Nothing earth-shaking for this brief return to action, though I'd like to solicit your input.
If you're interested, please submit a comment with 5-10 sad-ass songs. There you go.
Mine:
1. "Nosotros" by Conjunto Cespedes. This is basically the same message as the Manhattans' "Kiss and Say Goodbye," though the singer is the one being left in this song. "No es falta de cariño/Te quiero con el alma." Translation: "It is not the fault of affection. I want you with my soul."
2. "Stain on the Sun" by the Bevis Frond, just for the line, "She was the answer to all your prayers/She was as vital to you as the air." And that's enough to overcome other lyrics in the song like, "Why is she suddenly such a drag?"
3. "She Doesn't Live Here Anymore" by Alejandro Escovedo. I'll never listen to this song without hearing his former singer, Christine de la Garza in my mind.
4. "Don't Explain" by Billie Holiday really captures a particular heartbreak. "Hush now, don't explain/You mixed with some dame/Skip that/Lipstick/Don't explain."
5. "She's Gone" by Hall & Oates. Their early hits were startlingly soulful.
6. "Friend of the Devil" by the Grateful Dead. I actually only listen to Lyle Lovett's cover. The sad resignation in this song is almost too much: "I've got a wife in Chino, and one in Cherokee/The first one says she's got my child, but it don't look like me."
7. "Holding Things Together" by Merle Haggard. It's a dad's lament to his ex on their daughter's birthday: "The postman brought a present I mailed some days ago/I signed it 'Love, Mama' so Angie wouldn't know." Grab a Kleenex.
8. "Louisiana 1927" by Randy Newman. (Turns out he wrote it--thanks Toland). It's about an early 20th century flood, but the lyrics hit close to home in this post-Katrina age: "The river rose all day/The river rose all night/Some people got lost in the flood/Some people got away all right."
9. And heck, let's go ahead and throw in "Kiss and Say Goodbye" after all. The air of chivalry and class just makes it sadder. "Maybe you'll meet another guy," goes the lyric. Who can really think like that? I don't know if I could have ever said that. Or maybe I would, though I'd be thinking, I'm going to drive my Yugo into a pine tree... in a ravine... 1000 miles from here.
From MOBB:
"Vincent" by Don McLean
"Billy Don't Be a Hero" by Paper Lace
"Signore, Ascolta" by Puccini (from Turandot), as performed by Montserrat Caballe
"Part of Your World" from Disney's The Little Mermaid
"El Shaddai" by Amy Grant
"He Stopped Loving Her Today" by George Jones
***
Your turn.
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10 comments:
Quick notes while I think of my own list:
That Merle Haggard song is indeed devastating. I hadn't thought of that one, but Jesus, if that doesn't bring a lump to one's throat, nothing well. Especially since it doesn't have an ounce of self-pity.
The Randy Newman song is "Louisiana 1927," and he did indeed write it. For all of his usual satirical snarkiness, Newman is capable of some incredibly downbeat, straight-to-the-heart stuff.
I modified that Newman song title. It shows up in my iTunes without that part of the title for some reason. Thanks.
The Weight by The Band:
I always thought of this as a really happy road song, the kind you sing along to with the windows down. Then I heard it again last week and with a lot of the stuff my Dad is going through it just hit me. The wound out exhaustion of going too long too hard and not thinking you could really rely on anyone. Needing a rest that no one could give you even if they wanted to… the weight, I guess.
Trying to Get to Heaven by Bob Dylan:
Every day your memory grows dimmer
It doesn't haunt me like it did before
I've been walking through the middle of nowhere
Trying to get to heaven before they close the door
Those might be some of the saddest lyrics I’ve ever heard, but the line that really hits me is simply”When I was in Missouri they would not let me be”
If Something Should Happen by Daryl Worley.
Most of country music is so cheesy I’m embarrassed to listen to it, but some of it believes itself enough to work and it’s the music I turn to when I want to get depressed. This is about asking a friend to look after your family after you’re gone.
Maybe once he gets older
You can sit and have that first cold beer together
And tell him a couple stories on his father
He's always known your my best friend.
