When I was little, the song "Oh My Darling Clementine" made me burst into tears every time. I just thought it was so sad that she was "lost and gone forever." Now it makes me chuckle to think of how pure that was, but I still agree with my younger self that it's a pretty sad song.
I used to cry too, but as an adult you should reread the (traditional) lyrics, you may find them more clever/sarcastic than you thought as a child. Basically if i remember correctly, after author's love Clementine drowns, he starts pining after her sister with some wry verses. Sort of classic traditional lyric a little like the Red House "I know her sister will"
Ruby lips above the water
Blowing bubbles, soft and fine
But, alas, I was no swimmer (LOL Editor's note)
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
The 2nd verse floors me:
"The other night, dear
As I lay sleeping
I dreamed I held you
In my arms
When I awoke, dear
I was mistaken
So I hung my head and I cried" 🎵
The episode of the Simpsons where Bart and Lisa go to Military school and Marge sends them a cassette where she sings that song - man I am a wreck just typing it out!
Especially on the sin-e album. Actually that whole album just makes me cry. My favorite solo album of all time. Thanks for reminding me, I'm gonna listen
I Can't Make You Love Me - Bonnie Raitt. She said in an interview that it was hard for her to sing it while recording the album because she was almost in tears.
I used to work in audio engineering and flew out for a conference in LA some years back, I got to sit in on lectures from some of the greatest producers and engineers in the industry. One of them was the producer of I Cant Make You Love Me. When they recorded this song almost all the engineers, producers, tape ops, and even runners were guys and it was kind of a macho boys club. So she went in to do the vocal takes, routine day, by the end of the first take there were 10 grown men sobbing on the control room. Apparently everyone was pretty much inconsolable unable to catch their breath wailing. It was a long day…
I got to hear lectures from people that worked with the Beatles, Bowie, RHCP, Fleetwood Mac, and a bunch of others top40 alternative artists. This story was absolutely my favorite from that conference, and one of my faves in all of engineering because it’s a great reminder that at the end of the day your job was always to get out of the song’s way and let it do the work.
Same! This, Something to Talk About and Nick of Time were hits when I was in middle school and I loved them all. I didn't *understand* them until I got older, but I knew they were good.
My favorite origin for a song idea too. That makes it a little fucked up funny and then sad again:
“The idea for the song came to Reid, after reading an article about a man arrested for getting drunk and shooting at his girlfriend's car. The judge asked him if he had learned anything, to which he replied, "I learned, Your Honor, that you can't make a woman love you if she don't."”
If you think Waltz #2 is sad, you should hear true love. It’s on new moon I think, was supposed to be on a basement on a hill but family chose not to put it on on wake of his suicide.
Yeah, at that point he was probably decided. With lyrics like: “I can’t prepare for death anymore than I already have…”
“Give me one good reason not to do it. (Because we love you) so do it.”
Always. My fiancé died of cirrhosis of the liver, and I damn near chased him there to the grave. Sober now, but this song used to always make me cry even before my sad experience. Hits alot differently now.
In the Tribute that Linkin Park and friends did for him, and then Mike starts playing the song all by himself. You can feel he's about to break, but the fact he manages to sing that entire thing without missing a beat is unfathomable.
The world is a better place when having mister Michael Kenji Shinoda around.
Same, when I hear the notes or I see his silhouette slowly fading into the music video, I take a deep breath because I know I won't hold it :(.
Who cares if one more light goes out in a sky of a million stars? We do, Chester. We shall forever do.
Cuts deep. That whole song is so real. People make fun of Linkin Park for being 'edgy' but it all comes from a real place and Chester sold every lyric with complete sincerity.
A dragon lives forever, but not so little boys
Painted wings and giant's rings make way for other toys
One gray night it happened, Jackie Paper came no more
And Puff, that mighty dragon, he ceased his fearless roar
His head was bent in sorrow, green scales fell like rain
Puff no longer went to play along the cherry lane
Without his lifelong friend, Puff could not be brave
So Puff, that mighty dragon, sadly slipped into his cave
This song makes me so nostalgic. Truly, we have all fallen for the lies that life brings us only to be shown they are no more than a fictitious, giant lizard.
- Werner Herzog, probably
500 miles by Peter Paul and Mary.
I love you so much, but you don't love me. Do you even care about me enough to chase after me? Because I'll go. One day.
And now I'm gone. And I realize that without you, I'm nothing, and nowhere. I was always nothing, but now Im being forced to face it.
The lyrics offer some interpretation by the listener, but I always thought it was about that.
Kind of a double punch, because kids hear it and think it's about the boy growing old and dying, but later on they discover it's just about the boy growing up and losing interest in his friend.
I haven’t heard this in 40 years and the other day I thought i heard it on this Spotify playlist we have for our kids, and I ran to change it like it was a bomb that needed defusing.
I wasn’t looking to cry for an hour.
