Your saddest song

[nebo113]

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?

[Treehugger]

Gustav Mahler's "Ich Bin der Welt Abhanden Gekommen"

[miss jane marple]

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.

[polly_mer]

Dolly Parton's Jolene

and

Jerry Reed's She Got the Goldmine (I Got the Shaft)  It's peppy, but really sad words and the implications of the life of the guy after the divorce.

[RatGuy]

Joe Harnell's end credits theme for "The Incredible Hulk." I believe the title is "A Lonely Man" or "The Lonely Man."

[onehappyunicorn]

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.

[ergative]

This song. My grandmother has dementia, and this always makes me cry.

[backatit]

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

[clean]

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.

[downer]

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.

[traductio]

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."

[kaysixteen]

Paradise by the Dashboard Light.  You have to wait till the end to figure it out.

[Trogdor]

"Skinny Love" by Bon Iver

"Upward Over the Mountain" by Iron and Wine.

"The Trapeze Swinger", the cover version by Gregory Alan Isakov.

[backatit]

"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.

[fourhats]

"Walk Away Renee" by Left Bank. Tugs at my heart every time.