Songs!
This week’s prompt: “A song that makes you sad”.
When you think popular music and sadness, your mind goes instantly to love gone wrong. It’s such a powerful, primal kind of pain that even a songwriter who’s famously tricky and opaque sometimes has to fall back on a simple story told simply, and say, in so many words “It hurts.”
Bob Dylan - If You See Her, Say Hello (Audio)
Once again, in your responses use a URL like:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KXctarOxRz8
Youtube’s suggested sharing format
https://youtu.be/KXctarOxRz8
doesn’t appear to work in comments. Also, put the URL on a line by itself.
Morphine – The Saddest Song
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Obviously, anything by Elliott Smith, who would have turned 50 the other day. I’ll go with this one for now:
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I mean, all due respect to everyone’s opinions but this isn’t even a conversation: A coked-up David Ruffin emoting all over the mic while singing a song so gut-wrench Motown staff songwriter Roger Penzabene allegedly wrote it about his own wife cheating on him, committed suicide a week after it’s release.
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Breakup songs are always the best songs. I have a whole theory of why this is.
See, for example:
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If breakups aren’t your thing, there’s always the murder ballad:
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California Dreamin’ has made me sad since the first time I heard The Mamas and The Papas performing it. Today I’ll go with the Beach Boys’ cover.
Note to Mr. Shilling: You can add to your list of warnings that the embedded player doesn’t survive when the post is edited.
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Are you sure? I suspect that you won’t see it after editing, but it’ll be there if you refresh the page.Report
You’re right. Never mind.Report
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https://www.youtube.com/user/MergeRecordsReport
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This one always gets to meReport
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I should note that one of my biggest epiphanies of the past year was listening to that mash up and realizing that the killer on the road whose brain was squirmin’ like a toad was the man from Mars who was eatin’ cars. They had both witnessed the same events.Report
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XvdpjZYLumw
Hard to go wrong with the ukelele orchestra.Report
it’s a little cliche but
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I’d like to share Miyuki Nakajima’s “HALF,” a story of lovers who missed their chance to be together and swore to meet again in the next life, only to miss their chance again. Unfortunately, her label has her music locked down hard, and other than a few of her recent songs, none of it’s available on YouTube. My next choice is a song Nakajima wrote for Shizuka Kudoh in 1998. Honestly, Kudoh’s kind of a weak singer, but she had brilliant songwriters backing her, first Tsugutoshi Gotoh and later Nakajima.
The title, “Setsu-getsu-ka,” literally means “snow, moon, and flowers.” It comes from a phrase in a poem from the classical Chinese poet Bai Juyi (“When I gaze upon the snow, moon, and flowers, that is when I miss you the most.”), and refers to sublime natural beauty. Anyway, this isn’t a sad song, but for some reason it makes me feel sad. The lyric’s superficial silliness serves to deepen its portrayal of the intensity of young love. I’m not really doing Nakajima justice, but here’s rough translation:
Between the waves of the sheets,
I searched for you, hoping I might find you.
I want to be with you, and though I hold you tightly,
I want only to be with you more.
No matter where you go, I can find you.
When I ask you, you don’t understand.
Here I am, you laugh; I want to be with you more, I insist.
You, who know nothing!
Chorus:
Snow, moon, and flowers
It is a loving heart which never yields.
Snow, moon, and flowers.
But only grows ever stronger
If you would grant me a wish,
I want only one thing:
Grant me freedom.
Grant me the freedom to love you.
Quickly, set me free!
Quickly, do not tie me down!
Set me free from a future without you,
And set me free from loneliness.
You, who know nothing!
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Johnny Cash and a song whose title suggests it should be happy, but the lyrics tell another story. Bug won’t ever let us sing more than the chorus.
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This song makes me really sad. I can pinpoint a very specific time in my childhood, right on the cusp of adolescence when my very best friend moved away, kind of the end of childhood as I knew it. Everything got hard after that.
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My wife’s favorite George Strait song is a sad one:
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Or if you prefer your sad songs be metal
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Porcupine Tree – Heartattack in a Layby. The protagonist just pulls off the road and dies…
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Ah, Danny Boy.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H7vk5keNbRc
Can’t believe this hasn’t been posted. (Sorry, feeling extraordinarily juvenile today for some reason.)Report
This video doesn’t display, even though its URL is correctly formatted. I’m taking this as WordPress expressing sound editorial judgment.Report
I’ve been silenced!Report
Beneath the sprightly melody lies a dark tale. Posted in response to a tweet referencing a piece published elsewhere by own Andrew D. Everyone’s been there, and it never stops sucking.
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Saddest song I ever heard? “Long Black Veil” by The Band; off of 68’s classic Music from the Big Pink…
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