Ever since I was a teenager, I listened to music when I was feeling down. Remember my obsession with ABBA a few months ago? Sometimes, I’m in the mood for some hard rock to lift me out of the doldrums, and sometimes I just look for the most depressing song possible in order to feel MORE miserable. Once you hit bottom, you can laugh, and start your way up the ladder again.
Do any of you have any really depressing songs that you just LOVE? Songs about broken hearts, suicides, and cars going off the edges of mountains?
For my money, this old song (Blue Magic’s Side Show (1974)) is one of the saddest love songs I’ve ever heard. It also makes me think about how we post about our lives on blogs for others to read — like a sideshow. Read the downer lyrics!
Hurry, hurry, step right up
See the side show in town for only fifty cents
Step right up hurry, hurry, before the show begins, my friends
Stand in line, get your ticket, I hope you will attend
It’ll only cost you fifty cents to see
What life has done to those like you and me
See the man with the broken heart, you’ll see that he is sad, he hurts so bad (so bad, so bad)
See the girl who has lost the only love she ever had
There’s got to be no sadder show to see
No doubt about it, satisfaction’s guaranteed
So let the sideshow begin
Hurry, hurry, step right up on in
Can’t afford to pass it by
Guaranteed to make you cry
Let the sideshow begin (hurry, hurry)
Hurry, hurry, step right on in
Can’t afford to pass it by
Guaranteed to make you cry
See the man who’s been cryin’ for a million years, so many tears (so many tears)
See the girl who’s collected broken hearts for souvenirs
It’s more exciting than a one man band
The saddest little show in all the land
So let the side show begin (hurry, hurry)
Hurry, hurry, step right up on in
Can’t afford to pass it by
Guaranteed to make you cry
Let the sideshow begin
Hurry, hurry, step right on in
Can’t afford to pass it by
Guaranteed to make you cry
So let the sideshow begin (hurry, hurry)
Hurry, hurry, step right on in
Can’t afford to pass it by
Guaranteed to make you cry
Fortunately, after I listened to the song a few times, it made me laugh hysterically. Who the hell sits down and writes such a depressing song?!
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My only hard and fast rule during an episode is to step away from the Patsy Cline. That girl is gonna kill somebody one day.
Sleep while I Drive, Melissa Etheridge.
Jeez, SAJ — This is the first thing I read this morning. The Lyrics to Failure by the Swans. But I didn’t like the song too much… too monotone for me. And still not as evocative as Johnny Cash singing “Hurt.” I hope you’re not listening to this while you do your latest cheery art project with the happy animals!
I, I’ve been lonely
And I, I’ve been blind
And I,. I’ve learned nothing
So my hands are firmly tied
To the sinking leadweight
of failure
I’ve worked hard all my life
Money slips through my hands
My face in the mirror tells me
It’s no surprise that I’m
Pushing the stone up the hill
of failure
They tempt me with violence
They punish me with ideals
And they crush me with an image of my
life that’s nothing but unreal
Except on the goddamned slaveship
of failure
I’ll drown here trying
to get up for some air
But each time I think I breathe
I’m laid on with a double share
of the punishing burden
of failure
I don’t deserve to be down here
But I’ll never leave
And I’ve learned one thing
You can’t escape the beast
In the null and void pit
of failure
When I get my hands on some money
I’ll kiss it’s green skin
And I’ll ask it’s dirty face
“Where the hell have you been?”
“I am the fuel that fires the engine
of failure.”
I’ll be old and broken down
I’ll forget who and where I am
I’ll be senile or forgotten
But I’ll remember and understand
You can bank your hard-earned money
on failure
I saw my father crying
I saw my mother break her hand
On a wall that wouldn’t weep
But that certainly held in
The mechanical moans of a dying man
Who was a failure
My back hurts me when I bend
Because I carry a load
My brain hurts me like a knife-hole
Because I’ve yet to be shown
How to pull myself out from
The sucking quicksand
of failure
Some people live in hell
Many bastards succeed
But I. I’ve learned nothing
I can’t even elegantly bleed
Out the poison blood
of failure
Good morning!!