Pancho and Lefty – I think Townes Van Zandt wrote it, but like everyone else I listen to the Willie and Merle version.
Livin' on the road, my friend
Was gonna keep you free and clean
But now you wear your skin like iron
And your breath as hard as kerosene
You’re not as strong as you think, you’re not as free as you think and you’ll pay for the sins of your youth for the rest of your life… people who know me now have a hard time believing it but there was a 12 month period of my life where I lived in six different states and fancied myself a modern day gypsy drifter. This song haunts me especially the line “Not your mamas only boy, but her favorite one it seems”… nothing like letting down Mom.
Damn, Geoff. Nice work. I don't know the Dylan song, but that's a powerful lyric. Thank you for stopping by.
"I Can't Remember" - Vigilantes of Love - Easily the best song about watching your wife die after a train crash.
"Sad Face" - The Choir - About a wife's miscarriage.
"Oldest Story in the World" - The Plimsouls
"No Thunder, No Fire, No Rain" - Tim Finn
"The Needle and the Damage Done" - Neil Young
"Hard Times Come Again No More" - Stephen Foster (as channeled through the Lost Dogs)
Bruiser
In no particular order:
"I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry" by Hank Williams (and a thousand others)
The river of sadness from which all other tributaries flow. Self-pity has rarely been so universal.
"God Speed You to Earth" by the Bevis Frond
A little sci-fi story in which the protagonist sends his loved one(s) back to earth, knowing full well he'll never see them again. He stays calm until the break, when he cries "Don't you look back" as the power chords say what he can't with his voice.
"The Parish Notices" by Jez Lowe & the Bad Pennies
A lesbian couple moves to a remote village in England, where the locals make it clear they're not welcome. One half of the couple dies of an unnamed terminal illness. The townspeople use this as an excuse to try to drive the survivor away. She stays in defiance - the only positive note in the song, besides the couple's commitment to each other. The arrangement is quiet and delicate, with no drama whatsoever. This song made me cry the first time I heard it.
"Lately I've Been Letting Things Slide" by Nick Lowe.
One man's slow, inevitable crawl towards dissolution. One of the greatest country songs of the last couple of decades. Merle Haggard should cover this.
"How Will I Ever Be Simple Again" by Richard Thompson
War is hell pt. 1. A soldier comes across a survivor, who is either a child or an adult whose mind has snapped - it's not clear which. The soldier tries to care for her amidst the devastation, wishing all the while he could recapture the same innocence. I've learned to play this, and the older I get, the harder it is to get through this song without choking up.
"A Pair of Brown Eyes" by the Pogues and/or Peter Case.
War is hell pt. 2. Everybody has someone to come home to, except the soldier protagonist. All he has is the bottle. "And when we got back labeled parts one to three/There was no pair of brown eyes waiting for me"
"Collapse the Light Into the Earth" by Porcupine Tree
In lesser hands this would be so painfully melodramatic it would make you sick. In Steven Wilson's hand, it's beautiful turmoil. "I won't heal given time/I won't try to change your mind/I won't feel better in the cold light of day/But I wouldn't stop you if you wanted to stay"
"Nothing Lasts" by Matthew Sweet
Again, this could have been a ridiculous mountain of melodrama. But Sweet sings it with complete resignation.
"Just My Imagination (Running Away With Me)" by the Temptations
This one gets me every time. The singer's yearning is as overwhelming and palpable as his cowardice. Eddie Kendricks' greatest performance, maybe the greatest falsetto soul vocal of all time.
"A Song For" by Townes Van Zandt
The protagonist has given up on everything (love, life, the universe, everydamnthing) in such a matter-of-fact way it's devastating.
"Mountain Angel" by Dolly Parton
Poor white mountain girl falls in love with visiting soldier. Soldier f**ks her and leaves. Girl winds up pregnant and ostracized by her community. Rejection by both lover and family breaks her mind into pieces. Her ghost haunts the mountains to this day. When I saw Parton sing this on Austin City Limits (in the most plainspoken voice I've ever heard her use), I couldn't believe something so depressing came from the same woman who wrote "9 to 5." Happy ending? Who needs it?
