It’s Valentine’s Day, and you know what that means: Sorrow and extinction. Right? Therefore, it’s especially appropriate that today Invisible Oranges–in partnership with Profound Lore–is giving you a chance to win a copy of Sorrow and Extinction, the new doom-metal masterpiece from Pallbearer.
To be released by PFL on on February 21st, these five tracks of grief and pain combine the thunderous low end of modern day doom with vocals reminiscent of an early period Ozzy.
To enter to win a copy of this wrecking ball of an album, share with us in the comments below the saddest, most mournful, most plainly despondent song in your music library. This contest will end at midnight on the album’s release date, February 21st. And remember: only readers with a mailing address in US or Canada are eligible to enter.
— Kelly Kettering
BUY SORROW AND EXTINCTION
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LISTEN TO SORROW AND EXTINCTION
Profound Lore (NPR Album Stream)
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The absolute saddest, most despondent song in my library is probably “Stay” off of Low’s second album “Long Division.”
Or Gorecki’s 3rd Symphony. Immensely powerful.
Mournful Congregation- The Book of Kings. 33 minutes of fucking misery.
Burzum – Erblicket die Töchter des Firmaments
Justin Beiber’s “Baby” because it makes me fucking depressed that it was produced and then made him rich.
best comment!!!!!
It’s actually in your collection? Now that’s depressing.
Esoteric – Grey Day. No need to explain why.
Shape of Despair- “Entwined in Misery”
The saddest song in my library is “Cut Up, Depressed and Alone” by Loss. It was initially released on their 2004 demo and then made it on to the full length album “Despond” released last year. The song is a 10 minute dirge of absolute sorrow and melancholy littered with self-affliction and adorned with heavy crushing riffs. Definitely one for broken hearts.
Warning – Bridges
Istvan Marta’s “Doom. A Sigh.”
My Dying Bride – For my fallen angel
Shostakovich, Symphony #5.
Berzilla Wallin-Conversations With Death (Oh Death)
Warning – Footprints
Scott Walker “Jesse”, although every song on The Drift is the saddest song ever.
Neurosis – The Tide
The most depressing song in my library is easily Red House Painters’ “Medicine Bottle.” Like most of Mark Kozelek’s best stuff, it’s haunting, bleak, and simultaneously beautifully romantic and uncomfortably obsessive.
Easily side C of Panopticon – Social Disservices. A more mournful, meaningful and moving album I have not yet heard.
Velvet Cacoon – Graveside Sonnet
The subtlest, most melancholic piece of droning ambience.
Anathema – One Last Goodbye
Worship – Eclipse of Sorrow. Music to open your veins to.
Dead Can Dance – The Host of Seraphim
The darkest song in my library is Warning’s “Watching from a Distance”. Every time I hear this song and Pat Walker’s utterly sorrowed vocal I can’t help but mentally picture some lost, forlorn person just aching and pining away for a love unreturned. When a song can haunt my psyche and literally cause me to well up with tears every time I hear it I sadistically want to go back and feel the pain time and again because it moves me in a different way almost every time. If you can listen to that music and labored vocal and not feel a longing you simply don’t understand music.
Codeine: ‘pick up song’
Warning – Faces
Patrick Walkers vocals are spell bounding.
Band: Swans
Song: Failure
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pWStaRmuXzY
Warning – Bridges
Loss – Silent and Completely Overcome…epic track with the first real hint of what Campbell was capable of. His guest spot was way beyond the vocals on the Pallbearer demo…and then after all that you still get 9 more minutes of fucking a Loss track that climaxes with a raging black metal part before a hopeless closing bookend by Campbell. Exhausting.
Definitely Typo O Negative’s Everything Dies.
Type O Negative – Everything Dies
Waiting Around to Die by Townes Van Zandt, easily. Death, drug addictions, loss, despair, and being chased by depression sum up the song. Pure misery
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xTGKzWDakK8
This Dreadful Emptiness – Austere
This is a tough call considering there are many variations of depression, of which different kinds of “depressing” songs go along with. But, since I can only pick one, here’s the song that I currently call the most depressing in my library:
“Outro” by Urfaust
Listen here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Be00t9Xu_fM
Somebody already beat me to something off “Watching From A Distance”…I don’t think “Footprints” can ever be surpassed in this regard.
