rumple: nice find! I can not believe that The Smiths "I Know Its Over" is not on that list

("Oh Mother, I can feel the soil falling over my head, and as I climb into an empty bed, oh well, enough said").

Music to put a shotgun in your mouth to.

And what about "Send Me To Sleep" and "Unlovable"?

I would like to suggest that this article is terrible, terrible shit.

That is, first of all, the list is idiotically composed. "The Freshmen"? Really? There's always something to argue about in lists like this—they're generally more stupid than not, and always, always pointless—but this stands out. Secondly it's just poorly written. Standard phoned-in middlebrow pop/rock writing.

"One": the narrative is depressing, probably more so if you've read the book or seen the movie (I've done neither), but the song isn't depressing. It's got a driving rhythm and a pretty awesome guitar solo, and not a slow, sad one either. It is not a depressing song.

Now, David Sylvian's "Blemish"—that's a depressing fucking song.

I will leave now.

heh.i was just making a mix set entitled Melancholia :)

I'll just pop in to say there are two songs that always, always make me cry rivers: And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda, and The Wreck Of The Edmund Fitzgerald.

However, I wouldn't consider these "Musique Noir". But then I agree with kenko that many of the ones included in the article don't seem to be in (what I imagine to be) that category either.

(By the way, rumple, did happen you see this AskMe?)

Scorpions, (I know, I know...) Still Lovin' You".

Aerosmith of yore, "Dream On"

Don't forget freakin' "Danny Boy" (self-link-ish) Why, I made a group of grown men and women cry playing that just last Saturday.

taz: speaking of Waltzing Matilda and depressing songs, I cannot listen to Tom Waits' Tom Traubert's Blues without crying like my dog just got run over.

What in the name of fucking dead goats with live emus is that shite?

Celine Dion? Pink Floyd's "Comfortably Numb"? Evanescence?

I would also like to suggest that that article is terrible, terrible shit and further add that the author is a complete fucking tool.

NIN is included, but no Bauhaus? Even better, no Tones on Tail, some of the most melancholy music ever written? No Leonard Cohen? Iggy Pop? Tom Waits? Buddy Holly? Jesus fucking Christ, Elvis has a bunch of sadder songs than half of that crap. Shel fucking Silverstein has more morose stuff.

*runs off to hang himself in protest*

LeeJay, funny that two such sad pieces have used this really upbeat-seeming song as a device. Here's a Waltzing Matilda information site, by the way.

loquacious - good call on the Leonard Cohen. Without him this list is automatically voided. And I've listened to "People Who Died" a hundred times over the years and it never made me sad. I'd like to see this list rewritten by Nick Cave.

What about that Nick Cave song where he bashes his lover's head in with a rock? That song's always good for a few laughs.

Most of that list is utterly and completely wrong. What's with the Guardian's Friday Review at the moment? Last week they had an article comparing Crazy Frog to Dylan. What-the-motherfucking-fuck?

Prine, Ben Folds - fine. Celine-shitting-Dion? Bonnie-cocksucking-Tyler? EVAN-GOD-BOTHERING-INSIPID-STEAMING-HEAP-OF-SHIT-ESCENCE? Joke. And I agree - any list of this type has to include at least one Cohen, by law. And one Tindersticks. Probably Tiny Tears.

On the plus side, after a week of procrastination, it's given me inspiration to put together my compilation, "Music To Play At My Funeral If People Aren't Crying Enough."

What, no Ween?

iconomy: Where the Wild Roses Grow. With Kylie.

"Blame It On My Youth" (the song, not the album) by Holly Cole Trio. And their instrumental "Ginny's Waltz".

Comfortably Numb never seemed that depressing to me - just par for Floyd songs;
On the other hand, "Time", I think, is depressing as hell. I kept on waiting
for it to show up in the list..

No Bonnie "Prince" Billie? Philistines! "I See a Darkness" is pretty much enough to make me reach for my revolver when I just write the name of the song.

Some of the most depressing music I've ever heard is instrumental. Instrumentals touch me on a completely different level because they trigger my own feelings, and sometimes summon up demons and memories. To me that's a lot stronger and more real than being depressed because of made-up lyrics. I included a depressing instrumental in my MeCha mix (aren't you glad?). I always look forward to hearing it because it's pretty and odd, but at the same time I dread it because it fills me with remorse. Bet you can't wait now!