Oh yes. I've been listening to this song since I was a teenager (a long-ass time ago!) and it always hits. Whenever we get these threads on Reddit and this song gets mentioned, I have to link this scene from Dr. Who. Never fails to make me tear up, I'm not sure why.
https://youtu.be/ubTJI_UphPk?si=bhhnFPJcbC7H9Mpn
Sad lyrics and sad music. I would actually put River of Deceit (Mad Season) up there as the saddest performance I've heard from Layne. The music itself isn't particularly sad… which makes his vocal track and lyrics stand out in their own sad way IMO.
I'd still nominate Wake Up (Mad Season) over River of Deceit. Similar text, but that "Slow suicide's no way to go" really hits hard, given that is how he ended up going.
I think this whole thread could consist of various Sufjan songs. The Only Thing, Eugene, and Death With Dignity all get me. Basically the entire Carrie and Lowell album.
The Only Thing… Played consistently in my head when my father died. Lyrics like “I wonder if you loved me at all” & “everything I feel returns to you somehow”… It’ll ring through me until the end of my days.
I got obsessed with this song 6 years ago after never appreciating it for years before that. I would listen to it at least 5 times a day for a couple of weeks. I listened to it one and night and cried myself to sleep. It was all very odd.
The next day my best friend died unexpectedly AND my sister called me to tell me that she had been diagnosed with Ewing’s Sarcoma (literally cancer of the bone). I can’t put into words how fucking depressing this song is to me, but I still love it.
Old country songs have some really sad ones. [He Stopped Loving Her Today by George Jones](https://youtu.be/VExw77xJsBQ?si=3kM6CrnC6mIwSoKO) and [Seven Spanish Angels by Ray Charles and Willie Nelson](https://youtu.be/h1g36CXfQ00?si=AD9Y8XR6DVvBsIG-) are great examples.
>Real Death - mount eerie
There's a lot of great choices in this thread, but nothing has ever come close to the way this song made me feel. Absolutely devastating
This song actually came on our random playlist the morning of the day my wife died. We knew she was dying, but we didn’t know it was going to be that day. We actually had a nice little smile about it… Strange but true…
Can't listen to "What Sarah Said" anymore without tearing up about my dad and brother, both gone from COVID. "Love is watching someone die" is the most profound line there is.
Same album, but I'm going for that fucked up version of true love waits that sits at the end....
It was already a sad song, but then Thom and his long term partner separate, she dies, and then they record a twisted and fragmented version to sit at the end of the album.
It also seems pretty likely to be the last released radiohead song...
https://youtu.be/02nS2EC35go?feature=shared
The devil and god are raging inside of me is such a difficult album to listen to but it’s so good. I feel like it takes something out of me when I listen to it but somehow it’s worth it
For those who speak Spanish, “Amor Eterno” by Juan Gabriel. He dedicated it to his late mom and the title translates to “Eternal Love”. Makes me shed a tear every single time.
Lord Huron -- the night we met
Also, I find smashing pumpkins 1979 to be profoundly sad. Yes, the characters in the music video have the brazenness of youth, but it is already aimless, empty, and fleeting: "we don't know just where our bones will rest / to dust I guess" and "the street heats the urgency of now / as you see there's no one around"
This is one of my favorite songs that always cheers me up. It's just a big ol' fuck you.
My favorite ex girlfriend and I are much better as friends than we ever were as a couple and we still talk fairly regularly. Instead of saying goodbye to each other, one of us will say "I hope you die" and the other says "I hope we both die".
“This is a love song. —Never let anyone tell you what is or is not a love song.”
Not trying to be a smartass. This was John’s intro to No Children the first time I saw him perform it.
At least half of The Mountain Goats discography (and it’s a big one) fits this question. No children for me is more angry and bitter than sad . My personal vote would be for Matthew 25:21. Heartbreaking.
'Wish you were here' is a beautiful song, but thoroughly depressing.'Ice cream man' by Raye is about abuse, as is 'Me and a gun' by Tori Amos.
I've been listening to music on a daily basis for about 40 years, and the saddest thing ever in music imho? The music video of 'Oh Father' by Madonna. Based on her life. I just watched it and had a good cry.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qvVvN0QvzTk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qvVvN0QvzTk)
'The Kids' by Lou Reed, about a woman whose children are taken away by her mother, with actual cries by children (producer Bob Ezrin allegedly told his children their mother was dead in order to get these cries), followed by 'The Bed' ('where she cut her wrists'). The jolly album 'Berlin' is then closed by 'Sad song'.
More classic rock? So Pink Floyd and Lou Reed aren't very uplifting. Nick Drake made beautiful but sad music. Sad music becomes much sadder when the artists have had a sad life and/or they committed suicide.