So, something out of left field:
The acoustic cut of Temple of the Morning Star off Today Is the Day’s album of the same name. That song sounds so sincerely beaten and depressed that it’s almost disturbing to listen to sometimes. As effective as bands like Loss are at creating this kind of despondent atmosphere, sometimes minimalism trumps the big noise.
agree with Warning – Footprints
also Maudlin of the Well – Geography
Conan – Sea Lord off of Horseback Battle Hammer \m/
Thorns of the Carrion – Memories Forever Unadorned
Daniel Powter “You Had a Bad Day”
Ataraxie’s “Funeral Hymn.” Pretty great funeral doom track, made even more special by the hilariously awesome and weird…moan(?) that the vocalist does about halfway through. He’s doing his thing, growling his way through the song, when at the 5 minute mark he decides “fuck it, it’s not worth it anymore” and lets loose this pained moan that sounds like a guy finding out that his wife sold his favorite doom album at their yard sale.
Reverend Bizarre – ‘Funeral Summer’
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ohnM6E_4lSA
JUST FUCKING LISTEN.
(honourable mentions ‘Strange Horizon’ or ‘The Hour of Death’, or CONFESSOR – ‘Alone’)
ps. fuck valentine’s day.
RED HOUSE PAINTERS – Medicine Bottle.
Quiet rock, seemingly peaceful but really fucking desperate and sad.
Black Sabbath- “Solitude”
Alice in Chains- Dirt
Even the main riff is just damn depressing, not to mention the lyrics. “I want you to scrape me off the walls, and go crazy like you’ve made me.” Happy Valentines day.
Damn it! Someone already pointed out “Failure” by Swans… ARGH! Guess I’ll keep looking for another…
The saddest song in my library is “Heavy Eyes” by Dark Castle off of “Surrender to All Life Beyond Form”. Her voice sounds so fucking beyond tortured and still beautiful. The band is just a two piece, simplistic yet devastating, like sadness I guess.
Mine isn’t metal. Metal doesn’t really make me sad. Woods of Ypres, Wolves in the Throne Room, Forgotten Tomb, you name it — none of it evokes mournfulness or despondency in me. In fact, the new Pallbearer album — which I’ve listened to several times via NPR’s stream — just makes me feel good!
Instead, the saddest, most heart-rending song in my collection would be “Keep Me in Your Heart,” by Warren Zevon. The song appears on his last album, “The Wind,” and was written and recorded at a stage where cancer was just about to claim his life. The deep, honest, bare humanity in this song is unrivaled by anything else in the roughly 1500 albums I own.
Swallow the Sun – hope (easily)
Final Relaxation by The Golding Institute
Empty – Anathema
40 Watt Sun – Open My Eyes. The Inside Room was one of the best albums of last year and the track Open My Eyes gets me every time. this song, and the whole album is just full of pain and sorrow.
Pink Reason-Goodbye. This song has alot of emotional discontent.
SWANS – Mother, My Body Disgusts Me
“Time After” on Dirty Three’s Lowlands EP or really anything from that EP; it’s heartbreaking.
song for guy- elton john
just cracks my heart every time- i agree that next to no metal is sad or mournful for me, it is all joyous whereas this has a real melancholy- it tries to smile but it’s just weighed down by the death of guy- i find philip glass and some paul simon also stimulate a deep melancholy in me
and i don’t live in the USA or canada
Naming just one seems a bit difficult, but I’ll go with Type O Negative’s “Bloody Kisses.” The music and lyrics are heavy-hitting as it is, then I read in DECIBEL that he wrote it about a favorite cat that died? It couldn’t get more depressing than that.
The Pogues, And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda. Maybe not the most painful, but the one that always gets me.
i recorded a bit of me crying at the end of Field of Dreams using gargeband. it’s like super duper sad
Alice In Chains – Nutshell
Right now, I’d have to say “Alternate Ending” off Woods V: Grey Skies & Electric Light by Woods of Ypres.
“To Lay Like Old Ashes” – Austere
Tschaikovsky: Symphonie Pathetique – IV (Adagio Lamentoso)
Not just the saddest thing in my music collection, but the most mournful thing I’ve ever heard — I’d even go so far as to wager it’s the most depressing thing ever written. If you haven’t heard it, seriously, find yourself a copy. Within days of its premier performance, the composer had died under questionable circumstances; many theorize that he had killed himself.
you and me
by American Nightmare (and archers of loaf)
Primordial – “The Coffin Ships”
That song is bleak but excellent.
