Your saddest song

[fast_and_bulbous]

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.

[InfoPri]

Eric Clapton's "Tears in Heaven."  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 coupling it with images from the terrorist attack on September 11, 2001.

[FKM100]

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".

[Juvenal]

Joan Baez's "Diamonds and Rust" comes to mind.

[bio-nonymous]

"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...

[chemigal]

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!

[mouseman]

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.

[0susanna]

Robert Downey, Jr.'s singing "River": https://youtu.be/RIbt4rM5Odc

[mamselle]

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.

[sprout]

Virtute the Cat Explains Her Departure

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.

I'm cheating, though, because I found out about this song from an NPR saddest songs article.

[pedanticromantic]

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!

[kiana]

Kilkelly, Ireland always puts tears into my eyes.

[Anselm]

Two songs by Amanda Palmer:  Lost  and Bigger on the Inside.

[secundem_artem]

I'm rapidly reaching the age where the correct answer is Happy Birthday.

[nebo113]

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.