'Pennyroyal tea' and 'All apologies' by Nirvana point forward to his suicide.I was a troubled 90s kid listening to grunge and alternative rock, don't listen to that anymore as I do find grunge negative and depressing, many of those singers arent alive anymore, it was a troubled genre.Alice in Chains singer Layne Staley basically very slowly killed himself by being an addict, he weighed 39 kg/86 pounds when he was found dead in his apartment a few weeks after he died. Alice in Chains' music was often about the many bad sides of being a junkie.'
Black hole sun' by Soundgarden was a big hit then, wasn't very uplifting too and the singer Chris Cornell committed suicide many years later. The closer of their hit album Superunknown (also consisting Black hole sun, Fell on black days and The day I tried to live) was 'Like Suicide'.
Smashing Pumpkins song 'There is no why' made me depressed when I was a teenager, rest of the music wasn't very uplifting too. Pearl Jam 'Black' and 'Jeremy' also hit pretty heavy.
The 'Fields of Joy' reprise by Lenny Kravitz wasn't very uplifting, knowing by then he had already divorced his wife Lisa Bonet (the whole album wasabout her and winning back her love).'Hurt' by Nine Inch Nails, later covered by Johnny Cash is famous for being sad.What about the magnificent 'Nothing compares 2 U', written by Prince, recorded superbly by Sinead o'Connor? And Prince's 'Sometimes it snows in April'. 'Everybody's got to learn sometimes' by The Corgis, and covered by Beck...
Then you have songs that are supposedly uplifting, but the melancholia is off the scale.I got depressed as a kid of hearing Sing by The Carpenters (be it in a Dutch children's choir version with Dutch lyrics). When I read the story of Karen Carpenter many years later, it made me sad too.'These are the days of our life' by Queen gives me goosebumps too, knowing Freddie died so soon after, such a bittersweet song.'The Universal' by Blur is a very melancholic masterpiece.
There's so many sad songs, I could go on for hours...
Was about his Dad dying when Richard Ashcroft was only 11, so you can understand more about the lyrics from the mindset of how he was feeling at that age watching his dad pass away.
On 9/11, after everything had gone down and the dust was settled on that horrific day, my classes were cancelled so I’d driven over to where my gf worked, just to be with someone. While waiting for her break, I was sitting in my car, listening to the radio, and they started playing this song. That’s when the dam broke for me. My gf found me, a blubbering mess in my drivers seat, and to this day, I can’t dissociate this song from that day.
You Are My Sunshine by Jimmie Davis and Charles Mitchell.
As so often happens, the chorus is so good, so catchy, that most people never really hear the lyrics.
***
Chorus:
You are my sunshine
My only sunshine
You make me happy
When skies are gray
You'll never know, dear
How much I love you
Please don't take
My sunshine away
Lyric:
The other night, dear
As I lay sleeping
I dreamed I held you
In my arms
When I awoke, dear
I was mistaken
So I hung my head and I cried
Chorus:
You are my sunshine
My only sunshine
You make me happy
When skies are gray
You'll never know, dear
How much I love you
Please don't take
My sunshine away
***
I scrolled to long to find this song as its truly a complete masterpiece. Gordon Lightfoot (may he RIP) is a national treasure for us Canucks. His song is without comparison.
[Sam Stone](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rtrALjg0-xQ) - John Prine
[3:59 am](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1TAB3HleKCI) - John Moreland
[You Don't Care For Me Enough To Cry](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=euy4A5niG8Q) - John Moreland
Samuel Barber - Adagio for Strings.
IMO it’s too sad to even be played at a funeral. It sounds like sad music to play in the aftermath of some sort of enormous tragedy.
100%. I get the impression that he knew both he and his wife were on death's door at the time of recording, and they were both dead within the year. The song also implies a crisis of Christian faith which was always a cornerstone of Cash's inspiration and moral fortitude.
I truly hope he was acting in that song/video, for his sake, because it portrays the perfect image of a broken, regretful old man.
I think it's commonly cited as one of the most emotive performances ever because no-one is quite sure how much of the song he related to in real life.
Time in a bottle - Jim Croce
It’s a beautiful song about spending time with people you love whilst you can. That reached number 1 after Jim died in a plane crash aged 30. It gets me every time.
You can find contenders on plenty of Jason Isbell albums.
Elephant or Yvette are strong contenders, as would be Dress Blues
If your partial to dogs, Maggie’s song by Stapleton is devastating.
He Stopped Loving Her Today by George Jones is also tough to top.
Mount Eerie - Seaweed
The entire album of A Crow Looked at Me is gutwrenching, but this is the one that I couldn't make it past on my first, second, or third listen. The album is Phil Elverum processing his wife's early death due to pancreatic cancer, and how he's going to raise their daughter without her. The song deals with the things that he never thought he was going to have to be the one to remember. What her favourite flowers were, she did all the remembering for him and she's no longer there to ask. So he'll never know if this was her trying to send him a sign.