There’s a lot to be said for depressing songs – sometimes they enable you to voice a pain you haven’t begun to articulate yet, but sometimes they also make you feel like slicing your veins open. Now, would you – and your readers – care to give us a hand with the blog book we are working on by submitting something by Feb 29th please? Pretty please? And make it funny, to redress the balance…
Ariel, I forgot to mention this… let me put it in the sidebar! We do need some humor in the world.
I think Beck’s “Sea Change” (aka his break-up album) is really depressing. Here’s the lyrics to one song, “Guess I’m Doing Fine”
There’s a blue bird at my window
I can’t hear the songs he sings
All the jewels in heaven
They don’t look the same to me
I just wade the tides that turned
Till I learn to leave the past behind
It’s only lies that I’m living
It’s only tears that I’m crying
It’s only you that I’m losing
Guess I’m doing fine
All the battlements are empty
And the moon is laying low
Yellow roses in the graveyard
Got no time to watch them grow
Now I bade a friend farewell
I can do whatever pleases me
It’s only lies that I’m living
It’s only tears that I’m crying
It’s only you that I’m losing
Guess I’m doing fine
Press my face up to the window
To see how warm it is inside
See the things that I’ve been missing
Missing all this time
It’s only lies that I’m living
It’s only tears that I’m crying
It’s only you that I’m losing
Guess I’m doing fine
I like some of the other songs better but those lyrics seem fitting. The whole album is sad.
Soooo weird. I was just going to say that Beck’s Sea Changes album is the most depressing album of all time. I can only listen to it when I’m depressed, and it really came in handy when you just been dumped.
I’ve always loved “The Head and the Heart” by Chris DeBurgh. I can’t even get past the first line in that video, though. Wow.
180/360 — Wasn’t Beck’s first hit Loser?
“I’m a loser baby, so why don’t you kill me.”
Fun guy.
Karl — I never heard that song before. I’m checking it out. Isn’t he the “Lady in Red” guy?
Thanks, Margalit!
It’s not sad, but very cute. I do that too.
(via Ze Frank)
Songs that make me cry every time–Ancient: Peggy Lee, “Is That All There Is?” Even when I was a little kid I became despondent. Neil Young: “Sugar Mountain” and “The Needle and the Damage Done.” Joni Mitchell, “The Circle Game”–I was in a store a while ago and had to leave because it was on their radio and I started blubbering. “I00 Years” and “Superman” by John Ondrasek, Five for Fighting. “Sunrise, Sunset.” But I have happy ones, too– “I’m Gonna Be/500 Miles” by The Proclaimers
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O3tNylJr7Z4
And anything by They Might Be Giants makes me smile.
“Things” by Paul Westerberg kills me every single time. I can’t even think about it without getting weepy.
He wrote it about the end of his marriage.
Heather — Things by Paul Westerberg has too much of a “good beat,” like Dick Clark might have said, and it undercuts the weepiness for me. But good song. Just not the saddest.
My MOTHER called — you know, the one who was interviewed by the New Yorker. I thought she was worried about me. But, no. She just wanted to play along and offer her saddest song — the one that makes her cry!
You’ll Never Walk Alone from “Carousel”
I loved that song when I was a kid.
Love Will Tear Us Apart by Joy division is one of my favorite self-indulgent sad songs.
That is a great song, Churlita.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BNMbuygEju8
Have you heard the Cure’s version? They are sadder, IMO.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=szua7uP6agY&feature=related
But no tears. I think Johnny Cash is going to be hard to beat.
i don’t recall ever crying over a lost love song, the two that always make me well up are claptons tears in heaven and the feed the world/do they know it’s christmas song.
i’m totally crushing this bleeding song (http://www.leona-lewis.net/lyrics/)right now, it makes me think of you and sophia when i hear it. why can’t love be enough?
Better Safe — Nice song –
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5-ctIC65PV0
But I shouldn’t have watched the music video. I was laughing at all the cliches! If I substituted us for Leona Lewis and her dopey “boyfriend” in the video –
There’s Neilochka standing in the middle of Times Square with the traffic passing by.
There’s Sophia wearing a $500 jacket standing in an elevator for ten minuites.
See Neil packing up everything into a tiny shoulder bag.
See Sophia, with a lot of cleavage, looking out the window of a cab.
See Neil buying tickets to some Greyhound-type bus (yeah, right!)