Oh, shit, I forgot about Johnny Cash – “Give My Love to Rose”.
Wow. Absolutely. And his version of NIN’s “Hurt” and the accompanying video is absolutely crippling.
Still Waters Shall Remain Their Tombs by Krieg off of the album Destruction Ritual
Elizabeth Anka Vajagic – “With Hopes Lost”
Miss Misery – Elliot Smith. Do I need to say why? Happy fucking Valentine’s Day!
The Cure “One Hundred Years”
Maggot Brain by Funkadelic
Love me some Warning, but…
Three-way tie:
Mark Lanegan – House A Home
Tom Waits – Tom Traubert’s Blues
(These two songs are both like the book Ironweed in musical form.)
Peter Jeffries & Robbie Muir – The Fate Of The Human Carbine
(Not just sad, but bleak, like the dying embers of the worst, most destructive relationship you ever left.)
Worship-Whispering Gloom (our anything from last tape…)
Woods of Ypres – I Was Buried In Mount Pleasant Cemetary
Hank Williams – Alone and Forsaken. The pinnacle of despondency and loss.
JOYLESS – “The Adorn Japetus”
“Come To Grief” – Grief
Encounter many problems in life
Dealing with a constant strife
Confidence nowhere to be found
Ability run into the ground
My future looks extremely bleak
An immediate exit I seek
Ready to take my chances with fate
Carve my name in a block of slate
Razor blades are everywhere
They’ll help me through my despair
Horizontal slashes-the wrist
Bleed, purge, my final bliss
My equilibrium is way off balance
I should be placed under surveillance
As I add to these holes in the walls
Life’s got me by the balls
Watch me as I come to grief
Writhing in my final release
Agony like you’ve never known
From this clump of dust I’m thrown
Betrayal!!!
Betrayal!!!
Deceived me
I’ll screw you all in the end
Virgin Black – The Kiss of God’s Mouth pt 2
Surely it is not the most evil song but to me it is a truely mournful song. Awesome classical music writer.
Erik Satie – Gnossiennes No.1
Billie Holiday – Strange Fruit
Xasthur – Murdered Echoes of the Mind
Bleak, funereal, like standing on the surface of the moon with only the blackness of space filling your whole range of vision. Malefic’s voice is the sound of the void between the spheres.
hmmm, so much to choose from
anything by pat walker is obvious but i think i will go with:
antimatter – ghosts
actually i change my vote (if i can do that) to:
black wreath – the black holes of your mind
sorry for the double post, don’t disqualify me!
has to be clann zu-one bed room apartment
Count Raven – Until Death Do Us Part
SubRosa – Attack on Golden Mountain
Amebix: “Drink & Be Merry”
space dye vest by dream theater
real sad piano
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6O4_C68PmFI
When I was 14 an older friend talked me into buying that album; Space Dye Vest was the only song I liked. Good pick.
Definitely Disembowelment – Cerulean Transience of All My Imagined Shores
SubRosa: House Carpenter. Stripped down and haunting. It just gets me.
Pere Ubu – Codex
Neurosis-Away
First time I heard it I damn near wept. Still gives me chills.
Samuel Barber’s “Adagio for strings”–you all know it, it was in the movie “Platoon”, and has become sort of the go to tearjerker musical piece of all time.
Neurosis – “the eye of every storm”
I know that the one album to listen to when I’m depressed, and want to be even more depressed, is Nortt’s ‘Gudsforladt.’ And the most devastating one on there is ‘Gravfred.’
Khanate – Every God Damn Thing
When I’m sad/depressed, I listen to music that fits my mood. Normally that helps. That is not the case with this song. Perhaps I just haven’t ever been sad enough. This song goes deep down, past everything I know
Metallica “Enter Sandman” because as soon as I heard it, I knew it was over.
Penderecki’s “Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima.”
will oldham – i see a darkness
Abner Jay – I’m So Depressed
“Solitude” from Black Sabbath’s Master of Reality. fuckin sorrowful
Holocaust, by Big Star. I’ll probably kill myself to this song someday.
Close second would be The Messiah Will Come Again, by Roy Buchanan. One, because it’s obviously bullshit, and that shit hurts. And two, holy fuck does that guitar weep. Never heard anything like it in 30+ years of music consumption. The recorded version is best, but live does the trick too.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=deeBQZ8Aklc
Mahler – Das Lied Von Der Erde: Der Abschied
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wXngQt1CfXk
The composer famously said of this piece, which he never heard performed in his lifetime, “Won’t people go home and shoot themselves?”