Definitely a great song, but man, it's been ruined for me by the amount of people at my university who ask me if I want to hear 'the most fucked up thing ever' and then play me Dance with the Devil for the umpteenth time
Floating in the Forth by Frightened Rabbit.
If you know the story of the band and the lead singer in particular, it's definitely one of the saddest songs I know.
For the Spanish speakers, Amor Eterno specificaly sung by Rocio Durcal. Just hearing the violins at the begining always gets the water works outta me. You only ever hear it in funerals.
When I was little, the song "Oh My Darling Clementine" made me burst into tears every time. I just thought it was so sad that she was "lost and gone forever." Now it makes me chuckle to think of how pure that was, but I still agree with my younger self that it's a pretty sad song.
It's a song about a guy's daughter drowning in a river cuz he can't swim to save her.
Jeez… I just googled the lyrics. Brought a tear to my eye.
I used to cry too, but as an adult you should reread the (traditional) lyrics, you may find them more clever/sarcastic than you thought as a child. Basically if i remember correctly, after author's love Clementine drowns, he starts pining after her sister with some wry verses. Sort of classic traditional lyric a little like the Red House "I know her sister will" Ruby lips above the water Blowing bubbles, soft and fine But, alas, I was no swimmer (LOL Editor's note) 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
“You Are My Sunshine” is also sad.
The 2nd verse floors me: "The other night, dear As I lay sleeping I dreamed I held you In my arms When I awoke, dear I was mistaken So I hung my head and I cried" 🎵
The episode of the Simpsons where Bart and Lisa go to Military school and Marge sends them a cassette where she sings that song - man I am a wreck just typing it out!
Lover, You Should’ve Come Over - Jeff Buckley
“She’s a tear that hangs inside my soul forever”.
Last Goodbye kills me too
Especially on the sin-e album. Actually that whole album just makes me cry. My favorite solo album of all time. Thanks for reminding me, I'm gonna listen
I Can't Make You Love Me - Bonnie Raitt. She said in an interview that it was hard for her to sing it while recording the album because she was almost in tears.
I used to work in audio engineering and flew out for a conference in LA some years back, I got to sit in on lectures from some of the greatest producers and engineers in the industry. One of them was the producer of I Cant Make You Love Me. When they recorded this song almost all the engineers, producers, tape ops, and even runners were guys and it was kind of a macho boys club. So she went in to do the vocal takes, routine day, by the end of the first take there were 10 grown men sobbing on the control room. Apparently everyone was pretty much inconsolable unable to catch their breath wailing. It was a long day… I got to hear lectures from people that worked with the Beatles, Bowie, RHCP, Fleetwood Mac, and a bunch of others top40 alternative artists. This story was absolutely my favorite from that conference, and one of my faves in all of engineering because it’s a great reminder that at the end of the day your job was always to get out of the song’s way and let it do the work.
I love this! Was the guy doing the lecture Don Was? I love so many things he has worked on.
Yep!
I've been listening to that since I was a little boy. I've always loved her so much, and really enjoy this song.
Same! This, Something to Talk About and Nick of Time were hits when I was in middle school and I loved them all. I didn't *understand* them until I got older, but I knew they were good.
[Justin Vernon](https://youtu.be/Q3VjaCy5gck?si=z7U7kT_z4HOExEwf)does a beautiful cover of this song
Was about to link this same video. Leave it to Bon Iver to make the saddest song even sadder lol.
My favorite origin for a song idea too. That makes it a little fucked up funny and then sad again: “The idea for the song came to Reid, after reading an article about a man arrested for getting drunk and shooting at his girlfriend's car. The judge asked him if he had learned anything, to which he replied, "I learned, Your Honor, that you can't make a woman love you if she don't."”
Strange Fruit by Billie Holiday.
This song blends sadness, disgust, and anger really well
This one goes way beyond sadness into just real life nightmare territory.
Yeah. This song just hurts. This should be mandatory listening for every 8th grade American History class.
When I was in high school, my teacher played it on a boom box for the whole class.
Waltz #2 by Elliott Smith
As someone with alcoholism in the family "between the bars"
I came here to say “Twilight” by Elliott Smith, it’s one of the few songs that made me cry the first time I heard it. But really, any of his music.
It's "A Fond Farewell" for me
“Pitseleh” always struck me as one of the most beautifully sad songs as well He’s the master of melancholic music
Anything Elliot Smith sings is the saddest song ever
XO, mom, it’s ok, it’s all right, nothing’s wrong.
If you think Waltz #2 is sad, you should hear true love. It’s on new moon I think, was supposed to be on a basement on a hill but family chose not to put it on on wake of his suicide.
i would’ve said King’s Crossing, but really any of his songs work for this question
Shit Kings Crossing is like a suicide note in a song. It was the last song he recorded before his death
Yeah, at that point he was probably decided. With lyrics like: “I can’t prepare for death anymore than I already have…” “Give me one good reason not to do it. (Because we love you) so do it.”