See Sophia hugging a pillow in her glamorous apartment.
See Neilochka getting on that smelly bus.
See Sophia standing in the middle of Times Square.
See Neil returning to Times Square, but she is GONE.
To be fair, it’s actually Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails that wrote and first perfomed “Hurt.” So, he should get the credit. But, agreeably, it’s far more poignant with Johnny singing it.
“Cat’s in the Cradle” is cheesy, but that song always brings me down.
I think the lyrics to “Bohemian Rhapsody” are bum inducing.
And as a Deadhead, I have to throw in “Looks Like Rain.”
Bohemian Rhapsody? Yeah, I guess the lyrics are depressing, but no one ever cries to that — I hope.
Maybe a better choice is “I Don’t Like Mondays” by the Boomtown Rats, 1979.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=POl4vFp-5os
Oddly, this is cheering me up.
Bruce Springsteen’s “The River” — “We went down to the courthouse/And the judge put it all to rest/No wedding day smiles, no walk down the aisle/No flowers, no wedding dress.”
Sinead O’Connor’s “Nothing Compares 2 U” — “Nothing can stop these lonely tears from falling/Tell me baby, where did I go wrong?”
Radiohead’s “No Surprises” — “I’ll take a quiet life/A handshake, some carbon monoxide.”
Sam Cooke’s “A Change is Gonna Come” — “It’s been too hard living, but I’m afraid to die.”
David Bowie’s “Space Oddity” — “Tell my wife I love her very much.”
Carly Simon’s “That’s the Way I’ve Always Heard It Should Be.” — “Their children hate them for the things they’re not/They hate themselves for what they are.”
Amy Winehouse’s “Back to Black” — You go back to her/And I go back to black.”
This is a good and sad one! I am making it #2 after Johnny Cash. Evanescence with My Immortal
Radiohead’s ‘How To Disappear Completely’
Or
Only You by Portishead
Neil. Cheater. You Googled the saddest songs. I went to the same site but I refused to pick any of those songs because I wanted to be original. Ahem.
Well, that was so cheery I will go right over to vote for you for Best Humor Blog. Where is Brenda when you need her?
I just remembered on that always gets me… but remember it also says personal things to me as well… but:
She Cried by Toad The Wet Sprocket
Solitaire, such a fateful game
She turns her cards and writes her name on the napkin
Mow she turns another card
She dreams about the house and romance
He promised but won’t deliver
She waits alone
With dried out hopes
And dormant phone
She waits for years
And fantasies melt
New ones appear
But they won’t help
And again she catches him
Eye pulls away with light too dim
She calls his name and runs around
But he was faster
All alone in a bad part of town
She waits again
With dried out hopes
And things made for him
A little ride, a little fun was all
He held her tight, got tired and then let go
The strain on her heart
She believed a lying blackheart
Painted with promises
Then he left her on the floor
With only the mirror to curse
“should’ve known better”
But how she cried…
http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewAlbum?i=157288872&id=157288690&s=143441
OK, sitting with my iTunes now. Clearly I have issues that I can’t let this go.
All Cried Out – Alison Moyet
Ain’t No Sunshine – Bill Withers
Taillights Fade – Buffalo Tom
Hard To Say I’m Sorry – Chicago (yes, it’s in my iTunes, that’s depressing in itself)
Silent House – Crowded House (written for Paul Hester, the band member who killed himself)
Somebody – Depeche Mode
No Bravery – James Blunt (written about his time in military in Kosovo)
Where’ve You Been – Kathy Mattea (I cry like a baby every damn time)
A Bad Dream – Keane (also about war)
Nobody’s Child – Maria McKee
Broken Man – Paul Young
Jezebel – Sade
Gravity – Sara Bareilles
every Smiths song ever recorded
Children’s Crusade – Sting
Woman In Chains – Tears for Fears
Aimee, your iTunes is one depressing place.
Oh, and Heather. Sure I cheated. When you are down in the dumps, morality goes out the window!
One site chose Michael Jackson’s “Ben” as a truly depressing song because it is a love song to a rat.
I’m a sucker for a good sad song.
