Hi all,

Sometimes mood music can be my favorite - and of course, there are many moods captured throughout the universe of music that humanity has created.

I will start for the "most depressing, saddest" song:

Dust in the Wind

It's a great song - but it just brings me right down. It goes without say - you have to think these excellent songs from a music and songwriting perspective also.

In fact - also share an artist you like whose reportoire has the largest number of 'most depressing, hopeless sounding, sad songs'. I'll start this one too:

Gillian Welch

I'm hoping you guys help me discover some new great mood music for this emotion.

Share yours !!!

Hey Joe! Yeah Gillian writes some depressing songs but you should check out Mary Gauthier for the real deal! In fact, jump straight to Iris Dement! I love her but I have to be careful about listening to her too much because of how depressing her stuff is!

Hi

Well for me it has to be. Everybody Hurts by REM.
But then that may be because of certain life experiences that I have had!
Best regards
Mike

Sam Stone by John Prine. Lights out.

I have to second "Dust in the Wind." Man...know I'm thinking about that.

Never heard Gillian or Dement; but it's nice to hear others can't listen to too much of something like this without it impacting you. I'm VERY much that way; and have to guard myself to it. I'm attracted to it, yet it messes with me.

"Luka" was a song that always haunted me. To think there are children out there dealing with that is so sad.

"Cats in the Cradle" is a bit of a standard in this department as well. Maybe too obvious.

Luka is sad. Dust In The Wind was the first song I learned fingerpicking on and I still cringe at those downer lyrics. Mr. Bojangles used to make me cry when I'd hear it.

In country music there are too many to list. He Stopped Loving Her Today and Two Tear Drops come to mind.

I'd rather not listen to many sad songs because they can get me too down. To quote Elton, "sad songs say so much".

I don't even listen to the ones I write myself very often. I have to go to a very sad emotional place to write one. I don't like being there more than I have to be.

When I was younger I thought that "Blind Man in the Bleachers" was pretty sad. "Chiseled in Stone" by Vern Gosdin. More Recently the one that actually made me cry lately is a song by Jeff Bates called "Riverbank" that reminds me of my Dad. He loved fishing. And I took him fishing before he died. It wasn't easy for him to get up and down the bank. He had trouble breathing. I took him to his favorite spot. He always caught more fish than me, but that last time I caught more than him and it made me sad. So it is sad to me. Sometimes you run into a song that feels like your life, they can be sad and depressing. When I think about it sometimes when I listen to "50,000 Names on the Wall" brings my swell factor up pretty high. (My swell factor is how close I come to crying.) "Riverbank" busted me up though and caught me off guard..'cause I had never heard it before until recently. Another song that kind of caught me off guard the first time I heard it was "Almost Home" by Craig Morton. Some songs just really remind you of life places you've been and they can hit the soft spots.


C.Dan

Some new names in there for me. And for sure - those that speak to a personal experience have maginified impact. A few others that came to me are:

1.) Eleanore Rigby - the beatles
2.) The River - Bruce Springstein - also Independendence Day and Point Blank from the same album.

Funny enough - I can't think of many more by the Beatles - who have probably the largest library of great songs out there. Maybe they were clever to sprinkle them judiciously throughout their reportoire. Bruce also has quite a few.

I guess I'm strange because most sad songs lift my spirits. That's because many sad songs have an ironic twist.

Oklahoma natives +++ Jason Boland And The Stragglers" +++ have a sad song called "Hard Times Are Relative". The song storyline is about two children 17 and 10 years old that are trying to make it on their own after both parents are killed in a mill fire. How's that for a sad story?

C. Dan mentioned Vern Gosdin. Vern sang a song called +++ "The Number He Gave Me Was Mine" +++. The song is so sad it will make your toes curl. Nobody feels the pain like Vern when he is singing a sad song. He was truly one of a kind.

Two songs that I fall back on whenever I'm down and need a lift are "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry" and "Long Black Veil". Both are considered country standards and have been recorded by many artists. +++ Elvis Presley +++ stated in a television show it is the saddest song he ever heard. My favorite version of "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry" was sung by 12 year old Hank Williams Junior for the 1964 movie +++ Your Cheating Heart +++ . I enjoy Lefty Frizzel's version of "Long Black Veil". Mick Jagger and The Chieftains have a surprisingly interesting recording of the song.

