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FOT Community => General Discussion => Topic started by: dave from knoxville on December 06, 2007, 04:08:17 PM

Title: Songs that make you sad...
Post by: dave from knoxville on December 06, 2007, 04:08:17 PM
and make you want to sit quietly in a dark corner, holding yourself and rocking with muted agitation while you struggle with your place in the world?

Todd Rundgren - Dust in the Wind
Title: Re: Songs that make you sad...
Post by: erika on December 06, 2007, 04:19:36 PM
Among many, many others, Passing Afternoon by Iron and Wine

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pcEYGG-LLKE[/youtube]
I don't know what video this is but it's the original song, so...
Title: Re: Songs that make you sad...
Post by: yesno on December 06, 2007, 04:43:11 PM
"Why I Cry" by the Magnetic Fields.

"Storms" by Fleetwood Mac.
Title: Re: Songs that make you sad...
Post by: Chris L on December 06, 2007, 05:01:14 PM
Elliott Smith - Between the Bars
Richard Thompson - The End of the Rainbow
Langley Fuckin' Schools Music Project - Desperado
Title: Re: Songs that make you sad...
Post by: Wes on December 06, 2007, 05:09:47 PM
Wings - Little Lamb Dragonfly

This may or may not be true. But if it is, don't you dare judge me.
Title: Re: Songs that make you sad...
Post by: Beth on December 06, 2007, 05:11:58 PM
Metal Heart-Cat Power

Halfway to a Three-Way-Jim O'Rourke

Fox in the Snow-Belle and Sebastian

Song to the Siren-This Mortal Coil


Title: Re: Songs that make you sad...
Post by: senorcorazon on December 06, 2007, 05:16:06 PM
Passing Afternoon by Iron and Wine
Elliott Smith
Cat Power

I went to a wedding where the bride walked down the aisle to Iron and Wine. It seemed a little sad. And no, it wasn't a shotgun wedding.

ANYTHING by Elliott Smith, especially now. And especially the live ones where he breaks down and gives up halfway through. Near the end it was awful to see him live.

I recently heard this band Lewis & Clarke, who sounded pretty good but overall made me want to sigh. I have to switch away from Sad Bastard type music during the winter in New York. Cold + Dark + Sad Music = A LOT of cold water needed to splash on one's face.
Title: Re: Songs that make you sad...
Post by: Laurie on December 06, 2007, 05:24:03 PM
[youtube]2uyhBWHBI4w[/youtube]

The cover art makes me sad, the song makes me cry.

(http://ec2.images-amazon.com/images/P/B000F3AAWU.01._SS500_SCLZZZZZZZ_.jpg)
Title: Re: Songs that make you sad...
Post by: Chris L on December 06, 2007, 05:27:01 PM
Granddaddy: lolcat pioneers?
Title: Re: Songs that make you sad...
Post by: John Junk on December 06, 2007, 06:53:23 PM
Metal Heart-Cat Power

Holy Shit!  Me too!  This is one of those songs that just fuck me up.  I was listening to this on my headphones the other day and all the sudden  a normal day turned into the saddest most forlorn pool of  tattered-and-frayed emotions.

Bridge Over Troubled Water and For Emily When I Find Her - Simon & Garfunkle (seriously).
Drinker's Peace - GBV.
None of Your Goddamn Business - Sentridoh
Title: Re: Songs that make you sad...
Post by: Shaggy 2 Grote on December 06, 2007, 07:29:52 PM
This really happened: I was listening to Democracy Now the other day and they had the Story corps guy on there and were interviewing people about their lives, some of it trivial stuff, like a bus driver who told a story about being nice to an old lady, some of it more profound, like a woman whose brother died of AIDS in the early 80s when everyone was really mean about it.  I cried right there on the New Jersey Transit train.

Songs, you ask?  Fleetwood Mac's The Chain, and for whatever reason any Boston song you'd be familiar with.  I can't think of anything more recent offhand. 