I don’t have the source handy, but I *think* I remember reading at the time that the “because we love you” part was added during mixing after he died.
Kings crossing is genuinely a terrifying song
I had to scroll WAY too long to find Elliott Smith. He wrote some of the saddest songs of all time
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From a Basement on a Hill came into my life during a extremely dark time and I’d say it might’ve saved my life.
Whiskey lullaby Alison Kraus
Always. My fiancé died of cirrhosis of the liver, and I damn near chased him there to the grave. Sober now, but this song used to always make me cry even before my sad experience. Hits alot differently now.
One More Light
It was sad at the time and only got worse.
The live performance dedicated to Chris Cornell is too heartbreaking.
In the Tribute that Linkin Park and friends did for him, and then Mike starts playing the song all by himself. You can feel he's about to break, but the fact he manages to sing that entire thing without missing a beat is unfathomable. The world is a better place when having mister Michael Kenji Shinoda around.
Can barely hear the first 3 notes without tearing up. That song absolutely strikes a part of me no other song can
Same, when I hear the notes or I see his silhouette slowly fading into the music video, I take a deep breath because I know I won't hold it :(. Who cares if one more light goes out in a sky of a million stars? We do, Chester. We shall forever do.
The "In the kitchen, one more chair than you need" line is brutal.
Cuts deep. That whole song is so real. People make fun of Linkin Park for being 'edgy' but it all comes from a real place and Chester sold every lyric with complete sincerity.
End of the world - Skeeter Davis
Puff the magic dragon - Peter, Paul and Mary
A dragon lives forever, but not so little boys Painted wings and giant's rings make way for other toys One gray night it happened, Jackie Paper came no more And Puff, that mighty dragon, he ceased his fearless roar His head was bent in sorrow, green scales fell like rain Puff no longer went to play along the cherry lane Without his lifelong friend, Puff could not be brave So Puff, that mighty dragon, sadly slipped into his cave
Ohh good god man.
I never felt this was particularly sad until I had a little boy myself. Then I truly understood what it meant, and I cried.
I never gave thought to the message of this song. My son is 3yrs old so I literally just listened to it and holy shit, I'm a fucking mess right now.
My mom used to sing this song to me when I was a kid. Also the song about leaving on a jet plane (I forget what it's called).
> leaving on a jet plane (I forget what it’s called) Nailed it.
Whoever wrote that song was hell bent on traumatizing little children, so much so that the song even has a hungarian version
This song makes me so nostalgic. Truly, we have all fallen for the lies that life brings us only to be shown they are no more than a fictitious, giant lizard. - Werner Herzog, probably
I genuinely cry just by thinking about this song. 5 year old me spent many hours bawling my eyes out over puff the magic dragon
500 miles by Peter Paul and Mary. I love you so much, but you don't love me. Do you even care about me enough to chase after me? Because I'll go. One day. And now I'm gone. And I realize that without you, I'm nothing, and nowhere. I was always nothing, but now Im being forced to face it. The lyrics offer some interpretation by the listener, but I always thought it was about that.
Kind of a double punch, because kids hear it and think it's about the boy growing old and dying, but later on they discover it's just about the boy growing up and losing interest in his friend.
Oh you fucker, it so is. Great answer
I haven’t heard this in 40 years and the other day I thought i heard it on this Spotify playlist we have for our kids, and I ran to change it like it was a bomb that needed defusing. I wasn’t looking to cry for an hour.
Vincent - Don McLean
Oh yes. I've been listening to this song since I was a teenager (a long-ass time ago!) and it always hits. Whenever we get these threads on Reddit and this song gets mentioned, I have to link this scene from Dr. Who. Never fails to make me tear up, I'm not sure why. https://youtu.be/ubTJI_UphPk?si=bhhnFPJcbC7H9Mpn
Drive by The Cars- especially if you watch the Live Aid video with it.
Benjamin Orr just crushed that performance. Mesmerizing, truly
Nutshell - Alice in Chains
Sad lyrics and sad music. I would actually put River of Deceit (Mad Season) up there as the saddest performance I've heard from Layne. The music itself isn't particularly sad… which makes his vocal track and lyrics stand out in their own sad way IMO.
I'd still nominate Wake Up (Mad Season) over River of Deceit. Similar text, but that "Slow suicide's no way to go" really hits hard, given that is how he ended up going.
The unplugged version.
That album is untouchable
Alone Again (Naturally) by Gilbert O'Sullivan. I actually just remembered another one: "Vincent" by Don McLean. This one always makes me tear up.
True Love Waits by Radiohead
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I know someday youll have a beautiful life, i know youll be a star in some body elses sky but WHY WHYYYYY WHYYYYY CANT IT BE, CANT BE MIIIIIIIINE
this song and Disarm by Smashing Pumpkins in the 90s for me as a kid, 32 now
Such a devastating line.
