The 25 Most Exquisitely Sad Songs in the Whole World: No. 25 - Spinner.com: "There's no shortage of sad songs about rainy days and lovers who don't bring flowers. And then there are songs that truly bring the pain -- songs so despairing they can make us wonder why we even bother. Here are 25 little ditties so crushing, they could knock Dick Cheney to his knees. "
No "Teen Angel"? No "Tell Laura I Love Her"? No "Last Kiss"?
14 comments:
My first thought was "Strange Fruit". It more of a protest song than a pop song though.
I never heard of half of them. But they should have included "It's Over" - Roy Orbison was the King of Sad Songs.
I guess the ones I mentioned weren't "sensitive" enough for the list.
They meant to say "The 25 Most Exquisitely Obscure Sad Songs in the Whole World". I recognized several of the artists, but only three of the songs.
"Last Kiss" was a tearjerker for two different generations - Pearl Jam's cover was their top single.
You can't beat the classics, no matter who does them.
Nah, if they went for obscure (but not THAT obscure), they could've done a better job that way, too...Big Star's "Holocaust"...Human Sexual Response's "Anne Frank Story"...Trusty's "Honey Mustard"...Jawbox's "Tongues"...Husker Du's "Visionary"...The Roches' "The Hammond Song"...Spitboy's "Removal"...Lambert, Hendricks, & Ross's "Moanin'"...Gil Scott-Heron's "Did You Hear What They Said?"...even a song as triumphal on one level as Abbey Lincoln's "Africa"...then there are Mussourgsky's songs and the Kindertotenlieder, among other toe-tappers...
...and I didn't even mention the folk (aside, I guess, from the Roches) and bluegress songs that come to mind, or Loretta Lynn's "DIVORCE" or any number of other country songs that match the Jones...and Cash could break your heart singing "City of New Orleans." Lee Hays doing "East Virginia." Like that.
Richard Thompson's songs for Fairport Convention, such as "Farewell, Farewell"...no Robert Johnson mentioned, either...or is "Hellhound on My Trail" just too scary to be sad. OK, I'll stop now. What a great lot of miserable music came back to mind, though. And "bluegress", which is bluegrass which digresses, I suppose...dawg jazz, perhaps.
The good news is that Bobby Goldsboro's "Honey" isn't on the list.
Yes, it would be rather unsurprisingly PoMo to put "Seasons in the Sun" or "Cat's in the Cradle" on such a list.
Man, I hadn't even thought of those. Too bad you reminded me.
Glad to see Johnny Cash's version of Hurt on the list, albeit too low (it was #4). On the whole though the list looks like it was compiled by people who believe that with only a few exceptions any song written before they were born has to be bad.
The Cash version is a great one, all right.
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