I'm listening to Metal Heart right now.  It doesn't make me feel particularly sad, but i get it - there's something about those guitars.
Title: Re: Songs that make you sad...
Post by: masterofsparks on December 06, 2007, 08:00:22 PM
Little Wing - Jimi Hendrix Experience
Parasite - Nick Drake
Hospital - Modern Lovers
Title: Re: Songs that make you sad...
Post by: John Junk on December 06, 2007, 08:04:15 PM
I was a wee lad of 20 or 21 when Moon Pix came out and living in Baltimore.  Something about that album reminds me of the weird Miranda-July-meets-The-Wire kind of experience that was the art school scene in that city at that time. It reminds me of this apartment I lived in where I was watching The Children of the Corn only to be interrupted by someone getting jacked for his bicycle outside my window right in the middle of the poisoned-coffee scene. 

It's totally the guitars, Jason, You're right.  That guy from The Dirty Three --his guitar is just so beautiful on that whole Moon Pix album.  Still, If I heard this fresh now, I'd probably just be like "meh".  Which is my response to nearly everything new that I ever hear.
Title: Re: Songs that make you sad...
Post by: yesno on December 06, 2007, 09:16:56 PM
Some others.

"Pancake Lizard" by Aphex Twin.  (This song is so good that a friend of mine was listening to it in his dorm room 10 years ago, and someone knocked on the door needing to know who the artist was.  It is sad and beautiful.)

"Discreet Music" by Brian Eno.  (Wrist-slittingly good.)

"The Sinking of the Titanic" by Gavin Bryars.  (But now I've moved away from "songs.")


"Storms" by Fleetwood Mac.

Oh yes.  Also "Storms" from the Camper van Beethoven cover of the "Tusk" album.

I also get choked up when I read the Bukowski poem that was printed on his funeral card.  He was an uneven writer, but capable of good things.

from "if we take"

but they've left us a bit of music
and a spiked show in the corner,
a jigger of scotch, a blue necktie,
a small volume of poems by rimbuaud,
a horse running as if the devil
were twisting his tail
over bluegrass and screaming,
and then,
love again
like a streetcar turning the corner
on time,
the city waiting,
the wine and the flowers,
the water walking across the lake
and summer and winter
and summer and summer
and winter again
Title: Re: Songs that make you sad...
Post by: Phantom Hugger on December 06, 2007, 09:52:02 PM
Lee Hazelwood's death made me cry because his songs make me happy.

(http://i100.photobucket.com/albums/m1/theimann/Lee.jpg)
Title: Re: Songs that make you sad...
Post by: Dan B on December 06, 2007, 11:47:09 PM
"You Will Miss Me When I Burn" - Palace Brothers
Title: Re: Songs that make you sad...
Post by: dave from knoxville on December 07, 2007, 08:24:23 AM
Walk Straight Down the Middle, and This Woman's Work, both by Kate Bush

Elvis Costello - Ship Building

Jeff Beck (or is it Christopher Guest? I can no longer distinguish them in my mind) - 'Cause We've Ended as Lovers




What can I say? We are what we are, and what I am is OLD
Title: Re: Songs that make you sad...
Post by: samir on December 07, 2007, 08:46:56 AM
'soaps' by arab strap.
Title: Re: Songs that make you sad...
Post by: Shaggy 2 Grote on December 07, 2007, 12:14:54 PM

That guy from The Dirty Three --his guitar is just so beautiful on that whole Moon Pix album.  Still, If I heard this fresh now, I'd probably just be like "meh".  Which is my response to nearly everything new that I ever hear.

What can I say? We are what we are, and what I am is OLD

There's something I've noticed about these lists of songs.  I suspect I'm about average age for a FOT but 5-10 years older than most of the people who have posted on this thread.  The more recent stuff people mention, like Belle & Sebastian, Iron & Wine, and Cat Power, strike me as "sad," but don't actually make me sad.  And my own sad songs are all from the 70s and 80s.  I suspect that sad songs are mostly sad by personal association, maybe nostalgia for a period of time that will never come back.

I also have a sad feeling surrounding the music I was listening to in 1996, which was a particularly rough time in my life, but none of it was sad-sounding: Bjork, Red Hot Chili Peppers, White Zombie, The Wu-Tang Clan.  And I've got a hopeful feeling surrounding other music, anxiety around still other music, etc. etc.