Hmn, for me I would have to say Lost in Paradise by Evanescence, Dark Paradise by Lana Del Rey, Sick of Losing Soulmates by Dodie, and Hymn for the missing by Red are up there on my list of "these are so depressing, but I adore them" songs.



Hymn for the Missing: https://youtu.be/Y72_b3iMyoQ
Lost in Paradise: https://youtu.be/3rnxlW5TrBs
Dark Paradise: https://youtu.be/vmWUUPl8DD4
Sick of Losing Soulmates: https://youtu.be/m_DSRjGZNdg

Just incase anyone is interested. I'm not a huge fan of Lana Del Rey personally, with few exceptions. Dark Paradise was the first song I ever heard by her, and it was shortly after the loss of a significant other who I had been courting for 10 years. I won't go in to details, but I really resonated with that particular song and latched on to it for a few years. I made all sorts of abstract art pieces late in to the night listening to that particular song, just to vent and get things out of my system. It had almost become like a nightly ritual. So it has a pretty secured spot in my heart when it comes to music in general. Hymn for the Missing was another one of those songs.

I have a tendency to listen to pretty angsty or melancholic music, haha.

I've never heard "The Number He Gave Me Was Mine" ...I checked it out and it cuts to the bone.. Have you ever heard "Watching His Son Go Down", by Jeff Bates? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kvcMvGfZK0A

"All By Myeself" by Eric Carmen, period.

It's hard to say the most depressing or the saddest. But this song by the great jazz singer Mark Murphy must rank among the top 10.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PDVodk4SunE

How Are You Dreaming from the album "Mark Murphy Sings"

Another candidate might be Tom Jones' version of "I Who Have Nothing".

Notes

Ok...this takes in in a slightly different way. "One" by Metallica. A different kind of sad." Especially with the video.

Any tune off of "A Crow Looked At Me" by Mount Eerie. Mount Eerie is name of the solo project that Phil Elverum has had ongoing since the early 00's.

The album is long, heartbreaking story. His wife was diagnosed with cancer and given a year to live. She was diagnosed only a few months after their daughter was born. A year later, as predicted, she passed away. The album documents him struggling as he watches her get sick and eventually die. It documents his grieving, his loneliness, and his accepting that he is now a widowed single parent. It is a brutally straight forward album that delves head first into the saddest parts of the human psyche. The first time I listened to it I had to stop a few times throughout the album. It isn't an easy listen.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P4oFtQuiac0

Above is a link to one of my favourites songs off it, "Forest Fire." Complete with such heart warming, feel-good lyrics as the ones below.

"The year moves on without you in it
Now it is fall without you
I had to close the windows and doors without you coming through
I kept them open for as long as I could
But the baby got cold
I watched the calendar bulldoze"

There are some really good songs in here. I'm feeling really inspired. Great topic.

For the most depressing song..... I nominate

BLOODROCK: DOA

https://youtu.be/bUkeu4Zj7pA


this was a 70's hit song.

One of the sadist songs that I have heard is St. James Infirmary.

Here is one of the many versions of this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v81oBVdcqKs

Moonlight Sonata

+++ Bed By The Windows by James King +++ has to rate pretty close to the top of sad and depressing songs because it describes a future many of us may experience.

I chose the studio version because most of the live versions I've heard James King has trouble making it through the song without breaking up because he gets so emotionally invested in the song.

+++ HERE is a link to the song lyrics. +++

Each time my aunt would visit she would beg me to sing "Old Shep" and the Everly's "Lightning Express" from their album "Songs Our Daddy Taught Us." Another of her favorites was "The Baggage Coach Ahead" which was in a similar vein as "Lightning Express", tragic.

Elvis covered "Old Shep" but his version was lacking compared to Red Folley.

Great topic, Joe!

You've opened the floodgates.

https://youtu.be/bWohCzFT3Vc
Lightning Express

https://youtu.be/6URIHQXmPmY
Old Shep

https://youtu.be/2Pob5YZvAII
Put My Little Shoes Away

https://youtu.be/tagLEbctZd0
Silver Haired Daddy

https://youtu.be/g1nZ8tyNTaU
I'll Be All Smiles Tonight

https://youtu.be/nopBvlKfYgY
Neon Moon

Gotta be Eric Clapton tears in heaven!