Kevin Gilbert, “Song For A Dead Friend”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GNO_AGQcxhg
Of the top of my head is Metnal from Hell (II).
Khanate- “Wings from Spine”
It has to be God Damn The Sun from Swans. I can’t think of anything that’s more bitterly, hopelessly sad than that song. Gira’s vocals are perfect.
Velvet Underground — Heroin.
Prince – When Doves Cry
The saddest song in my music library is “Mandatory Suicide” by Slayer. Of course.
Anathema – Crestfallen
Mary was an icecube -Primus
Lou Reed – Caroline Says II
YOB-Great Cessation
Was going to say something off of Watching from a Distance, but for the sake of not being redundant, I’ll go with Swallow The Sun – “Through Her Silvery Body”.
Plague of Man by Saint Vitus. That solo’s what doom is all about!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lN0SsGmDzn8&t=3m43s
Probably Swans – ‘Blood Promise’ (the version on Swans Are Dead). Swans made a whooooole lot of despondent songs, several of which are on that album, but for me at least it’s the most effective.
Son Volt’s cover the Big Star’s “Holocaust”
Nutshell by AIC. Even more powerful is the unplugged version which started off the set. A frail, pasty Staley emerges, and even though he’s clearly in the throes of a severe drug addiction, that voice still called out painfully and so true. Heartbreaking.
Hmmm . . . Since someone has already mentioned “Goddamn the Sun,” I’m going to go with Richard and Linda Thompson’s “The End of the Rainbow.” Listen and whatever hope is left inside of you will die a beautiful death: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GTZWXrVWtvg
Honorable mention goes to Harvey Milk’s cover of Leonard Cohen’s “One of Us Cannot Be Wrong.”
Yes! The End of the Rainbow and The Great Valerio are my go-to “feel-like-being-sad songs”. Richard Thompson is brilliant.
I know. Even the more upbeat songs on that album–the title track, for instance–have a real melancholy to them. And wow can Richard Thompson play the guitar.
Need to listen to that Big Star song you mentioned.
Yeah, RT is a total shredder. My folk-loving Dad introduced me to his stuff, of all people. I find myself listening to the live version of Calvary Cross an awful lot considering it’s a 10 minute freakout.
Holy shit! I just listened to “The End of the Rainbow” and it hollowed me right out. Awesome!
I gotta give you a second on Harvey Milk’s “One of Us Cannot Be Wrong.” Cohen’s version is soul shattering enough, but Harvey Milk’s is like an emotional black hole. That song will stay with me till the day I die.
Katatonia – Endtime
Wow, so many awesome non-metal “why didn’t I think of that??” picks…
I’ll go with Daniel Johnston’s “Some Things Last A Long Time.” The room echo, the way he sounds like he’s about to break down…man, beautiful song.
Competely un-metal, but Tram’s “Nothing left to say” makes me very uncomfortable, and is absolutely beautiful slow core. Worst break up song ever.
“Dance Music” by the Mountain Goats. The sliver of optimism in the song only makes it that much more depressing because it’s so slight.
not metal, but sad and mournful: Brad Paisley – You’ll Never Leave Harlan Alive
Xasthur – Prison of Mirrors
none more bleak
since bridges by warning has already been taken…
jesu – heartache
“Laughing Hieroglyphic” by Avey Tare (of Animal Collective) has damn near brought me to tears on multiple occasions. The lyrics are somewhat abstract, but the song’s atmosphere is what really reeks of despair and darkness in my opinion.
AIC, Archers of Loaf, Oldham, and Lanegan are all solid choices too.
It is very hard to choose, but I must go with Uaral: Lamentos…
Never have I heard such beauty in acoustic guitars and organ combined with guttural growls, weeping, sobbing and utter desperation.
I’m surprised noone said this one yet,
Neil Diamond – Shiloh. Absolutely soul-crushing.
I’ve been thinking a while about this and I think that the saddest song in my collection has to be “Time” by Pink Floyd. Strange to say that with all of my Jesu, November’s Doom, Swallow the Sun and bands of the like but lyrically, it doesn’t get more futile than “Time”. We can all relate to it, therefore we all fear it.