I'm not going to compare pop music to Proust's madeleine here, in case anyone's wondering.
Title: Re: Songs that make you sad...
Post by: Martin on December 07, 2007, 12:27:08 PM
After attending a funeral last week, Lars Gullin (http://wc03.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=11:fifyxqu5ldse)'s Danny's Dream will never sound the same to me again. Damn.
Title: Re: Songs that make you sad...
Post by: Martin Edison on December 07, 2007, 12:57:13 PM
Jim Jackson - Old Dog Blue

Magetic Fields - Love goes home to Paris in the spring
This one kills me because the music is so good. One of my favorites by them.

Silver Jews - Random Rules
Title: Re: Songs that make you sad...
Post by: erika on December 07, 2007, 01:06:48 PM
I know what you mean, Jason. But most of mine are still sad sounding because that's the sort of music I tend to listen to.

Although I'm not particularly nostalgic for my past long-term relationship, these songs make me really sad both because they remind me of that time and they're also just inherently melancholy:

Dramamine by Modest Mouse (http://inkee.org/random/zvuci/01%20Dramamine.mp3)

Heaven is a Truck by Pavement (http://www.cec.uchile.cl/~drosales/musica/Pavement/Crooked%20rain,%20Crooked%20rain/10%20Heaven%20Is%20A%20Truck.mp3)

They also remind me of my awful college roommates which is a whole other sad story...
Title: Re: Songs that make you sad...
Post by: kenkwan on December 07, 2007, 01:26:00 PM
A Parting Glass by the Clancy Brothers always makes me sad. And Imagine by John Lennon (What? Don't Judge!)
Title: Re: Songs that make you sad...
Post by: TVD on December 07, 2007, 01:34:56 PM
"Shake You Donkey Up" by XTC
Title: Re: Songs that make you sad...
Post by: Shaggy 2 Grote on December 07, 2007, 02:06:03 PM
I know what you mean, Jason. But most of mine are still sad sounding because that's the sort of music I tend to listen to.

Although I'm not particularly nostalgic for my past long-term relationship, these songs make me really sad both because they remind me of that time and they're also just inherently melancholy:

Dramamine by Modest Mouse (http://inkee.org/random/zvuci/01%20Dramamine.mp3)

Heaven is a Truck by Pavement (http://www.cec.uchile.cl/~drosales/musica/Pavement/Crooked%20rain,%20Crooked%20rain/10%20Heaven%20Is%20A%20Truck.mp3)

They also remind me of my awful college roommates which is a whole other sad story...

Yeah, Modest Mouse are definitely one of those "sad" bands, but actually I find them more cathartic than sad.  Hoo boy, though, awful college roommates.  Ironically, one of my worst roommate experiences took place around the same time I discovered WFMU but thankfully the station isn't tainted by the association. 

I've always thought "Heaven is a Truck" was a funny song, though maybe I've never listened closely enough.
Title: Re: Songs that make you sad...
Post by: Matt on December 07, 2007, 03:09:55 PM
Jandek - "The Electric End"

I listened to this at work yesterday - all 19:39 of it. Ew, brother. If anyone has medals or cookies, I will take one of either, please.

I was considering asking Tom to review a Jandek record, but, for his sake, I thought better of it.
Title: Re: Songs that make you sad...
Post by: Shaggy 2 Grote on December 07, 2007, 03:17:20 PM
I also forgot Radiohead's "Optimistic."  That song makes me want to cry.
Title: Re: Songs that make you sad...
Post by: congolia on December 07, 2007, 03:21:51 PM
Good Feeling - Violent Femmes
Dog On Wheels - Belle and Sebastian
Think About Your Troubles - Harry Nilsson
Don't Dream Its Over - Crowded House
Perfect Day - Lou Reed
I'm Not Like Everybody Else - The Kinks
I Remember California - R.E.M.
Title: Re: Songs that make you sad...
Post by: Phantom Hugger on December 07, 2007, 05:18:17 PM
Jandek - "The Electric End"

I listened to this at work yesterday - all 19:39 of it. Ew, brother. If anyone has medals or cookies, I will take one of either, please.