George Jones – He Stopped Loving Her Today
Ryan Adams – Come Pick Me Up
Billy Bragg & Wilco – At My Window Sad and Lonely
Joan Armatrading – The Weakness In Me
Lucero – It Get’s The Worst At Night
Richard Buckner – This Is Where
Oh My God, I have a sickness. I have to stop.
OK – the instrumental “Crush of Love” by Joe Satriani. I still get weepy just thinking about it. I was in an incredibly painful unrequited love type of relationship when I first heard the song (of course the guy gave it to me to listen to, but not for the obvious reasons – he was really oblivious). It just seemed to BE just what I was feeling at the time, no words needed.
Also “Love Don’t Live Here Anymore” off Madonna’s first album. (It may be a cover.)
“You abandoned me
Love don’t live here anymore…”
Now for sheer depressing mood, but not necessarily related to love-life issues, try “Fly on the Windscreen” by Depeche Mode.
“Death is everywhere
There are flies on the windscreen
For a start
Reminding us
We could be torn apart
Tonight
Death is everywhere
There are lambs for the slaughter
Waiting to die
And I can sense
The hours slipping by
Tonight
Come here
Kiss me
Now
Come here
Kiss me
Now
Death is everywhere
The more I look
The more I see
The more I feel
A sense of urgency
Tonight
Come here
Touch me
Kiss me
Touch me
Now
Touch me
Touch me
There are flies on the windscreen
There are lambs for the slaughter
There are flies on the windscreen”
I can’t believe no one mentioned this song. It’s not my real go-to depressing song, it’s just the absolutely most depressing lyrics to the point that you just have to laugh.
And I gotta say, when it comes to a downer, V-grrrl’s pick, while good and depressing, is nothing compared to this version:
Someone mentioned Paul Westerberg, and i got to jonesin’ for some of that and the replacements. Watching those videos on you tube somehow brought this up as similar…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ddIq7p-nAVQ&feature=related
My Girl from Chilliwack as performed by John Candy, Rick Moranis and Eugene Levy. If it was just the lyrics it would be a sad song.
Hey, why didn’t the embedding work? Trying again, with links:
I can’t believe no one mentioned this song. It’s not my real-life go-to depressing song, it’s just the absolutely most depressing lyrics to the point that you just have to laugh.
And I gotta say, when it comes to a downer, V-grrrl’s pick, while good and depressing, is nothing compared to this version.
DAMMIT. …this version!
Anyway, in recent years, I’ve used these as my real go-to songs a lot:
Elton John’s “I Want Love”
And Stars’ Your Ex-Lover is Dead
Over the long-term, I’d say Pink Floyd’s “Wish You Were Here” and especially “The Final Cut” as well as The Cure’s “Pictures of You” have been high on the list at different points.
HTML hates me today. So sorry!
I Want Love
Miss Syl — After seeing “My Girl” sung on SCTV, I’m not in a bad mood anymore. That was FANTASTIC!
What Did I Have That I Don’t Have? from On a Clear Day You Can see Forever
hey citizen of the month, thanks for your pimping of our blook….
I remember having a similar reaction while reading the lyrics to Jimi Hendrix’s “Castles Made of Sand”… especially the part where the crippled girl is moved to stand for the first time as a golden ship comes her way– and then it just passes her by! Such a depressing song.
Hey Neil come over to Humanyms for the 5th Blogversary tomorrow!
After last night, a horrible night, I had to come back here and check out all the music….
I can’t read all the previous comments right now, so I don’t know if this was mentioned. But I’ll just leave you with a song I love, but find so very sad:
“The Living Years – Mike & The Mechanics”
late as usual…the song your mom loves, is the one Jerry Lewis sings at the end of the telethon…now i’m totally depressed.
I forgot to mention “The Long and Winding Road.” When I was a kid I woke up to that one morning on my clock-radio, and as I walked to school I couldn’t get it out of my mind. When I got to school some people were waiting for me to tell me my best friend had died. That was 38 (!yes!) years ago, but if I hear it on the car radio I still have to pull over and cry. “Don’t leave me waiting here/Lead me to your door.”
Don’t mind! The music is sad, but wonderful. It is just an opinion. No matter what, you can laugh or you enjoy it! I’d rather prefer the second choice!
Blue Magic wonders many with this music…
Denis