The saddest song ever

[AlpineDave]

This had me thinking for a long time. I am very much into Irish/Scottish songs, and people have said to me "why are these songs all so sad? why would anybody want to listen to that?"

My explanation is that these songs are in fact medication. Just like you shouldn't take medication if you don't need it, these songs are not for everyone. However, many people who need medication refuse to acknowledge the fact and prefer singing in the rain, as if the problem would go away by ignoring it. Sad songs show you where you are (in the lyrics) but also that there is a better, more beautiful world you should walk towards (in the music). And if they make you cry, that's good news because crying is relief; blocking such relief can make you ill (my wife often says that cancer are uncried tears).

I found the song has to belong to the right genre to work for me, i.e. the beauty/music part must connect. So Blues does not work for me, nor does Jazz*

(*) cool and elegant, but superficial and cold to the touch for me. As an example, this song has an intriguing musical perfection but fails to touch my heart. If it weren't for the expressive face of the singer at the end of the video, I'd not even identify the song as a sad one.

Try this great jazz classic, Billie Holiday's Don't Explain, sung by Nina Simone :https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_xBBpOPDm8s . I've played solos on this, on tenor sax on stage, and have almost ruined my performance with my tears.

[MikeEdgerton]

"The Dutchman" sung by Liam Clancy. I can't remember who wrote it.

Michael Smith, made popular by the Late Steve Goodman.

[maudlin mandolin]

This one gets my vote. Tragic subject, sad lyrics and a mournful tune.

[maudlin mandolin]

duplicate

[Bertram Henze]

Try this great jazz classic, Billie Holiday's Don't Explain, sung by Nina Simone :https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_xBBpOPDm8s . I've played solos on this, on tenor sax on stage, and have almost ruined my performance with my tears.

It's brilliant, but it offers me no escape, no hope and therefore does not fulfill the medication function I was referring to. It reminds me of this other one - no silver lining on these clouds. The world ends, and there will be no follow-up. This is not just sadness, it's final damnation.

[jdchapman]

Lots of ideas here. Billy Holiday should be in here more.

But since we seem to be zooming in on the special flavor of regretful, wistful gut-pain John Prine makes so often:

"Mexican Home"

Not the sweet Arif Mardin produced should version with the Sweet Inspirations going to town in the background, but the slow fingerpicked live version which is about nothing but dead parents.

[AlpineDave]

It's brilliant, but it offers me no escape, no hope and therefore does not fulfill the medication function I was referring to. It reminds me of this other one - no silver lining on these clouds. The world ends, and there will be no follow-up. This is not just sadness, it's final damnation.

If you think those two songs hurt, listen to Henryk Gorecki's Symphoney #3 (here's the famous second movement https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g5fg8-VWNo0), but be sure someone reliable is with you for about 24 hours after.

As others have pointed out, the medication in this kind of almost unbearably sad music is that, by its emotional experience, the listener can work through these terrible feelings and, at least for a time, purge them. I don't think this type of music is good for people experiencing actual tragedy in their lives--they have all they can handle with present reality. But it certainly speaks to the overwhelming power of music--the most direct art form human beings have created.

[Bertram Henze]

If you think those two songs hurt, listen to Henryk Gorecki's Symphoney #3 (here's the famous second movement https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g5fg8-VWNo0), but be sure someone reliable is with you for about 24 hours after.

That's not so bad - it's a requiem at heart, and as such it has a warm, comforting element with the promise of resurrection. Here is one in the same league for you.

[Pasha Alden]

Very sad, though beautiful. Sometimes one hopes the beauty can medicate, though sometimes beauty offers no escape and is part of the sadness. Wonderful to see Billy Holiday mentioned here.

[Jeff Mando]

I guess we all drown our sorrows in different ways. That it (a sad song) has some strange attraction or appeal shows me that misery loves company, so maybe the implied comradery is a sign of hope -- that you are not alone. I respect the "artistry" of a musician being able to deliver that feeling on demand night after night. But, mostly I enjoy happy music, if I want to be sad I can watch the evening news.....

Speaking of drowning -- my uncle was a Navy man and a line he repeated over and over in my youth was something to the effect of, "you know the good thing about the Navy is if the ship goes down, 500 other guys are going down with you...." I never understood that logic and certainly got no comfort from that statement, but obviously the comradery appealed to him. I think the Navy is wise to not use his statement as part of their recruiting campaign......

[StuartE]

Has there ever been a sadder Christmas song than Merle Haggard's "If We Can Make It Through December"?

And, it was a hit.