I was considering asking Tom to review a Jandek record, but, for his sake, I thought better of it.

I keep hoping that Jandek will revealed as the art prank that he should be. You, sir have earned the golden goatee medal of masochistic patience.
Title: Re: Songs that make you sad...
Post by: Susannah on December 07, 2007, 05:49:37 PM
"Cattle and Cane" by the Go-Betweens
"Holding Back the Year" by Lou Barlow
"Shipbuilding" by Elvis Costello (Dave, I'll come to Knoxville and we can cry about it together)
"Changes" by Phil Ochs (the child of weepie hippies that I am)
Title: Re: Songs that make you sad...
Post by: Beth on December 07, 2007, 06:50:23 PM
And Imagine by John Lennon (What? Don't Judge!)

oh man, I'm a mess of tears whenever that comes on the radio.
Title: Re: Songs that make you sad...
Post by: Beth on December 07, 2007, 06:52:58 PM
and i'm just going to go ahead and say it:

Everybody Hurts- R.E.M.
Title: Re: Songs that make you sad...
Post by: Sloppy Joe on December 07, 2007, 08:07:55 PM
I get really sad from "When The River Meets The Sea." It was part of the Jim Henson/Emitt Otter TV special.
I cry and cry.
Title: Re: Songs that make you sad...
Post by: octopus volcano on December 07, 2007, 09:01:44 PM
"Regret" by New Order
"Man in the Corner Shop" by The Jam
"Bathroom Floor" by (smog)
The entire soundtrack to Rumblefish
Title: Re: Songs that make you sad...
Post by: Martin on December 07, 2007, 09:15:26 PM
Pieces of a Man by Gil Scott-Heron
Title: Re: Songs that make you sad...
Post by: Chris L on December 07, 2007, 09:52:49 PM
Pieces of a Man by Gil Scott-Heron

Good one.

Also, Jonathan Richman - That Summer Feeling.  Lucky for me it's winter! 
Title: Re: Songs that make you sad...
Post by: erika on December 07, 2007, 11:44:56 PM
And Imagine by John Lennon (What? Don't Judge!)

oh man, I'm a mess of tears whenever that comes on the radio.

Me three.

Neil Young did it for the tribute they did right after 9-11 and I COMPLETELY lost it.

Also Happy Xmas (War is Over) and this:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=thEiXbovv98[/youtube]

Title: Re: Songs that make you sad...
Post by: Matt on December 08, 2007, 01:46:02 AM
I keep hoping that Jandek will revealed as the art prank that he should be. You, sir have earned the golden goatee medal of masochistic patience.

Normally, I would never subject myself to such a thing, but I had done poorly on an exam earlier in the day and felt I deserved to be punished.

Jandek is my "I don't get it". I have only one record of his - Lost Cause, the title of which is truth in advertising if I've ever heard it - but I don't think there's anything to get, really; sure, he has this sizable following, but that doesn't say much. If it wasn't for the (false) notion of "obscure = good", Jandek would be working at Texas Instruments right now, where he belongs. Too many people want to jump on the bandwagon, but who am I to talk? I bought the damn record! And put it on my iPod! As Mickey Katz would say, "Oh, boy".

I have a few more (genuinely) sad songs:

Richard & Linda Thompson - "Down Where the Drunkards Roll"
Bill Fay - "Tell It Like It Is"
Bob Dylan - "You're a Big Girl Now" (the Biograph version)
Blue Sky Boys - "Down on the Banks of the Ohio"
Chris Bell - "Speed of Sound"
Jesse Sykes & the Sweet Hereafter - "Your Eyes Told"
Neil Young - Side 2 of On the Beach (Coincidentally, my favorite side of any record - that's "On the Beach", "Motion Pictures" and "Ambulance Blues", for the layman)
Palace Music - "Trudy Dies"
Big Star - "Take Care"
Bert Jansch, "Needle of Death"
The Louvin Brothers - "I Wish It Had Been a Dream"
Title: Re: Songs that make you sad...
Post by: Susannah on December 08, 2007, 03:21:53 PM
Oh wow, I totally forgot about Linda Thompson--"Withered and Died."