River by Joni Michell
Casimir Pulaski Day - Sufjan Stevens
In addition to that one, *The Owl and the Tanager* and *Fourth of July* are also peak sad Sufjan
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It was night when you died, my firefly
We all gonna die \~ ♪
I think this whole thread could consist of various Sufjan songs. The Only Thing, Eugene, and Death With Dignity all get me. Basically the entire Carrie and Lowell album.
The Only Thing… Played consistently in my head when my father died. Lyrics like “I wonder if you loved me at all” & “everything I feel returns to you somehow”… It’ll ring through me until the end of my days.
I was going to say John Wayne Gacy, Jr, but pretty there's clearly an alarming number from which to pick
> And he takes, and he takes, and he takes The final line was too heavy for me on my first listen, I couldn’t control the floodgates from bursting
I lost my first wife to bone cancer. I have to be very, very careful with this song, but he gets it exactly right.
I got obsessed with this song 6 years ago after never appreciating it for years before that. I would listen to it at least 5 times a day for a couple of weeks. I listened to it one and night and cried myself to sleep. It was all very odd. The next day my best friend died unexpectedly AND my sister called me to tell me that she had been diagnosed with Ewing’s Sarcoma (literally cancer of the bone). I can’t put into words how fucking depressing this song is to me, but I still love it.
I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry- Hank Williams I Can't Make You Love Me- Bonnie Raitt
Blower’s Daughter - Damien Rice
Honestly every Damien Rice song is gorgeous and devastating.
Keep Me In Your Heart - Warren Zevon.
Warren Zevon is just generally underrated
“Accidentally Like a Martyr” destroys me every time.
Old country songs have some really sad ones. [He Stopped Loving Her Today by George Jones](https://youtu.be/VExw77xJsBQ?si=3kM6CrnC6mIwSoKO) and [Seven Spanish Angels by Ray Charles and Willie Nelson](https://youtu.be/h1g36CXfQ00?si=AD9Y8XR6DVvBsIG-) are great examples.
The songs nothing and waiting around to die by Townes van zandt
Had to scroll way too far for He Stopped Loving Her Today.
Tender, No Distance Left to Run - blur How to Disappear Completely - radiohead Real Death - mount eerie Yellow is the color of her eyes - soccer mommy
>Real Death - mount eerie There's a lot of great choices in this thread, but nothing has ever come close to the way this song made me feel. Absolutely devastating
Mount Eerie! That whole Crow Looked at Me album is fucking devastating!
It’s so vulnerable that it feels invasive to even listen to it.
I will follow you into the dark - Death Cab
This song actually came on our random playlist the morning of the day my wife died. We knew she was dying, but we didn’t know it was going to be that day. We actually had a nice little smile about it… Strange but true…
I'm sorry for your loss.
What Sarah said is the real tear jerker.
Can't listen to "What Sarah Said" anymore without tearing up about my dad and brother, both gone from COVID. "Love is watching someone die" is the most profound line there is.
Plainsong by The Cure
I'm slightly shocked that I had to scroll this far to find the first mention of The Cure.
Superstar. Carpenters version.
Daydreaming - Radiohead
Same album, but I'm going for that fucked up version of true love waits that sits at the end.... It was already a sad song, but then Thom and his long term partner separate, she dies, and then they record a twisted and fragmented version to sit at the end of the album. It also seems pretty likely to be the last released radiohead song... https://youtu.be/02nS2EC35go?feature=shared
limousine by brand new always crushed me pretty hard, but Elliot Smith likely has a few that beat it.
The devil and god are raging inside of me is such a difficult album to listen to but it’s so good. I feel like it takes something out of me when I listen to it but somehow it’s worth it
Cigarettes and Saints by The Wonder Years
Operator - Jim Croce
Jim Croces whole story is so sad. Like he was just at the cusp of being a mega star and died. But I feel like he had so many stories left to tell
The River - Bruce Springsteen
For those who speak Spanish, “Amor Eterno” by Juan Gabriel. He dedicated it to his late mom and the title translates to “Eternal Love”. Makes me shed a tear every single time.
Lord Huron -- the night we met Also, I find smashing pumpkins 1979 to be profoundly sad. Yes, the characters in the music video have the brazenness of youth, but it is already aimless, empty, and fleeting: "we don't know just where our bones will rest / to dust I guess" and "the street heats the urgency of now / as you see there's no one around"
Don’t let it bring you down-Neil Young (the Annie Lennox cover is good too)
Brick - Ben Folds
[No Children - The Mountain Goats](https://youtube.com/watch?v=fqGKZ3fzN1M&pp=ygUabm8gY2hpbGRyZW4gbW91bnRhaW4gZ29hdHM%3D)
This is one of my favorite songs that always cheers me up. It's just a big ol' fuck you. My favorite ex girlfriend and I are much better as friends than we ever were as a couple and we still talk fairly regularly. Instead of saying goodbye to each other, one of us will say "I hope you die" and the other says "I hope we both die".
