Most depressing song you know?

[Metatron]

Just to prove that I win:



I made the mistake of listening to it before posting and now I'm all depressed...

But while the lyrics are depressing they are counterbalanced by the soothing music and sweet vocal delivery. Almost like the message of the song is hopeful: sad things happen but life goes on, and ultimately it's ok.

[St.Ignatz]

Cruising with Ruben & the Jets "Stuff up the Cracks"
A fun suicide song from Frank.
Not the most depressing but I was getting so depressed with the previous entries I thought I'd lighten it up a bit.

[Flicka]

But while the lyrics are depressing they are counterbalanced by the soothing music and sweet vocal delivery. Almost like the message of the song is hopeful: sad things happen but life goes on, and ultimately it's ok.

I actually think the cheerful note to the music makes it worse. It echoes the really, really horrible sentiment "what a shame that he's dead, but wasn't he a most peculiar man" - how nobody cares and his death isn't even a ripple on the surface of the world. The whole meaning of the song (to me) is in that horrible, awful "but" - after all, he wasn't like them...

I think very few of Paul Simon's songs are meant to be positive or soothing. He often uses the contrast of the ethereal beauty of music with disturbing lyrics or sentiments. Just take the beautiful version of "Silent Night" set against a radio news show reporting on murders and the war in Vietnam - or something less dramatic like The Dangling Conversation for example. It's not comfort food...

[Kirk H.]

Here is another one by the Boss, Bruce Springsteen...A Reason to Believe.

[HodgePodge]

Off the top of my head, a contest between this

and this

[bunnyb.gal]

Tammy Wynette - "Sometimes it's hard to be a woman". A domestic abuser's charter.

When I was a kid my mom and I officially re-worked that ditty, calling it "Stand on your Man" and giving it all sorts of silly and misandrous lyrics...I feel better knowing that Hilary Clinton had come to the same conclusion as we.

I'd like to vote for Leonard Cohen - take your pick of tunes - for most depressing artiste. Pink Floyd's "The Wall" has always been a no-go for me. (I watched the film when it came out, and was if memory serves a blubbering mass of tears within the first 10 minutes - another thread I know! - never again will I put myself through that trauma.)

[AtomicEraTom]

V.C. Posted the first two that popped in my head

Bobby Goldsboro -- Honey
My Dad had the record so I heard this song all the time in the house when I was growing up

And if only you could see the evil gleam as I post this one. This maudlin melody was very popular when I was in elementary school.

Terry Jacks -- Seasons In The Sun (1974)

This would be my #3 pick.

[Amy Jeanne]

This one. In '94 or thereabouts I loved this song. Now, I can't even listen to it and won't... It's not even in my iPod.

[plain old dave]

While My Guitar Gently Weeps. Heard it at the Woodfield Mall in Chicagoland during Desert Storm shortly after I lost my mother. Everything kind of "came together" when it came on the radio and somebody looked at me right afterward and said, "Boy... You look like you just lost your best friend. What's wrong?" Ever after that I just have a hard time listening to (or thinking about) that song.

[samtemporary]

"Danny Boy", hands down.