What about that Nick Cave song where he bashes his lover's head in with a rock? That song's always good for a few laughs.

iconomy: Where the Wild Roses Grow. With Kylie. posted by blag 10 June | 09:07

I love that song, but it doesn't make me feel sad. Neither does my husband's choice of the saddest song ever written-- Tom Waits' "Kentucky Avenue." I do get a little choked up over Leonard Cohen's "Famous Blue Raincoat" although actually the lyrics are somewhat hopeful.

Oh my god, taz - I haven't heard The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald for years, but it used to make me feel all teary as a teenager whenever I heard it.

"Time", I think, is depressing as hell.

It's depressing because it's true.

Actually, I would conside quite a few of those to be minor classics and I think whoever wrote this article is a fuckwit, but that's just me. I not only listen to The Wall without so much as a drag on a joint, never mind a "bong as big as a mop", but I own and watch the movie from time to time. Now that is depressing. Or, at least, very very dark.

What a pointless article. True, Celine Dion and Evanescence make me want to kill myself, but not for the reasons Tom Reynolds gives. The Guardian gets more execrable, self-congratulatory, vapid and middle-class with every passing day.

I'd like to lodge a vote for American Music Club - Mark Eitzel could sing about puppies and ice cream and warm sunny days and I'd still want to slit my wrists. And Scott Walker - the closest I've come to crying in the past 20 years is while listening to 'Always Coming Back To You'.

And I challenge Tom Reynolds to listen to Diamanda Galas' Litanies of Satan all the way through and still be able to smile or laugh afterwards.

Also, Deletion by Non is the only piece of music that's made me feel physically ill and physically miserable. It's 4 minutes of nauseatingly sped-up and slowed down clown music, with Boyd Rice reciting Ragnar Redbeard's radicalist text 'Might is Right' over the top, and underpinned by multi-tracked field recordings of a woman being gang-raped. Follow that, Ben Folds Fucking Five.

Though desperately beautiful, almost anything by Elliott Smith makes me want to curl into a fetal position with a fifth of bourbon and a pistol.

Oh yeah, and what about Suicide's Frankie Teardrop? That's excruciatingly depressing: Vietnam vet struggles to earn a living, can't make ends meet anyway, then gets made redundant, so shoots his wife, his baby daughter and then himself. Probably all a bit too edgy for the Guardian.

Blag, my father gave one of those lists a few years ago. Laminated.

Funeral Playlist, that is.

Thanks for the link, taz.

The author is pretty ambitious in covering genres and time periods so that cuts down on his representation. My list would look way different, and I would distinguish between depressing music that makes you depressed when you listen to it, depressing music that is actually uplifting, and melancholy minor key type music....

Depressing music that makes you depressed -- hard to beat the Pogues Waltzing Matilda, or Stan Rogers' Barrett's Privateers ... Donald and Lydia by John Prine is much more depressing in my view than Sam Stone because it is more about someone like the listener -- unless you are a vietnam vet Sam Stone evokes empathy more than depression. That Elliot Smith song with the chorus 'I'll drive all over town/Until I track her down' is both depressing and sinister. Brel: Ne me quitte pas. Barbara. etc. A Hard Rains a-Gonna Fall.

Dark != Depressing. Sinister or menacing != depressing.

Depressing music that is uplifting because there is a hint of perserverence: "The Boxer", "Famous Blue Raincoat", "Everybody Hurts", 'Sweet Jane'.

Melancholy Music that isn't depressing in the slightest for me: Hallelujah - Leonard Cohen. Powderfinger. Trip Hop stuff like Portishead. 'When the Levee Breaks'.

Some of the author's choices are depressing just because they are such crap music.

Elsewhere the author is quoted as: ""I had to adopt an emotional distancing that homicide detectives have when they investigate a crime scene. After you've listened to 50 different versions of 'Send in the Clowns' you just want to put a gun in your mouth."

