There are times when you just have to listen to a sad song. Us westerners (by this I mean the western hemisphere) can be a blocked bunch. So we need some well-produced, expertly-written song designed to either hurry our emotions or rip the tears right out of us. A sad song is an emotional laxative.
But there is more than one type of sad song. Do you want a song has sad subject matter in the lyrics? That’s a sad song in the literal sense. Do you want a song that sounds sad, and makes you feel depressed? Do you want something to make you feel worse when you’re in a bad mood? Do you want a certain sort of music to listen to when you wallow in the your own filth and drink alone? Then you need a depressing song. A depressing song is that fifth double you’ve downed before noon, or that vat of chocolate Hagan-daaz you’ve stuffed down you’re throat.
So here are a list of sad or depressing songs. I’ll break them down, and provide a situation for which that specific song might be appropriate.
1. “Is that All There Is?” (Lieber and Stoller) – Performed by one of the last century’s finest singers, Peggy Lee, this song is a downer. “If that’s all there is my friend/ then let’s keep dancin’/ Let’s break out the booze and have a ball”. It’s got an almost German Kurt-Weil feeling. The slow, inexorable beat of death is deadly and present throughout. This song is to be played while drunk, preferably while the sun is shining and the neighbour’s kids are playing outside. But don’t worry about its message; while the song mentions suicide quite enthusiastically, “I’m not ready for that final disappointment,” as Peggy says. Listen to her most famous song, Fever, right after as an antidote. Listen to it here.
2. “Gloomy Sundays” (Rezső Seress)- Originally a Hungarian song released in 1935, it was then recorded by Paul Kemp, then the wonderful Paul Robeson. Then Billie Holiday got her expert hands on it and it was a hit. An urban legend has it that many people have committed suicide while it was playing. What a reputation! It’s usually number 1 in most lists of sad songs. Gloomy is Sunday, with shadows I spend it all, My heart and I have decided to end it all. Pretty bad, no? Another song for a wasted alcoholic afternoon. Listen here.
3. “All by Myself” (Eric Carmen) – Not quite a suicide song, or an alcoholic song. It’s a break-up song, not a death song. When I was young, I never needed anyone, and makin’ love was just for fun. Those days are gone. Livin’ alone, I think of all the friends I’ve known. But when I dial the telephone no one’s home. Written and first performed by a guy named Eric Carmen, it really took off thanks to Celine Dion, who added a power move at the end that drowns out the sound of your self-indulgent wailing as you choke on ice cream and the salty taste of your tears. You’ve heard it before, but you can hear it again.
4. Andvari (Sigur Rós, from the album Takk) – Written and performed by an Icelandic pop group with a cult following, it is sung in a language called Hoplandic, which a dialect made up by the Jonnsi, the lead singer. It’s a stunning song that has no meaning to any listener, so you can attach any meaning you want. It’s best use is for when your kids start to grow up, go to school, and not need you that much anymore. A youtuber made a film-montage of his daughter set to this song, and it can be viewed here. This video once got me weeping uncontrollably, so keep a tissue ready.
5. Red Song (Tim Baker) This song by Newfoundland’s Hey Rosetta! is a haunting evocative song that I think should eclipse All by Myself but won’t. The lyrics are eerie and mythic. Coloured cloth in autumn grey, Coloured cloth covered in bloody stains, and without the pain we learn to love again. It’s about the end of love, of innocence, of growing older. To be played when you are feeling quiet and introspective. See it here.
6. The Ballad of Charlie Wenjack (Willie Dunn) Not depressing, but the saddest song ever. Ever. It’s about a little Canadian Aboriginal boy of six who was taken away from his family and sent to a government-run residential school. He escaped in the dead of a North Ontario winter and tried to walk home along a railroad track, four hundred miles from home, without a winter coat. As he begins to die of hypothermia, he hallucinates and sees his mother, and the Eagle of his people’s myths. Charlie Wenjack really existed, and he went to the Cecilia Jeffrey Indian Residential School. Crap, I’m in tears just writing this. It’s a unknown song that should be the theme of Canada’s greatest shame. It’s very hard to find.
7. Angel (Sarah McClachlan) This is a wonderful song, but it’s become the annoying go-to sad song just as Just the Way you Are has become the most over-done wedding song in history. But I figured I had to include it. It’s used in charity adverts for homeless shelters, humane societies; it’s played at funerals, you name it. However, I don’t think many people feel sad or depressed when hearing it. To be played when you want to hear something ‘meaningful,’ I guess. And you can hear it by clicking here.
8. Goldie’s Last Day (Written and performed by Pray for Rain) A completely specific sad song, but not particularly sad in sound. This song, by Christian rock band Pray for Rain, was inspired by the death of the bass player’s golden retriever. yes she gave all she had /not like a brother or sister more like a mom or a dad/ we never asked her /never gave her a choice we just barked out commands /sit stay don’t beg stop licking my hand/ those days are gone now/ i wish goldie could come out and play. To be played when your dog has died. If you’re not into country music, it’s hard to find songs like that. I’m probably going to be listening a lot to this song sometime within the next two years. Listen to it here. As happy and Beatlesque as it sounds, I get a little misty when I hear it.
The next two, 9 and 10, are not songs, but people. If I were to cover the fine sad songs written by these two women, I’d have to write another twenty entries. Two women, specifically, who have lately cornered the sad song market. One has passed away and the other is still with us and not going anywhere. You know whom I’m talking about, right? They each fill different sad song niches.
9. Adele – She released her first hit album when she was 19. Now she’s twenty four. If you’ve been dumped, you play Someone like You, or Take it, or Right as Rain, or Chasing Pavements, or Make you feel my Love (which Bob Dylan wrote), and cry your heart out amidst a pile of sad tissues (as opposed to happy tissues. Most guys know what I mean), When you’re feeling better, and ready to face the world and find a new man, you play Rumour has it, Rolling in the Deep, or Turning Tables. Few people in the history of music have cornered the market on heartbreak, and she did it because someone broke her heart. Her audience is pan-racial, pansexual, and deeply committed.
10. Amy Winehouse – It was an awful day when she died. Anders Behring Brevik had killed 77 people in Norway, and the news was so unspeakably horrible and unguessable that the details emerged fully right around the time that Amy’s death broke in the media. Brevik killed people to express his hate; Amy Winehouse hated herself and wrote wonderful music to unsuccessfully deal with it. No matter how angry and sad you are, you can go the Amy way and create beauty. It is touching that during Brevik’s trial, part of Norway got together and sang a song of peace in defiance of that sane maniac. Norway got it right.
Amy’s music was ultimately the art of a tragic giant. That immense, black-hued voice; the immersion in alcohol and damaging public behaviour (which is a figurative form of cutting); the lyrics that never held out hope; the use of her shrinking body to wield over-sized feminine accoutrements and manners. Over futile odds and laughed at by the gods; And now the final frame: Love is a losing game. Or this: Even if I stop wanting you, a perspective pushes through: I’ll be some next man’s other woman soon. I cannot play myself again; I should be my own best friend and not fuck myself in the head with stupid men.
When should you play Amy’s music? When you’re feeling sad, you’ll play her music in the hopes of some cathartic tears shed over you and your little problems. So you’ll listen, and hear that voice, and that talent, which was as ancient and powerful as an Egyptian cat-god, and then you’ll remember that she died alone. Instead of crying for yourself, you’ll cry for her. Such was her power.
