As a native Chicagoan who grew up listening to men in black walking the line and grizzled bluesmen wearing their hearts on their throats, I have a pretty high tolerance for moving music that some might consider unpleasant. But even I have my limits. Following up on my Joy Division post, I’ll descend even further into the abyss by listing a few of the most depressing songs that have kidnapped my imagination. The title pays homage to a Lester Bangs essay, A Reasonable Guide to Horrible Noise, and to Warren Zevon’s boo-hoo ode to boo-hoo singer-songwriters, which improbably got Linda Ronstadt to record a Top 40 hit about tying her head to the railroad tracks. Woe is me!
• Samuel Barber, “Adagio for Strings” (According to Alex Ross, “whenever the American dream suffers a catastrophic setback, Barber’s Adagio plays on the radio.”)
• The Who, “Pictures of Lily” (Boy sees girl of his dreams and discovers she’s been dead for four decades.)
• Smokey Robinson and the Miracles, “Tears of a Clown” (When clowns aren’t creepy, they’re liars, or worse, opera fans.)
• Richard Thompson, “End of the Rainbow” (The author of ditties like “The Wall of Death” sings to a baby, claiming there’s nothing at the end of the rainbow. Thanks, Dad.)
• Nina Simone, “Little Girl Blue” (Bored, sad girl counts the raindrops and discovers evaporation.)
• Marty Robbins, “Streets of Laredo” (The singing gunslinger gets shot to death in “El Paso,” but that’s mild compared to this cowboy variation on the ancient “Unfortunate Rake” story.)
• Billie Holiday, “Gloomy Sunday” (The darkest version I’ve heard of the Hungarian Suicide Song. The composer later committed suicide.)
• Louvin Brothers, “Knoxville Girl” (The most violent song on the cherub-voiced death-gospel duo’s aptly named Tragic Songs of Life, reworking the English “Wexford Girl” murder ballad.)
• Big Star, “Holocaust” (Power pop drained of any power, words drained of any meaning, Beach Boys melodies sinking into quicksand.)
• Hüsker Dü, “Too Far Down”/ “Hardly Getting Over It” (The titans of melodic noise at their greyest, not seeing even a little light.)
• The Antlers, “Bear” (Heartbreaking ode to premature senility and the animal inside.)
• Etta James, “I’d Rather Go Blind” (Passive-agressive romantic obsession turns the lights out and entertains us.)
• Carter Family, “Engine 143” (Lots of songs are metaphorical train wrecks. This one’s the real deal.)
• Graham Parker, “You Can’t Be Too Strong” (“The doctor gets nervous completing the service, he’s all rubber gloves and no head.”)
• Pernice Brothers, “Chicken Wire” (Garage clutter, exhaust fumes, and no redeeming sentiments.)
• George Jones, “He Stopped Loving Her Today” (Why? Because he’s dead, that’s why.)
That playlist could keep you in therapy for years. But none of them outdo the real King of Pain, Skip James. Blues was never bluer. On “Devil Got My Woman,” Skip out-depresses the whole field by declaring that he’d rather be the devil.
Skip James, “Devil Got My Woman”
Big Star, “Holocaust”
Nina Simone, “Little Girl Blue”
I like your nomination of Skip James, whose voice is so angelic that when sings he’d rather be the devil, it doesn’t sound scary, it sounds beautiful.
As for my own choices of favorite depressed/depressing songs, I would include:
Beatles’ “I’m so tired”/”Yer blues”
Captain Beefheart’s “Making love to a vampire w/ a monkey on my knee”
(“oh fuck that thing/fuck that poem/eyes crawled out with maggots/ white cloth bone”)
Sun Ra “Nuclear War” (tho’ this song is actually grimly funny, too : “if they push that button/your ass’s got to go”)
My least favorite would have to be Joy Division’s “Love will tear us apart”:
dyspeptic synth & Ian Curtis sounding like he’s on quaaludes….groan.
Great selections! I’d also add Lennon’s solo primal screams on “Mother.” As to the Captain, I’d run with “Dachau Blues” and leave whatever happened with the vampire and the monkey as a desert secret.
I’ve struggled with gloom enough to find Ian Curtis moving, but he’s not for everyone. It’s true he was often heavily medicated (mainly due to worsening epilepsy).