I’m going to go with Katatonia’s Gateways of Bereavement…
I’ll cast another vote for “God Damn the Sun” by Swans. I played it once for a friend who was no stranger to sad songs; when it was over, he looked me in the eye and said, “Don’t. Ever. Play. That. Again.”
That would be …And Finally I Reach My End by Thy Light
It has no lyrics, just screams of pain and hatred. It’s 13 minutes of pure fucking misery, like rarely ever heard.
Crowbar – Through A Wall of Tears
Black Sabbath – Black Sabbath
tune low, play slow.
“Grave Filled with Books” by Giles Corey. That record is saaaaaaaad. Harvey Milk’s Cohen cover is awesome, too. Turns out I listen to a blue shitload of sad music, now that I had to think about it.
Michael Bolton’s “How am I supposed to Live Without You”… Don’t judge me.
The number of comments this thread has garnered really says something about the mental health of the average IO reader.
@miskatonic and wash jones: my brother and his wife are having twins tomorrow. Can’t wait to sing them “end of the rainbow.”. Anything works as a lullaby until they’re old enough to understand words.
+ 1 on the Warning choices.
Outside of metal, I’d have to go with Townes Van Zandt, “Marie.” Brutal and bleak lyrically but so fucking real. A spiral descent into despair that is not merely existential but also quite literally material: every detail of the homeless narrator’s deepening destitution, every couplet building towards inevitable disaster: no house, no money, no car, no job, no family, no more unemployment checks. Options disappear one by one. Then his girlfriend Marie gets pregnant. Claustrophobic despair settles in. They’re sleeping under a bridge, hungry, freezing, night after night. The kicker is when she finally dies, pregnant: she just fails to wake up… with his “little boy safe inside.” SAFE!!! God, what a fucking bleak, hopeless tale. Seek out a live version with just his baritone croak and spare minor-key strum.
Death: “Voice of the Soul”
Undoubtedly the woe-inspiring effect the song has on me is compounded by the knowledge of the fate Chuck would meet all too soon thereafter
The most despondent, melancholic track in my library that immediately comes to mind is “No One There” by Sentenced. The last track from (my favorite Sentenced album) The Cold White Light brings the tragic album to a halting close. Themes of isolation, hopelessness and despair resonate throughout the six-minute duration of the song. Vocalist Ville Laihiala laments the prospect of facing one’s own death, while facing the prospect of dying completely alone. In addition, Miika Tenkula’s and Sami Lopakka’s guitar playing add a somber, yet entirely pleasurable component to “No One There.” I can repeatedly listen to “No One There” despite it being such a damn depressing song. When some people think of death they think of the end of a celebrated life, passing at home close to loved ones, a natural part of life that should not be feared and so forth. In “No One There” Sentenced associate loneliness, hopelessness and solitude among others with death. In other words, death is not portrayed as an honorable or pleasurable experience. I love the connection of death to the freezing cold. Perhaps the bleakest part of the entire track is the last forty seconds where the listener is overwhelmed with a convergence of white noise and primitive animal screams, similar to the sound effects that begin The Cold White Light. As ye begin, so shall ye depart. “No One There” is a beautiful yet mournful track that is the perfect closing track to an otherwise brilliant album.
“Spinal Meningitis” by Ween. I imagined that was one of my kids, now I can’t even listen to it.
Pallbearer is beautiful. Especially Chuck.
“Alduteress’ Punishment” – Riz Ortolani
Magnetic Fields – “I Looked All Over Town,” off the album i.
Slightly funny, mostly sad.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CZKws4kfZXo
Not qualified, but I pick “Inches away” by The Montgolfier Brothers. Roger Quigley’s laments while the clock is ticking used to give me shivers. The other side of a happy Valentine.
I’d have to say that the song in my library that fits all of the descriptions mentioned above the best, would be Katatonia’s “Quiet World” off the Saw you Drown EP.
40 Watt Sun – “Carry Me Home”
“Ebony Eyes” by The Everly Brothers. It’s a bit melodramatic, but cathartic. Gets me everytime…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A1q1nmlPPyE
Loss – Cut Up, Depressed And Alone from their 10″ Life Without Hope…Death Without Reason
Saddest song in my collection by far also one of the best!
harvey milk – in the ground
makes me wanna kill myself
Alot of sad songs out there. My choice:
Guy Clark – Desperadoes Waiting For A Train
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FZTZqkDOoJ0
I played the Red River Valley.
He’d sit in the kitchen and cry.