"Fifteen Feet of Pure White Snow" by Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds
It seems like just another strange, mid-tempo rocker in Cave's repertoire until you listen closely to the lyrics and realize the 15 feet of snow is most likely covering the bodies of the children for which the protagonist is desperately searching.
"When Did You Stop Loving Me, When Did I Stop Loving You" by Marvin Gaye
From Here, My Dear, Gaye's eccentric concept album about his divorce that was recorded in order to fulfill part of the settlement. Despite the split having been years before, somehow Gaye called back up all the pain he and his ex-wife went through for this piece of emotional torture. There's also an instrumental reprise, and it may be even more poignant.
"Marie" by Randy Newman
A masterpiece of quiet regret. The singer freely admits his complicity in hurting Marie, but, realizing the futility of apology, can only reiterate how much he'll always love her. I watched tears roll down my wife's face the first time we saw Newman perform this.
"No Easy Way Down" by Dusty Springfield and/or Mark Eitzel
It was never a hit, but this may be Carole King's masterpiece as a songwriter. Who knew she was capable of such melancholy? Both Springfield and Eitzel sing it beautifully.
"Another Morning" by American Music Club
Songwriter Mark Eitzel's work is shot through with sadness the way a bad cut of meat is striated with fat. For most of his career, he had three subjects: his alcoholism, the deaths of so many of his friends from AIDS and his on-again/off-again relationship with a woman named Kathleen, the great love of his life. This song is about the latter, and is his final love letter to her when she died of a drug overdose, following years of estrangement and her angry admonition that he never write another song about her. "Your broken heart might bring you heaven/But not another morning/Another morning with Kathleen"
"Sometimes People Just Do Stupid Things" by the Music Lovers
More melancholy than sad, perhaps, but still damn poignant, as the singer tries to give advice to...his buddy? His ex-lover? Himself?
"Nothing So Bad" by Cousteau
A stately, soulful ballad with the singer tearing at his own heart: "There's nothing so bad/As a good man gone wrong/There's blood on my hands/Honey what have I done?" Good question – not sure I want to know.
Cousteau made a career out of sad songs. Honorable mentions: "Wish You Were Her," "(Damn These) Hungry Times," "Last Good Day of the Year," "Talking to Myself," "Please Don't Cry" (too late)
Michael
Oh, so THAT'S what that Bevis Frond song is about. I listened to it just this morning.
What a list! I love the Richard Thompson song. And I never clicked with Nick Lowe, but I'm curious to hear that one. "Nothing Lasts" is a good one, yeah. And I need to hear that Gaye album. And... I don't even know what to say about that Eitzel song, except... I'm glad there are artists out there brave enough to write songs like that.
Yeah, Bruiser, how could I have forgotten that Neil Young song? It hits me hard every time I hear it.
Thanks for stopping by, everyone.
I originally thought that Frond song was metaphorical, but when I interviewed Nick Saloman (AKA Mr. Frond himself), he told me that it should be taken at face value.
Funny thing about Nick Lowe...he's known for being lighthearted and sort of a humor writer, but as he's aged, he's gone in a more mature, country-soul direction. The humor is still there a lot of the time, but it tends to skew a lot darker and a lot less...forgiving of its protagonists. Some argue he's writing the best songs of his life right now.
Eitzel has always put his heart on his sleeve. You could almost make an album out of the songs he wrote about Kathleen - there's even one called "Kathleen" (which is the one that caused her to tell him never to write about her again).
Michael
A couple by Sarah McLachlan - I Love You and When She Loved Me
Hurting Each Other - the Carpenters (quit snickering)
I Get Along Without You Very Well - Diana Krall
Thomas Moore's Last Rose of Summer - I like Celtic Woman's recording
A hymn written by Isaac Watts in the 1700s - When I Survey the Wondrous Cross
A couple of sappy old standards that have been arranged for barbershop that absolutely make me melt - Oh, How I Miss You Tonight and What'll I Do (...when I'm alone with only dreams of you that can't come true...)
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