What do you think is the saddest song ever?

je suis venu te dire que je m'en vais!

 

"avec le temps" from french singer leo ferré

 

Emma - Hot Chocolate

 

Downbound Train-Springsteen

 

oooooh yes.

 

Losing You - Randy Newman

 

I've thought for years that the final note of Dusty Springfield's rendition of Carole King's "Goin' Back" is just about the saddest thing I've ever heard.

 

"Stay With Me Baby." Terry Reid and the original by Lorraine Ellison.

"Didn't I give you everything in return for a memory?" Sigh.

 

Jesus' Blood Never Failed Me Yet-tramp version.
I bought the cd (with the newer version) but after one listen I knew this was beautiful and too sad for words. The Tom Wait's version is better-known, but lacks the impact of the anonymity.
Listen at your own risk!

 

sorry if mentioned already, but 'grow old with me' by John Lennon, for obvious reasons.

 

The Blue Nile - Regret
B-side of Tinseltown In The Rain 12"

I was going to post the youtube video, but it's not official and has nothing to do with the song. Instead, it uses imagery from 9/11. Awful.

 

Thats a great call from Moomaloo on that piece - very moving.

If not already in the mix I'd like to add:

Rainbow - Rainbow Eyes



She's been gone since yesterday
Oh I didn't care
Never cared for yesterdays
Fancies in the air

No sighs or mysteries
She lay golden in the sun
No broken harmonies
But I've lost my way
She had rainbow eyes
Rainbow eyes
Rainbow eyes

Love should be a simple blend
A whispering on the shore
No clever words you can't defend
They lead to never more

No sighs or mysteries
She lay golden in the sun
No broken harmonies
But I've lost my way
She had rainbow eyes
Rainbow eyes
Rainbow eyes

Summer nights are colder now
They've taken down the fair
All the lights have died somehow
Or were they ever there

No sighs or mysteries
She lay golden in the sun
No broken harmonies
But I've lost my way
She had rainbow eyes


And this piece by Neil Young is totally perfect for the occasion in the movie:

Neil Young - Philadelphia

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E1vEYXblmZQ

Sometimes I think that I know
What love's all about
And when I see the light
I know I'll be all right.

I've got my friends in the world,
I had my friends
When we were boys and girls
And the secrets came unfurled.

City of brotherly love
Place I call home
Don't turn your back on me
I don't want to be alone
Love lasts forever.

Someone is talking to me,
Calling my name
Tell me I'm not to blame
I won't be ashamed of love.

Philadelphia,
City of brotherly love.
Brotherly love.

Sometimes I think that I know
What love's all about
And when I see the light
I know I'll be all right.
Philadelphia.

 

Honey, Bobby Goldsboro. *cough*

 

Richard Thompson--End of the Rainbow


Gotta be up there...

 

Bryan Ferry -- whom I consider an arbiter of sadness -- was once asked this question, and nominated Otis Redding's "The Dock of the Bay," specifically because of the chirpy whistling.

Whistling is often thought to indicate happiness -- Rodgers and Hammerstein sure thought so, plus there's "Bennie and the Jets," "Don't Worry, Be Happy," "Daydream," and "Walk Like An Egyptian." But in pop, I think it's more often (and more successfully) used to connote sadness: "Games Without Frontiers," "The Stranger," "Never Had No One Ever," lots of Ennio Morricone and Guns N' Roses, and let us never forget "Billy Don't Be A Hero." And then there's "Always Look On the Bright Side of Life," where the whistling is consciously meta.

Ferry was a better whistler than John Lennon, as proved on Roxy Music's cover of "Jealous Guy" (their only #1 single in England).

 

"Routine" -- Steven Wilson, Hand.Cannot.Erase

"Happy Returns" -- Steven Wilson, Hand.Cannot.Eras

"Hello In There-O" -- John Prine

 

Unforgettable sad songs with minimal or no instrumentation:

"With God on Our Side" -- Dylan song as performed by Aaron Neville on Believe

"Pull Down Lads" -- June Tabor

"No Man's Land" and "The Band Played Waltzing Matilda" -- Eric Bogle songs as performed by June Tabor

 

I think June Tabor might be the queen of sad: brilliant interpretations of often-sad material. To your choices, I would add "The Writing of Tipperary / It's a Long Way to Tipperary" (the pause between the two always makes me start to tear up) and her gut-wrenching cover of the Watersons' "The Scarecrow."

 

Derek and the Dominos- Layla

A cry of anguish set to music

 

"Jump" as performed by Van Halen yesterday on Ellen.

 

"The Hollow Man" by Marillion. And yes, I love it.

 

Gram Parsons - Brass Buttons & $1000 Wedding taken back to back could actually be debilitating....

 

"I Can't Make You Love Me"

by Bonnie Raitt

 

Nick Drake - Time has Told Me

 

To me, it has to be whatever song they decide to play at my funeral...