Bleakest, saddest song you've ever heard?

[SoCal1]

Patches by Clarence Carter. Not a dry eye in the house.

[CJ_Horror]

Poison Heart - The Ramones. Dee Dee was really on to something there.

[Kmonk]

Eric Clapton - "Tears In Heaven". Not sure how anyone who has children can't get choked up by it. When Conor Clapton died, my son was only 2 years younger. It effected me to the point that I still have trouble listening to the song.

[ZeroSymbolic]

DEAD CHILDREN

Some dead children with burnt skins
Are playing under a dead snow, wearing gas-masks
A heavy and suffocating atmosphere
Mixing sulphur and dust with the smell of cadavers
They dance among the ruins, among human corpses
Hand in hand, they enjoy their despair

Angels of misery...rise...

As they heard a move, they stop their game
Their lifeless eyes gazing to me
crows are stopping their flights and vultures their lunch
All of them found in me their new target

claws and kicks are beating me
Violating my bitter body
I scream and enjoy this suffering
Till my blood color the ground

From above, the black snow is falling around me
Lost and mutilated in a world I can't understand
The children laugh about my own misery
Spread your wings, angels of misery

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1bo3JMNFupw

A genuinely bleak metal song. That feels sincere rather than extreme for extremities sake. Nocturnal Depression is an amazing depressive black metal band. Somehow the fact that the guitarist had a birth condition which malformed his hand into a crab-claw like appendage adds to it.

[BenBL]

Screen - Twenty One Pilots

And many many of Ben Folds' solo works

[azureblue]

"You and I" from the play "Chess". and also from the play "I Know Him so Well". I played a run of the play, and it was tough to stay dry eyed through these tunes. Girl keys player cried all the way through them..... they are both on you tube..

[srxplayer]

Concrete Angel-Martina McBride. This song kills me. Not sure who wrote it but the piano intro alone is about the saddest thing I have ever heard.

[Tommygunn]

John Wayne Gacy Jr. - Sufjan Stevens

[Kenzy]

Johnny Cash did a cover of the song "Hurt" by The Black Keys.
The Cash version is very sad. So...

"Hurt" - Johnny Cash

[Sequimite]

Originally Posted by pkivory

Sam Stone - John Prine

+1 particularly for those of us from the Viet Nam era

The chorus starts: "There's a hole in daddy's arm where all the money goes"

[ZeroSymbolic]

Originally Posted by Kenzy

Johnny Cash did a cover of the song "Hurt" by The Black Keys.
The Cash version is very sad. So...

"Hurt" - Johnny Cash

"Hurt" was written by Trent Reznor (Nine Inch Nails) not the Black Keys bro.


I'd also mention "In this River" by Black Label Society. Particularly the video is gut wrenching.

[kevteop]

Last Night I Dreamt That Somebody Loved Me - The Smiths.

The Smiths do a pretty good line in tongue-in-cheek misery and ironic lament, but that one is sincere and they do a brilliant job of it.

[macmanlou]

Originally Posted by champbassist

What's the saddest song you've ever heard?

The Ballad of Penny Evans - by Steve Goodman

Which is also from the Vietnam Era...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j6W_a2U-bIU

Best regards,
Lou

[ZeroSymbolic]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kXgbN81zNG8

"you made me feel like I was somebody else, somebody good/you just keep me hanging on"

[jphovercraft]

Marie - Randy Newman:

"And I don't listen to a word you say
When you're in trouble I just turn away"

It Makes No Difference - The Band

"These old love letters, I just can't keep
Just like the gambler says, 'Read 'em and weep' "

[ZeroSymbolic]

LAst one for a while, but

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kkcbxjWG9Mc

Explains exactly what happened to me and my feelings toward my father.


Father of mine
Tell me where have you been
You know I just closed my eyes
My whole world disappeared
Father of mine
Take me back to the day
Yeah when I was still your golden boy
Back before you went away

I remember blue skies
Walking the block
I loved it when you held me high
I loved TO HEAR YOU TALK
You would take me to the movie
You would take me to the beach
You would take me to a place inside
That's so hard to reach

Oh

Father of mine
Tell me where did you go
Yeah you had the world inside your hand
But you did not seem to know
Father of mine
Tell me what do you see
When you look back at your wasted life
And you don't see me

I was ten years old
Doing all that I could
It wasn't easy for me
To be a scared white boy
In a black neighborhood
Sometimes you would send me a birthday card
With a five dollar bill
I never understood you then
And I guess I never will

Daddy gave me a name
My daddy gave me a name
Then he walked away
Daddy gave me a name
Then he walked away
My daddy he gave me a name

Oh yeah
Oh yeah

Daddy gave me a name
Daddy gave me a name
Then he walked away
Daddy gave me a name
Then he walked away
My daddy gave me a name

Yeah
Yeah
Oh yeah

Father of mine
Tell me where have you been
Yea I just closed my eyes
And the world disappeared
Father of mine
Tell me how do you sleep
With the children you abandoned
And the wife I saw you beat

I will never be safe
I will never be sane
I will always be weird inside
I will always be lame
Now that I'm a grown man
With a child of my own
And I swear I'll never let her know
All the pain I have known

Then he walked away
Daddy gave me a name
Then he walked away
My daddy gave me a name
Then he walked away
My daddy gave me a name
Then he walked away
My daddy gave me a name

Then he walked away (yeah)
Then he walked away (yeah)
Then he walked away (oh yeah)

[GLEN18INCHSPICA]

"Amazing Grace" played on bagpipes gets me every time. The climactic music in the 90's version of "Last Of The Mohicans". "The Funeral" by Band Of Horses. I'm not the most emotional person but the right collection of notes & tones will get the waterworks going.

[ZeroSymbolic]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1R2F9f2Cl6Y

Anybody put that one up yet?

[Cody Stanley]

Megadeth - Countdown to Extinction

[mcm]

Whispering pines by the band. Hands down