My sentimental-to-the-point-of-maudlin nomination is Harry Chapin’s 1974 war horse “Cat’s in the Cradle.” I know it’s a corny cliche’, but it’s a song that’s always put a genuine lump in my throat. As a child it affected me because I loved my dad so much, but his job with the railroad took him away for days at a time. He’s always made up for it by spending QT with us when he was home, but I still hated it every time he left. Now, as a father, I struggle from the other end – working hard, running to stay in place, trying to find time to spend something more than a few morning and evening minutes with my boy, scared to death he’ll grow up and move out and I won’t have milked every possible moment from the relationship. In the song, the dad blows it on that count, and it’s too late to get back the moments.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cat's_in_the_Cradle
Another one that hits me hard is Leadbelly’s “In the Pines,” about a woman forced to wander the earth, sleeping in the forest outside of town on account of some real or imaginary wrongdoing, and whose husband’s head was apparently vaporized by a train. Gives me chills every time.
Great list. Leonard Cohen of course has countless depressing songs. I’ll nominate Famous Blue Raincoat and Dress Rehearsal Rag. The latter starts off: “I stepped into an avalanche, it covered up my soul.” An Irish jig it is not.
Speaking of ‘cat’s in the cradle’, here’s my morning bowl of father-son forlorned:
Dream Letter (Tim Buckley)
Lady time, fly away
I’ve been thinking ’bout my yesterday
Oh, please listen, darlin’, to my empty prayers
Sleep inside my dreams tonight
All I need to know tonight are you and my child
Oh, is he a soldier or is he a dreamer?
Is he mama’s little man?
Does he help you when he can?
Or does he ask about me?
Oh, just like a soldier boy
I’ve been out fighting wars
That the world never knows about
Oh, but I never win them loud
There’s no crowds around me
Oh, when I get to thinkin’
‘Bout the old days
When love was here to stay
I wonder if we’d ever tried
Oh, what I’d give to hold him
Dream Brother (Jeff Buckley)
There is a child sleeping near his twin
The pictures go wild in a rush of wind
That dark angel he is shuffling in
Watching over them with his black feather wings unfurled
The love you lost with her skin so fair
Is free with the wind in her butterscotch hair
Her green eyes blew goodbyes
With her head in her hands
And your kiss on the lips of another
Dream brother with your tears scattered round the world
Don’t be like the one who made me so old
Don’t be like the one who left behind his name
‘Cause they’re waiting for you like I waited for mine
And nobody ever came
I feel afraid and I call your name
I love your voice and your dance insane
I hear your words and I know your pain
With your head in your hands and her kiss on the lips of another
Your eyes to the ground and the world spinning round forever
Asleep in the sand with the ocean washing over
I enjoyed the input on the slit-your-wrist tunes. I tend towards alt-country, and no that doesn’t mean “country.” I know labels are stupid but here are just three that immediately leap to mind.
Gillian Welch – “Revelator”
such a beautiful voice encased in a narcotic haze, think the Cowboy Junkies, but Cowgirl and “junkier.” At a tempo that is slower than molasses in January ( oh, I guess it’s now February ). Beautiful, torture.
WARNING: do not listen to this song if you are feeling suicidal, yea, it’s that depressing
The Gourds – ” Our Patriarch”
mournful and beautiful, subtle chord changes, and the line about being buried in a coffin built by his own hands, Whoa!
Now all around this border town
The lads and lassies gather round
All that is heard a mournin’ sound
The salty tears a runnin’ down
Our patriarch with greasy hands
He held the golden cages key
For twenty years he sailed the seas
With a trumpet on his knees
He drank the wine of ancient tung’s
And with his hands began to build
A tower for the bells we rung
A temple for the whippoorwill
Now all around this border town
The lads and lassies gather round
All that is heard a mournin’ sound
The salty tears a runnin’ down
With eyes of blue and jacket too
In trousers red and beard of grey
A casket built of his own hand
Our patriarch has died today
and truly harrowing has got to be Son Volt,
“Cocaine and Ashes”
the horrors of drug addiction, supposedly a nod ( get it ) to Keith Richards but I think that
Jay Farrar knows his way around the pharmacy, too.
I’ve had strychnine, I thought I was dead
I snorted my father and I’m still alive
I did it because that’s how it is done
I’m the same as everyone, just kinda lucky
Body and soul, cocaine and ashes
We’ll get to that place in time
Just tears and blow on my mind
It’s no to way of life but I’ve tried everything once
I have no pretensions of immortality
But I’ve been told I had 6 months to live
But I’ve outlasted them all
Body and soul, cocaine and ashes
We’ll get to that place in time
Just tears and blow on my mind
Senses and spirit, mourning and misery
Addiction is something I should know something about
Whatever gets done I know that I’ll be blamed
But they say the king is the man who can
“I’ve had strychnine, I thought I was dead”
Really? go figure!