Run his fingers through seventy years of livin’.
“I wonder, Lord, has every well I’ve drilled gone dry?”.
We were friends, me and this old man,
Like desperados waitin’ for a train.
Desperados waitin’ for a train.
Well, he’s a drifter an’ a driller of oil wells.
And an old school man of the world.
He taught me how to drive his car when he w’s too drunk to.
Oh, and he’d wink and give me money for the girls.
An’ our lives were like, some old Western movie,
Like desperados waitin’ for a train.
Like desperados waitin’ for a train.
An’ from the time that I could walk, he’d take me with him,
To a bar called the Green Frog Cafe.
An’ there was old men with beer guts and dominos.
Oh, an they’re lying ’bout their lives while they played.
An’ I was just a kid, that they all called his sidekick,
Like desperados waitin’ for a train.
Like desperados waitin’ for a train.
One day I looked up and he’s pushin’ eighty.
An’ he’s brown tobacco stains all down his chin.
Well, to me he’s one of the heroes of this country,
So why’s he all dressed up like them old men?
He’s drinkin’ beer and playin’ Moon and Forty-two.
Like a desperado waitin’ for a train.
Like a desperado waitin’ for a train.
An’ then the day before he died, I went to see him,
I was grown and he was almost gone.
So we just closed our eyes and dreamed us up a kitchen,
And sang another verse to that old song.
Come on, Jack, that son-of-a-bitch is comin’.
We’re like desperados waitin’ for a train
Like desperados waitin’ for a train.
“Changes” by Black Sabbath. I listened to this song every day during the month that I had to give up weed in order to get a job. It’s just so perfect because 1.) it sucks, because the best parts of Black Sabbath are missing, and 2.) it’s about giving up your best friend. I ended up smoking weed again and not even showing up for the interview. Needless to say, that song helped me realize what’s important in life.
Colosseum – Dilapidation and Death
Seconding Townes Van Zandt’s “Waiting ‘Round to Die.” Thirding Swans’ “God Damn the Sun.”
And for the sake of adding something to the discussion, how about “I Want You” by Elvis Costello? Frequently mistaken for a romantic number (see the movie footage accompanying this YouTube rip http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=knTvHRz_qnU), it’s sung from the point of view of a terminally ill man who’s discovered that his lover has already moved on. Really grindingly bitter and bleak.
nick cave and the bad seeds “song of joy” off of Murder Ballads
None of you buck swags mentioned Faster Pussycat’s “House Of Pain” or Kamelot’s “A Sailorman’s Hymn”. Aww screw it! Let’s go with Johnny Cash’s “Spiritual”. I will also agree with the above-mentioned “Enter Sandman” quip. . . toooooo-chay, bugfriend!!
Katatonia – Journey Through The Pressure
It’s pretty sad.
Jawbreaker – Accident Prone
always.
Immediately sprung to mind was Loss’s track off the Four Burials four-way split between them, Mournful Congregation, Orthodox & Otesanek. Doom…is for those whose hearts beat slower.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zd9Z2NvRglA
My Dying Bride – For You
Saddest song in my library is sad for me and maybe not so much for others, I don’t know why it’s so overwhelmingly sad for me but it is and it’s completely nostalgic. I love the song but I can’t listen to it often. Wolf People’s Banks of Sweet Dundee parts I & II from their 2010 album Steeple. Definitely recommended.
Tom Waits – Invitation to the Blues…his line about “a broken down jalopy of a man I left behind” gets me every time.
Mercy mercy, Mr. Percy, there ain’t nothing back in Jersey
But a broken-down jalopy of a man I left behind
And the dream that I was chasing, and a battle with booze
And an open invitation to the blues
Neil Young’s “The Needle and the Damage Done” is the first thing that comes to mind.
Band/Artist: Red House Painters
Song: “Drop”
Agalloch, “The Melancholy Spirit,” off Pale Folklore.
The music is bleak as could be, and there’s not one bit of hope in these lyrics:
One last time I witnessed her beauty in the distance
The arms of the trees tore at her morbid gown swaying in the loathsome winter breeze
She faded before my eyes
Since that day a thousand veiled birds have taken flight
And the melancholy rain still pours forever on…
ColdWorld – Tortured By Solitude
Mouth of th Architect’s Time and Withering is a pretty sad sounding album. I dig it though. It is a perfect album for me to listen to at times. The closing track “the Worm” is excellent.