The chorus is, "My dreams have withered and died."

I dare you not to cry!
Title: Re: Songs that make you sad...
Post by: Beth on December 08, 2007, 04:06:31 PM
I get really sad from "When The River Meets The Sea." It was part of the Jim Henson/Emitt Otter TV special.
I cry and cry.

I was just watching my vhs copy of that the other day and totally cried.
Title: Re: Songs that make you sad...
Post by: dave from knoxville on December 08, 2007, 04:52:30 PM
Oh wow, I totally forgot about Linda Thompson--"Withered and Died."

The chorus is, "My dreams have withered and died."

I dare you not to cry!

Susannah, you are speaking my language. I love this song, and Richard Thompson is the master of making me sob like a baby. Misunderstood? Vincent Black Lightning 1952? Beeswing? Walking on a Wire? Hand me the whole damn BOX of Kleenex.

Don't even get me started on Crowded House
Title: Re: Songs that make you sad...
Post by: Sloppy Joe on December 08, 2007, 07:26:33 PM
When The River Meets The Sea

When the mountain touches the valley
All the clouds are taught to fly
As our souls will leave this land most peacefully
Though our minds be filled with questions
In our hearts we'll understand
When the river meets the sea

Like a flower that has blossomed
In this dry and barren sand
We are born and born again most gracefully
Plus the winds of time will take us
With a sure and steady hand
When the river meets the sea

Patience my brothers
And patience my son
In that sweet and final hour
Truth and justice will be done

Like a baby when it is sleeping
In its mother's loving arms
What a newborn baby dreams is a mystery (a mystery)

But this life will find a purpose
And in time we'll understand
When the river meets the sea
When the river meets the almighty sea

Hoo boy, that is awfully poignant.
Title: Re: Songs that make you sad...
Post by: Vambo on December 10, 2007, 03:08:51 AM
The Bee Gees:  "New York Mining Disaster 1941"
The Wedding Present:  "Give My Love To Kevin"
The Jazz Butcher:  "Girl Go"
Paul Kelly & The Messengers:  "Big Heart"
Title: Re: Songs that make you sad...
Post by: masterofsparks on December 10, 2007, 06:19:20 AM
Neil Young - Side 2 of On the Beach (Coincidentally, my favorite side of any record - that's "On the Beach", "Motion Pictures" and "Ambulance Blues", for the layman)

Yes. Just listened to this the other day and it's pretty devastating when taken as a whole. Neil's the master of the emotionally crushing non-sequitur line like "I went to the radio interview and I ended up alone at the microphone." In context, it's kinda nonsense, but it gets me every time.
Title: Re: Songs that make you sad...
Post by: dave from knoxville on December 10, 2007, 06:54:22 AM
I'll count the original Cortez the Killer as a song that somehow saddens and lifts me at the same time. But Helpless always leaves me down. KD Lang's got a nice version that they play during the end credits of Away From Her, which I watched yesterday. Maybe I should start up a "Movies that make you sad..."
Title: Re: Songs that make you sad...
Post by: senorcorazon on December 10, 2007, 07:51:02 AM
Alabama, John Coltrane. Any song about little girls getting blown up by racists is sure to make you a little weepy.
Title: Re: Songs that make you sad...
Post by: Sarah on December 10, 2007, 08:04:34 AM
For starters:

Billy Bragg's "The Great Leap Forwards."
The Pogues' version of "Waltzing Matilda" (well, any version, really, but theirs especially).
Seize the Day, "United States."
Title: Re: Songs that make you sad...
Post by: Shaggy 2 Grote on December 10, 2007, 09:39:15 PM
Billy Bragg's "The Great Leap Forwards."

I lurve this song.

The Pogues' version of "Waltzing Matilda" (well, any version, really, but theirs especially).

Even the Tom Waits version?
Title: Re: Songs that make you sad...
Post by: jane on December 10, 2007, 09:54:39 PM
Listening to Stockhausen's Kontakte made me sad today. 

R.I.P., Karlheinz Stockhausen