There's some gems in here I recognize many, but some of these are brand new to me. Looking forward to listening to some of these when I get a moment.

Deryk,

Be forewarned, my aunt called many of my suggestions: "Two hankie songs!"

Another tear-jerker.

https://youtu.be/MH_2fUcvbEU
Rocking Alone In An Old Rocking Chair

Just When I needed you most - Randy VanWarmer

Whiskey Lullaby, Brad Paisley and Alison Krauss. I don;t know if it's the saddest song I've ever heard but it is the saddest song in my repertoire. My wife requests that I do not sing it anymore but I still do.

Boy, I cry very easily over music, so that would be a looong list if I allowed myself to go there (starting with one of mine, made after the loss of my teenage love from bone cancer).

I could mention nearly everything from the Moulin Rouge film, same goes for Les Miserables from practically start to finish (Castle in the Clouds just crumbles me, as does On My Own), or a truckload of icelandic songs that wouldn't mean anything to you.
Because, you know, for this concept context is absolutely everything! There are upbeat songs I cannot bare to listen to because of how they remind me of something/someone or other, case in point.

p.s. Your thread just reminded me I've been meaning to make a playlist on youtube for ages based on this very concept... I guess haven't had the courage to actually go through with it yet.

Another on my saddest song list that is at the top some days is I Ain't As Good As I Once Way by Toby Keith:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ldQrapQ4d0Y

Today is one of those days

According to Qi (my favourite TV show) there actually exists a documented "Most depressing song of our times", a song that has the highest documented suicides associated directly with this song! It's even often referred to as "the Hungarian suicide song"

It's called "Gloomy Sunday"... but I won't provide a link, I don't want that risk on my conscience

We do Dolly Parton's "Jolene" at a much slower speed (78bpm) and it's a tearjerker.

Notes

After all is said and done probably the most depressing sad song would be "Somebody Please Kill Me" from the "Wedding Singer".
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LTnq268y2ms..sung by Adam Sandler.
C.Dan

How about Tom Jones with Green Green Grass of Home?

Ebony Eyes by the Everly Brothers whilst it is beautiful doesn’t fill one with joy.

Honey by Bobby Goldsboro brings a tear also (especially when I do it. I’m not sure if it the song or my effort (and ultimate destruction of the song)).

Tony.

"Oh My Darling Clementine" has a happy sounding melody but when you listen to the lyrics it is sad and depressing.

Oh my darling, oh my darling
Oh my darling, Clementine
You are lost and gone forever
Dreadful sorry, Clementine

In a cavern, in a canyon
Excavating for a mine
Dwelt a miner, forty-niner
And his daughter, Clementine

Oh my darling, oh my darling
Oh my darling, Clementine
You are lost and gone forever
Dreadful sorry, Clementine

Light she was and like a fairy
And her shoes were number nine
Herring boxes, without topses
Sandals were for Clementine

Oh my darling, oh my darling
Oh my darling, Clementine
You are lost and gone forever
Dreadful sorry, Clementine

Drove she ducklings to the water
Ev'ry morning just at nine
Hit her foot against a splinter
Fell into the foaming brine


Oh my darling, oh my darling
Oh my darling, Clementine
You are lost and gone forever
Dreadful sorry, Clementine

Ruby lips above the water
Blowing bubbles, soft and fine
But, alas, I was no swimmer
So I lost my Clementine

Oh my darling, oh my darling
Oh my darling, Clementine
You are lost and gone forever
Dreadful sorry, Clementine

How I missed her! How I missed her
How I missed my Clementine
But I kissed her little sister
I forgot my Clementine

Oh my darling, oh my darling
Oh my darling, Clementine
You are lost and gone forever
Dreadful sorry, Clementine

We do St. Patrick's Day parties once a year. Sometimes as many as 5 of them.

Molly Malone died of the fever and her ghost roams the waterfront.

Danny Boy is going off to war and if he makes it home alive, his dad will be dead and he wants Danny to visit his grave and say a prayer.

There are more.