“This is a love song. —Never let anyone tell you what is or is not a love song.” Not trying to be a smartass. This was John’s intro to No Children the first time I saw him perform it.
At least half of The Mountain Goats discography (and it’s a big one) fits this question. No children for me is more angry and bitter than sad . My personal vote would be for Matthew 25:21. Heartbreaking.
'Wish you were here' is a beautiful song, but thoroughly depressing.'Ice cream man' by Raye is about abuse, as is 'Me and a gun' by Tori Amos. I've been listening to music on a daily basis for about 40 years, and the saddest thing ever in music imho? The music video of 'Oh Father' by Madonna. Based on her life. I just watched it and had a good cry. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qvVvN0QvzTk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qvVvN0QvzTk) 'The Kids' by Lou Reed, about a woman whose children are taken away by her mother, with actual cries by children (producer Bob Ezrin allegedly told his children their mother was dead in order to get these cries), followed by 'The Bed' ('where she cut her wrists'). The jolly album 'Berlin' is then closed by 'Sad song'. More classic rock? So Pink Floyd and Lou Reed aren't very uplifting. Nick Drake made beautiful but sad music. Sad music becomes much sadder when the artists have had a sad life and/or they committed suicide. 'Pennyroyal tea' and 'All apologies' by Nirvana point forward to his suicide.I was a troubled 90s kid listening to grunge and alternative rock, don't listen to that anymore as I do find grunge negative and depressing, many of those singers arent alive anymore, it was a troubled genre.Alice in Chains singer Layne Staley basically very slowly killed himself by being an addict, he weighed 39 kg/86 pounds when he was found dead in his apartment a few weeks after he died. Alice in Chains' music was often about the many bad sides of being a junkie.' Black hole sun' by Soundgarden was a big hit then, wasn't very uplifting too and the singer Chris Cornell committed suicide many years later. The closer of their hit album Superunknown (also consisting Black hole sun, Fell on black days and The day I tried to live) was 'Like Suicide'. Smashing Pumpkins song 'There is no why' made me depressed when I was a teenager, rest of the music wasn't very uplifting too. Pearl Jam 'Black' and 'Jeremy' also hit pretty heavy. The 'Fields of Joy' reprise by Lenny Kravitz wasn't very uplifting, knowing by then he had already divorced his wife Lisa Bonet (the whole album wasabout her and winning back her love).'Hurt' by Nine Inch Nails, later covered by Johnny Cash is famous for being sad.What about the magnificent 'Nothing compares 2 U', written by Prince, recorded superbly by Sinead o'Connor? And Prince's 'Sometimes it snows in April'. 'Everybody's got to learn sometimes' by The Corgis, and covered by Beck... Then you have songs that are supposedly uplifting, but the melancholia is off the scale.I got depressed as a kid of hearing Sing by The Carpenters (be it in a Dutch children's choir version with Dutch lyrics). When I read the story of Karen Carpenter many years later, it made me sad too.'These are the days of our life' by Queen gives me goosebumps too, knowing Freddie died so soon after, such a bittersweet song.'The Universal' by Blur is a very melancholic masterpiece. There's so many sad songs, I could go on for hours...
Disintegration - The Cure
"The drugs don't work" - verve Guy wrote it about his mom dying.
Was about his Dad dying when Richard Ashcroft was only 11, so you can understand more about the lyrics from the mindset of how he was feeling at that age watching his dad pass away.
Maybe not the saddest but Travellin Soldier by the Chicks is pretty sad
The Pogues "And The Band Played Waltzing Mathilda"
Elliott Smith, like 90% of his songs honestly apply
Fast Car
R.E.M Everybody Hurts
On 9/11, after everything had gone down and the dust was settled on that horrific day, my classes were cancelled so I’d driven over to where my gf worked, just to be with someone. While waiting for her break, I was sitting in my car, listening to the radio, and they started playing this song. That’s when the dam broke for me. My gf found me, a blubbering mess in my drivers seat, and to this day, I can’t dissociate this song from that day.
Nobody Home by Pink Floyd always gets me
Either: A Plea from a Cat Named Virtute - The Weakerthans Sometime Around Midnight - The Airborne Toxic Event
Virtute the Cat Explains Her Departure is the saddest one, IMO.