[AlpineDave]

That's not so bad - it's a requiem at heart, and as such it has a warm, comforting element with the promise of resurrection. Here is one in the same league for you.

How gorgeous!

[Al Trujillo]

That's not so bad - it's a requiem at heart, and as such it has a warm, comforting element with the promise of resurrection. Here is one in the same league for you.

Yup, thats a good one. Don't need to understand it to feel it in your bones.

[JeffD]

There is a connection between great sorrow and great beauty. This connection has inspired many many books and movies, going back to ancient times.

[Martin Veit]

For me, a very sad song is "The valley of kilbride" by The Once.

[allenhopkins]

I'd be like a flower unwanted in spring,
Alone and neglected, transplanted in vain,
To a garden of sadness where its petals would fall
In the shadows of undying pain

-- Louvin Brothers, When I Stop Dreaming

Some other candidates: Mary Of the Wild Moor, Father's a Drunkard and Mother Is Dead, Step It Out Mary, Greenwood Side-E-O, No School Bus In Heaven, Come All You Tender Hearted -- can't go on, too painful.

[michaelcj]

Has there ever been a sadder Christmas song than Merle Haggard's "If We Can Make It Through December"?

And, it was a hit.

Stan Rogers "First Christmas" [away from home].

[Sandy Beckler]

"The Killing of Georgie" Rod Stewart

[Jess L.]

... Sad songs show you where you are (in the lyrics) but also that there is a better, more beautiful world you should walk towards (in the music). ...

Yes, that makes sense, that's an excellent explanation.

Even in instrumental pieces, there can be those two opposite feelings.

I don't usually create this kind of music (video below) but...

I recorded the first track after I saw one of our kindly extremely-elderly neighbors get carted out of his house on a stretcher and put in an ambulance and hauled away to the hospital. Not usual for him, he'd always been so healthy and spry despite his age. Things were looking bad, they figured heart attack, and he probably wasn't going to make it through very well if at all. That was bad enough, but the look of despair on his disabled wife's face as she watched them haul him away, that was what really got to me.

Later, after the dust settled, in frustration and sadness back at home I picked up my guitar and just started playing random notes strung together into a tune of sorts. After a while, even in my sadness I thought the tune was kind of pretty in its own sad way, so I turned on the recorder.

THEN, the next day, the neighbor was brought home from the hospital with a much better outlook! My mood did a 180!

I thought of the tune I'd recorded the day before, I thought that it should no longer be a sad song, or at least that the inevitable sadness had been postponed for maybe a few months or a few years, so I recorded a 2nd (happier) backing track to go with the melody track.

You can still hear the original doom-and-gloom sadness, but now with the 2nd track as a backing track, IMO the music has hope that things are going to be ok after all. Although it still has a bit of an unnerving edge to it, as with any such tune I suppose.


(or direct link)

So when I made that video back in 2015, I re-used a background from one of my other videos with the archetypal theme of moving from shadows to light, which I suppose is also kind of an overused stereotype or something, but I thought it seemed to fit the music. (Video "animation" created in Adobe AE using a modified stock-photography sun & clouds scene and a custom-made 'sailboat' created from scratch in Adobe Photoshop.)

Of course this kind of stuff is always going to be personal and, while I hear it as an emotional piece, to someone else it might just sound like a bunch of noodling... which I guess it is, also.

[Bertram Henze]

...I thought of the tune I'd recorded the day before, I thought that it should no longer be a sad song, or at least that the inevitable sadness had been postponed for maybe a few months or a few years, so I recorded a 2nd (happier) backing track to go with the melody track.

You can still hear the original doom-and-gloom sadness, but now with the 2nd track as a backing track, IMO the music has hope that things are going to be ok after all. Although it still has a bit of an unnerving edge to it, as with any such tune I suppose.

It has that ambivalent Pink Floyd vibe

[Lowlands Blue]

White Dove is another nice sad song.

[allenhopkins]

Has there ever been a sadder Christmas song than Merle Haggard's "If We Can Make It Through December"?...

As I mentioned in an early post, I think this one by Dick Staber is the saddest Christmas song I've ever heard, outdoing Haggard, Stan Rogers, and all others that come to mind:

[NursingDaBlues]

There is a connection between great sorrow and great beauty. This connection has inspired many many books and movies, going back to ancient times.

“Death is the mother of beauty…”
Sunday Morning by Wallace Stevens

Regarding this line from his poem, Mr. Stephens said: “Only the perishable can be beautiful, which is why we are unmoved by artificial flowers.”

[drkix]

You're Not Coming Back by Lynn Myles.

[ktheerm]

just listened to Echo Mountain... and that one gets my vote.