:
“Lord I know the way I am is for a reason, but will I be a cripple boy up there?
Will I be a cripple boy in heaven…will my wings refuse to sail through the air?”
If anyone has heard this song and can give me any details I would appreciate it.