Have you ever really, really listened to Otis Redding's "Sitting on the Dock of thee Bay"? "2000 miles from home...." It's incredibly sad. What's your saddest song?
Gustav Mahler's "Ich Bin der Welt Abhanden Gekommen"
Do you mean saddest song that isn't, on the face of it, a sad song, like "Dock of the Bay"? There are very many sad songs that are intentionally sad, about death and despair and abandonment.
Right off the top of my head: "Twilight" by the late Elliott Smith, although the sadness of that song is enhanced by the fact that it was a posthumous hit. "Haven't laughed this much for a long time, better stop now before I start cryin'."
The one that always gets me is "He Stopped Loving Her Today" by George Jones. But that was intended to be a tear-jerker.
And I have to mention "Hurt" or I will lose my Trent Rules! card. No, class, it wasn't written by Johnny Cash.
Dolly Parton's Jolene (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ixrje2rXLMA)
and
Jerry Reed's She Got the Goldmine (I Got the Shaft) (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eV67FuREdSc) It's peppy, but really sad words and the implications of the life of the guy after the divorce.
Joe Harnell's end credits theme for "The Incredible Hulk." I believe the title is "A Lonely Man" or "The Lonely Man."
I am a big fan of beautiful songs that tell me terrible things.
Sun Kil Moon "Carry Me Ohio"
Sufjan Stevens "Casimir Pulaski Day"
Daughter "Smother"
Almost anything by Elliott Smith is gonna be heartbreaking. I have an entire playlist of sad songs, it's my go to while I am making work.
This song (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LxKKImMBnNQ). My grandmother has dementia, and this always makes me cry.
Snow Patrol's What if This is All The Love You Ever Get. Both sad lyrics and melody.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D52qnC7dJcQ
Auld Lang Syne (The song sung on new year's eve.... should old acquaintance be forgot and never brought to mind.... )
I miss you like the desert miss the rain. My best friend had died some months before and I was driving to another town to teach a class for the local Bankruptcy Trustee when this song came on the radio. I teared up right away and can not listen to that song since without being sad.
Obviously there's the whole Goth movement of miserabilism. Joy Division's songs are all unhappy: I think of "Love Will Tear Us Apart," "Isolation," "New Dawn Fades," and "She's Lost Control." Equally heavy is Throwing Muses' "Hate My Way."
Those songs are all loud and full of angst. These days I am more likely to go for something quieter. One song that comes to mind, which doesn't even have very sad lyrics, but conveys a lot of sorrow, is Gillian Welch's "Revelator".
Mount Eerie's "Real Death" is also very notable for its mourning -- Phil Elverum lost his wife to cancer and the whole album "A Crow Looked at Me" is devastating.
In one of my favorite books, the main characters (two Quebecers travelling across the United States) play a game called "La chanson la plus triste au monde" ("The saddest song in the world"). It's one of my favorite passages.
Anyway, every time I read it, I think of Jacques Brel singing "Ne me quitte pas." (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vz6r0TP4FBI)
Paradise by the Dashboard Light. You have to wait till the end to figure it out.
"Skinny Love" by Bon Iver
"Upward Over the Mountain" by Iron and Wine.
"The Trapeze Swinger", the cover version by Gregory Alan Isakov.
Quote from: Trogdor on June 29, 2019, 05:33:11 AM
"Skinny Love" by Bon Iver
"Upward Over the Mountain" by Iron and Wine.
"The Trapeze Swinger", the cover version by Gregory Alan Isakov.
Love Bon Iver, and that song in particular.
"Walk Away Renee" by Left Bank. Tugs at my heart every time.
I cannot listen to Joe Walsh's Song For Emma, the last song on So What, which is about his daughter who was hit by a car and killed on her way to school.
Eric Clapton's "Tears in Heaven (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-gbDPJTPYNs)." Although he wrote the song about the death of his four-year-old son, I first heard it shortly after my father's 1993 death, and some of the lyrics just resonated for me so much that I'd cry. (For example: "Time can bring you down/Time can bend your knee/Time can break your heart/Have you begging 'please,' begging 'please'")
The very saddest music I've ever heard, though (I'm not sure I'd call it a song), is Samuel Barbar's "Adagio for Strings," which I first heard when I saw the movie Platoon, for which it was the musical theme. The piece touches my heart every time I hear it, but never more so than when I saw a video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4PWdOoOQjI) coupling it with images from the terrorist attack on September 11, 2001.
For me it's "Seasons in the Sun", irrespective of which version. Schmaltzy and overly sentimental, but it gets me every time. Perhaps because it's not just about dying on a beautiful spring day, but also (in the end) about the futility of life - "the stars we could reach were just starfish on the beach".
Joan Baez's "Diamonds and Rust" comes to mind.