He has sorted the little bastards into 10 joy-killing sections, including - "Horrifying Remakes of Already Depressing Songs", "I'm Telling a Story Nobody Wants to Hear", "I Had No Idea That Song Was So Morbid" and "I Mope, Therefore I Am".

And finally, in a grand hoorah for the ultimate in sonic misery, we have "Perfect Storms", where "everything comes together in this enormous maelstrom of just utter gloom and despair".

Hugh Janus beat me to it.

I really don't get the point of this list - it's like the guy decided to make a list of sad songs and then got bored with that idea and just decided to look for easy targets.

I remember number 3, Honey, and basically any bad thing that can befall a woman happens to this poor cow - I was never quite sure if the songwriter realised how funny it was. There are some wonderfully mawkish story songs for which there seemed to be a trend in the seventies - I guess the Ode To Billy Joe was the peak of that little trend (actually not bad I suppose). I seem to remember one about some songwriter who meets a girl and they trek around town trying to sell his songs, but by the end he has to sell his guitar. My mum loves that stuff - Abba's Fernando being a particular favorite of hers.

*gulp*
I've been afraid to ask this question at AskMe for fear of being thoroughly stomped on.

Why is Evanescence "bad"? (Yes, that means I like them.)

And please suggest other singers/bands that are similar in style yet are "good".

Double-plus-good if you can tell me why the groups you suggest are good.

I didn't know anyone else still listened to the Eurythmics' soundtrack to 1984. Doubleplusgood, indeed.

I can't thing of another soundtrack to a movie made up of songs all by one band that's anywhere near as good. I mean soundtracks to movies that aren't about bands. Whoah, that's a lot of conditions.

Anyway, if you haven't heard it yet, listen. Depressing? Not particularly. Beautiful? Yes...

When the leaves
Turn from green to brown
And autumn shades
Come tumbling down
To leave a carpet on the ground
Where we have laid

When winter leaves her branches bare
And icy breezes chill the air
The freezing snow lies everywhere
My darling
Will we still be there?

Julia

When spring rejoices
Down the lane
And everything is new again
Will everything be
Just the same
Will we be there?

Oh Julia

And that's just the lyrics (I typically disdain lyrics and overvalue music).

i love that song, Hugh...truly beautiful (i think it'll be on my swap for here)

"Why is Evanescence "bad"?"
Well for me their lyrics all remind me of that girl in grade 9 or 10. You know, bright but withdrawn and always dressed in black? Carried one of those hardbound journals everywhere and wrote in it ALL the time? One time. One time, you make the mistake of talking to her and find out the journals (yes there are hundreds of them) are chock a block with marginalia and endless maudlin poetripe. She is not so much depressed as wanting to be tragic. Mostly she is tedious. That’s what Evanescence sounds like to me. Sorry. It sucks when someone hates your band.

No Joy Division, but plenty of (re)places for it. I suggest we piece together our own.

no hayden? skyscraper national park is post break up music (haven't had time for the new one yet)
i feel so much better about my 'middle of the crooked road' picks now.
except the 14 seconds of "Take a Chance" for crash davis i had to omit.
and 15 seconds of "Faith" for... i forget...

Why is Evanescence "bad"? (Yes, that means I like them.)

Me too, so that makes two of us, anyway.

You can't have a list like this and not include the Smiths or Morrissey. "I Know It's Over" or "Asleep" should definitely be on here.

"Cat's In The Cradle" by Harry Chapin always makes me cry.

I can tell you that the Beatles "For No One" is TEH most depressing song for ME right now...

Your day breaks, your mind aches
You find that all the words of kindness linger on
When she no longer needs you

She wakes up, she makes up
She takes her time and doesn't feel she has to hurry
She no longer needs you

And in her eyes you see nothing
No sign of love behind the tears
Cried for no one
A love that should have lasted years!

You want her, you need her
And yet you don't believe her when she said her love is dead
You think she needs you

And in her eyes you see nothing
No sign of love behind the tears
Cried for no one
A love that should have lasted years!

You stay home, she goes out
She says that long ago she knew someone but now he's gone
She doesn't need him

Your day breaks, your mind aches
There will be time when all the things she said will fil your
head
you won't forget her

And in her eyes you see nothing
No sign of love behind the tears
Cried for no one
A love that should have lasted years!