I guess they are the Irish-American version of The Blues.

I do like playing Patty Parties, the people are in good spirits and it's a dependable time for gigging. So those songs aren't so sad to me.

Insights and incites by Notes

Hi

What about
"Nobody's Child" is a song written by Cy Coben and Mel Foree. It was first recorded by Hank Snow in 1949 and it became one of his standards, although it did not chart for him.
In 1969 Karen Young took the song to #6 on the UK charts and used it as the title track on her album.
In 1969 Hank Williams Jr. did a version of it that made it to #46 on the US Country charts. The Traveling Wilburys' 1990 version made it to #44 on the UK charts.
The song lyrics are about an orphan whom no one wants to adopt because he is blind:
Stay sad. but keep smiling
Mike

I definitely feel like this is what this thread is about. It amazes me to see how people are moved by sad music, what they consider sad, and how it impacts them.

Sometimes we need sad songs to feel like we aren't the only ones out there feeling the things that we do. It's a great way to connect.

The perfect theme song for this thread: +++ "" Song Sung Blue" by Neil Diamond +++

I think one of the saddest songs is David Allan Coe's version of Steve Goodman's song, "You Never Even Called Me By My Name" (AKA the perfect country and western song).

I was drunk the day my mom got out of prison,
And I went to pick her up in the rain,
But before I could get to the station in my pickup truck,
She got run over by a damned ol' train.

That song always cheers me up!

The Civil War song "Lorena" was banned by leaders on both sides because, upon hearing it, soldiers, both blue and gray, would lay down their weapons and return to their homes.

https://youtu.be/0zAg6bacIsQ?list=RD0zAg6bacIsQ

It was just pointed out to me that it reflects the mental images of a dying soldier. That makes it doubly sad.

It ny be my naivety from living in a country without wars (or an army, for that matter), but that effect alone sounds to me like the opposite of sad.

Holy Cow !!! What a lot of emotion embedded in this thread !!!

So many great new songs you've shared - I think I have to piggyback off this thought for a new emotion....

Thanks to this thread I now have enough music to last me a lifetime.

Great suggestions everybody!

Eric Bogle's

"And The Band Played Waltzing Matilda". Beautiful.

https://youtu.be/WG48Ftsr3OI

He has a few more in the same vein also.

Have you seen her by Harry Nilsson

This Mac Wiseman song has to rate near the top of the heap.

"The Letter Edged In Black"

In his 90s, Mac is still with us and still has his beautiful bluegrass tenor voice. My dad and I listened to Mac and his brother Scotty and Lulabelle on WSM's Grand Ole Opry 70+ years ago.

https://youtu.be/PA6vAWghSFs

Another from my youth.

"The Baggage Coach Ahead"

https://youtu.be/AU4S3G4_rJo

Didn't see these in the thread. The first, Brad Paisley - Whiskey Lullaby with Alison Krauss, used to be the saddest song/video I knew but a while back was replaced by Craig Morgan - This Ain't Nothin'

Definitely watch the videos for both

Whiskey Lullaby


This Ain't Nothin

~Russell~

Chiseled in Stone by Verne Gosdin

https://www.google.com/search?gs_ssp=eJz...me&ie=UTF-8

I wish I could share mine, but legally I can't.
I had the opportunity to work on a CD by a certain rapper.
He knew he was dying and the last stuff he wrote did bring tears to my eyes. Quite literally.
Could be that some of the very best of this genre never made it to the masses.
Sad.
In this particular case it was corporate greed that prevented it being released which is like kicking a corpse ..

/how's that for sad?

The answer to that was usually "Any song Eddie sings front on..."

This thread is like 5 years old.... And my answer was the same 5 years ago.

Apologies! New guy browsing through the threads in search of knowledge when I stumbled on this post and HAD to reply . . . Didn't catch the age.

No apology needed. New to you is just fine with everybody. Your reply matters as much as any.

Strange Fruit by Lewis Allan and sung by Billie Holiday.

"Leader of the band" by Dan Fogelberg

I always have a hard time listening to this song because it perfectly pertains to my own dad.

What makes this song even sadder is the fact that Dan Fogelberg passed away from prostate cancer at the age of 56 years old. Very sad.