"Cemetery Gates" by Pantera: My heart dedicates this song to my deceased younger brother every time I hear it. It is in my gym music rotation so I hear it fairly often...
Marshmello's "Happier". I didn't find it particularly sad until I watched the video. Now I sob every single time I hear the stupid song. Sucks when I'm in the grocery store and it comes on :-) BTW if you're a dog lover don't go watch the video or you'll sob too!
This song by Yehudah Poliker: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1FwSKM_GlkE The name translates to "ash and dust". It's a song a man wrote for his mother who is about to leave on yet another trip to where her home and neighborhood was in Poland before WWII, though nobody and nothing remains there from her childhood.
Poliker is the kid of Holocaust survivors from Greece.
Robert Downey, Jr.'s singing "River": https://youtu.be/RIbt4rM5Odc
I, too, think of Brel's 《Ne me quitte pas》 (and also of 《Ai, Marieke, Mareike》); I saw his statue outside the museum in Bruxelles last year, arms outflung, and thought, "They've got it wrong, he was so inward." (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wfGDpzL9H7Y)
Azanavour's 《La Boheme》is intrinsically sad; when I play it, it's tempting to think of the last whirlwind improv as 《tres gai》but it's not, really...a kind of busy-ness trying to escape the loss and sadness. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A314PVRSQIM)
Dassin's 《Village du bout du monde》has a sweeter sadness; I think there are double-entendres in the use of the words 《valise》and 《vent》that could be funereal; there's a tiny 17th c. 《hameau》near Sens, visible from the ridge above the river, that I picture when singing it. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VJtfDCacVEg)
When a much-respected colleague at work left suddenly after a buy-out, someone for whom I had really enjoyed working, 《Tourna a Sorrento》became my "comfort song;" I sang it to myself and played it constantly as a kind of undercurrent to my grief as I did all the things necessary to make the departure work for everyone else. Underneath the obvious sorrow, there's an almost passionate keening that I kythed with. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sm42AWUGkjc)
(I can't find any women singing it, but I've always thought of it as a woman's song about being left behind, even more than a man's)
Cohen's "Dance Me to the End of Time" is both more plaintive and more prophetically majestic, with its measured anger at the lives and loves lost when prejudice tries to order things unfairly--and at the waste of human creativity when war, injustice, and evil draw us into their maw. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NGorjBVag0I)
When I first heard it and saw the original video, I thought it was just a memorial to those who had lived through war and sustained their love for each other (a lot like my own folks, in fact). Then I found out the actual background, which adds about sixteen more dimensions...
M.
Virtute the Cat Explains Her Departure (https://youtu.be/gnmcw6kJ2HQ)
I can't even listen to it before posting or I'll start bawling and be in a funk all day.
Apparently there's a whole saga (https://youtu.be/8zYG186spkY).
I'm cheating, though, because I found out about this song from an NPR saddest songs article (https://www.npr.org/sections/allsongs/2015/05/19/406500138/the-songs-that-make-us-cry).
Quote from: onehappyunicorn on June 28, 2019, 07:34:05 AM
Daughter "Smother"
Funny you mentioned Daughter... my first thought was Ex:Re (daughter's singer) track "Where the time went". The dropped C tuning.. ah!
Kilkelly, Ireland always puts tears into my eyes.
Two songs by Amanda Palmer: Lost and Bigger on the Inside.
I'm rapidly reaching the age where the correct answer is Happy Birthday.
Quote from: secundem_artem on August 05, 2019, 10:27:07 PM
I'm rapidly reaching the age where the correct answer is Happy Birthday.
I roll into a new Big One soon, so I feel your sadness.
There's so many, but the one I can't listen to without tearing up is the finale to Jekyll and Hyde. I love to listen to showtune "stories" while I'm driving, but I always have to stop before I get to this one.
BOBBY VINTON-BLUE VELVET
https://youtu.be/icfq_foa5Mo (https://youtu.be/icfq_foa5Mo)
Five Hundred Miles.
As much as I hate to say it, it's "Cat's in the Cradle." I hate that song. But, as both a son and a father of two sons, it always gets to me.
Hank Williams, Sr. with "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry" -- https://youtu.be/4WXYjm74WFI (https://youtu.be/4WXYjm74WFI). "The silence of a falling star / Lights up a purple sky / And as I wonder where you are / I'm so lonesome I could cry." Uggers.
Waylon Jennings with "My Heroes Have Always Been Cowboys"--https://youtu.be/A9DYU-9A8fY (https://youtu.be/A9DYU-9A8fY) (note: I know the images don't go with the song on this video)
"Superman" by Laurie Anderson might be more disturbing or haunting than sad, but it would make my list: https://youtu.be/Vkfpi2H8tOE (https://youtu.be/Vkfpi2H8tOE)