Pazartesi 11 Oca 2010, 19:31

For the past fourteen years (since I started using Napster in middle school), one of my persisting online preoccupations has been finding cripplingly sad songs. The kinds of songs most people generally avoid, outside of awful circumstances and situations of extreme duress. On the other hand, there are those who can listen to little else. In either case, I thought this might be a thing worth sharing. One thing I've found to be true is that there isn't a great deal of overlap in the kinds of songs different folks find to be sad. There are infinite shades of sorrow, and although the soul-broken depression of Jandek's "Down In A Mirror" is pretty far-flung from the simple sadness found in a song like Jewel's "You Were Meant For Me," there isn't anything more real/legitimate/"authentic" about one or the other's sadness. Jewel and Jandek are both going to die. We're all going to die, and there's nothing any of us can do about it. I've done my best to include the saddest songs of every genre and every kind of sadness, without prejudice. With that preface, the list of the saddest songs I know:

Afghan Whigs - When We Two Parted
American Football - Never Meant
Anathema - Are You There?
The Angelic Process - We All Die Laughing
Aphex Twin - Blur, Rhubarb
Autechre - Vletrmx21
Bark Psychosis - From What Is Said To When It's Read
William Basinski - Variations: A Movement In Chrome Primitive - Part 1
The Beach Boys - Caroline, No
Bonnie "Prince" Billy - Careless Love, At Break of Day
The Blue Nile - From a Late Night Train
Broadcast - You and Me in Time
Tim Buckley - Song to the Siren
Burial - In McDonalds
Cage, John - String Quartet in Four Parts
Boards of Canada - Music is Math, Corsair
Mariah Carey - Breakdown
Carissa's Wierd - Lazy Eyelids, The Color That Your Eyes Changed With The Color Of Your Hair, You Should Be Hated Here
Celer - Menggayakan
Tracy Chapman - Fast Car
Codeine - Tom
Cold - Ugly, Same Drug, Strip Her Down
Dashboard Confessional - The Places You Have Come To Fear The Most
Daniel Johnston - Some Things Last a Long Time
Death Cab for Cutie - Sleep Spent
Julie Doiron - Gone, Gone; He Will Forget
Nick Drake - Fly (the Time of No Reply take especially)
elite gymnastics - h e r e , i n h e a v e n 2
The Field Mice - And Before The First Kiss
Feldman, Morton - Palais de Mari (for Francesco Clemente)
Fleetwood Mac - Landslide
For Stars - There Was a River
Jackson C. Frank - Just Like Anything
From Autumn to Ashes - Short Stories With Tragic Endings, Autumns Monologue
Ernie (as voiced by Jim Henson) - I Don't Want to Live on the Moon
Grouper - Heavy Water/I'd Rather Be Sleeping, Pulse
Tim Hecker - In The Air III
Don Henley - New York Minute
Hood - Closure, Diesel Pioneers
Interpol - A Time To Be So Small
Jandek - Down in a Mirror
Jesu - Friends Are Evil, Broken Home
Kayo Dot - The Manifold Curiosity
Low - Murderer, Lust
Maёror Tri - These Tears Will Crystallize
Dave Matthews - Crush
Cass McCombs - Saturday Song
The Microphones - Where Lies My Tarp?
Mogwai - CODY, Tracy, R U Still Into It, Hunted By A Freak
Jason Molina - No Moon On the Water
Momus - Suicide Pact
Mount Eerie - Let's Get out of the Romance, I Say "No"
The Mountain Goats - Maize Stalk Drinking Blood, The Mess Inside, New Britain, Orange Ball of Pain
My Bloody Valentine - No More Sorry
Randy Newman - I Miss You
Roy Orbison - A Love So Beautiful
Jim O'Rourke - Halfway to a Threeway
Owen - Nobody's Nothing
Pärt, Arvo - Silouans Song
Tom Petty - Echo
Rachel's - Falling In With Fire
Radiohead - How to Disappear Completely, Let Down
Red House Painters - Drop, Katy Song, Medicine Bottle
Alasdair Roberts - Ye Banks And Braes O' Bonnie Doon, The Wife Of Usher's Well, Lord Gregory
S - Losers, Crushed
The 6ths - Give Me Back My Dreams
Slint - Washer
Slowdive - Machine Gun, Crazy For You, Catch the Breeze
Elliott Smith - Pitseleh, Abused, Can't Make A Sound, I Didn't Understand
The Smiths - Asleep, I Know It's Over
Smog - I Could Drive Forever, To Be of Use, All Your Women Things
The Softies - Hello Rain, Sleep Away Your Troubles
Staind - 4 Walls, Home
The Supremes - Stop! In The Name Of Love
Team Sleep - Death By Plane
Telefon Tel Aviv - I Lied
Tiamat - To Have and Have Not
Suzanne Vega - Luka
Venetian Snares - Colorless
Tom Waits - Lonely
Gillian Welch - I Dream A Highway
The Wrens - Happy
Xasthur - Masquerade Of Incisions, Trauma Will Always Linger
Xiu Xiu - Homonculus, Rose of Sharon (Grey Ghost Version)

If you have anything that you think should be on this list, feel free to write in below. At the end of the day it's still my party, but I give an attentive, honest listen to anything posted.