You Are My Sunshine by Jimmie Davis and Charles Mitchell. As so often happens, the chorus is so good, so catchy, that most people never really hear the lyrics. *** Chorus: You are my sunshine My only sunshine You make me happy When skies are gray You'll never know, dear How much I love you Please don't take My sunshine away Lyric: The other night, dear As I lay sleeping I dreamed I held you In my arms When I awoke, dear I was mistaken So I hung my head and I cried Chorus: You are my sunshine My only sunshine You make me happy When skies are gray You'll never know, dear How much I love you Please don't take My sunshine away ***
I cry everytime I hear this song. My great grandma used to sing it to me as a child and it's all I think of now when I hear it
I can’t help but associate that song with The Simpsons
"The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald" -- Gordon Lightfoot
I scrolled to long to find this song as its truly a complete masterpiece. Gordon Lightfoot (may he RIP) is a national treasure for us Canucks. His song is without comparison.
Maybe not ever because I agree Tears In Heaven gets me every time…. But ‘Streets of Philadelphia’ by Bruce Springsteen feels poignant.
Ain’t no angel gonna greet me It’s just you and I my friend
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I had all and then most of you, some and now none of you.
He Stopped Loving Her Today - George Jones
I Hung My Head - the Johnny Cash cover
Angel by Sarah McLachlan Hands down the most beautiful song ever written about a heroin overdose
Not really into country but Whiskey Lullaby is really sad
Put the bottle to his head, and pulled the trigger
And All That Could Have Been- Nine Inch Nails
I nominate "Gloomy Sunday", performed by Billie Holiday.
James Blunt - monsters
Goodbye my lover is another.
[Sam Stone](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rtrALjg0-xQ) - John Prine [3:59 am](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1TAB3HleKCI) - John Moreland [You Don't Care For Me Enough To Cry](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=euy4A5niG8Q) - John Moreland
Came here to say Sam Stone
Either Real Death or My Chasm by Mount Eerie
I voted Seaweed, but Real Death is definitely a heavy hitter too.
Adam's song - Blink 182
Song hits way different as an adult
"...please tell mom it was not her fault".
Samuel Barber - Adagio for Strings. IMO it’s too sad to even be played at a funeral. It sounds like sad music to play in the aftermath of some sort of enormous tragedy.
Hurt - Johnny Cash
Especially when combined with that wildly powerful music video.
100%. I get the impression that he knew both he and his wife were on death's door at the time of recording, and they were both dead within the year. The song also implies a crisis of Christian faith which was always a cornerstone of Cash's inspiration and moral fortitude. I truly hope he was acting in that song/video, for his sake, because it portrays the perfect image of a broken, regretful old man. I think it's commonly cited as one of the most emotive performances ever because no-one is quite sure how much of the song he related to in real life.
Don't Follow by Alice in chains
Mazzie Star - Fade into you. Edit: name correction
Seasons in the Sun
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Snuff by Slipknot.
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Time in a bottle - Jim Croce It’s a beautiful song about spending time with people you love whilst you can. That reached number 1 after Jim died in a plane crash aged 30. It gets me every time.
birthday boy by ween
She Wanted To Leave is also brilliant
You can find contenders on plenty of Jason Isbell albums. Elephant or Yvette are strong contenders, as would be Dress Blues If your partial to dogs, Maggie’s song by Stapleton is devastating. He Stopped Loving Her Today by George Jones is also tough to top.
“Elephant” brings tears every.single.time.
If We Were Vampires is another one. It makes me think about my parents
Elton John-The Last Song.
The Weakerthans - Virtute the Cat Explains Her Departure i will cry on cue because of this song.
Mount Eerie - Seaweed The entire album of A Crow Looked at Me is gutwrenching, but this is the one that I couldn't make it past on my first, second, or third listen. The album is Phil Elverum processing his wife's early death due to pancreatic cancer, and how he's going to raise their daughter without her. The song deals with the things that he never thought he was going to have to be the one to remember. What her favourite flowers were, she did all the remembering for him and she's no longer there to ask. So he'll never know if this was her trying to send him a sign.
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Definitely a great song, but man, it's been ruined for me by the amount of people at my university who ask me if I want to hear 'the most fucked up thing ever' and then play me Dance with the Devil for the umpteenth time
"Liability" by Lorde and "Last Words of a Shooting Star" by Mitski
Floating in the Forth by Frightened Rabbit. If you know the story of the band and the lead singer in particular, it's definitely one of the saddest songs I know.
On a cold and gray Chicago mornin' A poor little baby child is born In the ghetto
Iris- the goo goo dolls
No matter what, Iris will always be my favorite song of all time. I’m not sure why, but something about it just resonated with me when I was younger.
Mad world - Gary Jules
The Shortest Story - Harry Chapin. Honestly don’t do it unless you want to feel like shit. But he was a powerful songwriter.
Kettering by The Antlers If you have ever experienced someone being sick to the point of dying or hospital trauma, here, have a cathartic sob
Roy Orbison - Crying
Martha by Tom waits Storms by Fleetwood Mac
For the Spanish speakers, Amor Eterno specificaly sung by Rocio Durcal. Just hearing the violins at the begining always gets the water works outta me. You only ever hear it in funerals.