Random. The saddest songs you've ever heard....

[tonepoet]

+1 on "Outskirts" by James McMurtry. He has written so many moving tunes.

 

[Uke]

Specifically this later version that Dean recorded a few years before his death. It’s so much more intimate than the original over produced version. Beautiful song but it’s hard to keep from tearing up.

Amazing what a re-setting of a song can bring out.

 

[Uke]

Check out "The Saddest Music Ever Written: The Story of Samuel Barber's 'Adagio For Strings'" by Thomas Larson. Interesting book. The two works always sounded like siblings to me.

 

[HeyMikey]

Curse you Tom! Now I’m sitting here trying to work and balling my eyes out over all these sad songs.

 

[Uke]

 

[tonepoet]

Rita Coolidge's version of "Love Has No Pride" gets to me every time. 1) Because of how she sings it. 2) Because the first time I heard it, I was probably 20, asleep on the couch after a day at a factory and my Dad put this on with a good volume level on his Bose speakers and I lay there listening to it, waking, but not quite awake and without opening my eyes. It's one of the most peaceful moments of my life. And because it's heavily associated to my Dad, the last line "And I'd give anything to see you again" gets me every time. Thanks Dad

 

[Uke]

I'll go first. I know the lyrics and I know the chords. But honestly I just can't get through this song without breaking down.

So do you have a song like that?? Please share....



The name she gave was Caroline
Daughter of a miner
Her ways were free
It seemed to me
That sunshine walked beside her
She came from Spencer
Across the hill
She said her pa had sent her
'cause the coal was low
And soon the snow
Would turn the skies to winter
She said she'd come
To look for work
She was not seeking favors
And for a dime a day
And a place to stay
She'd turn those hands to labor
But the times were hard, Lord,
The jobs were few
All through Tecumseh valley
But she asked around
And a job she found
Tending bar at Gypsy Sally's
She saved enough to get back home
When spring replaced the winter
But her dreams were denied
Her pa had died
The word come down from Spencer
So she turned to whorin' out on the streets
With all the lust inside her
And it was many a man
Returned again
To lay himself beside her
They found her down beneath the stairs
That led to Gypsy Sally's
In her hand when she died
Was a note that cried
Fare thee well
Tecumseh valley
The name she gave was Caroline
Daughter of a miner
Her ways were free
It seemed to me
That sunshine walked beside her....

By the time one gets to the end of this thread one might need to up one's antidepressant.

 

[Charlie Bernstein]

Saw Commander Cody and the Lost Planet Airmen do this live a few times in Michigan back in the early 1970s. They were based in Ann Arbor, Michigan before they moved to California. They were certainly different than seeing the average rock band performing back then.

One of the funnest shows I've ever been to was around '71 at the Berkeley Community Center. A triple-header: CC and his LPA, Asleep At the Wheel, and Dan Hicks and his Hot Licks.

Ohmigosh. Too much fun!

 

[tonepoet]

On the classical side, I'll throw in Tchaikovsky's String Quartet No. 1.

 

[tonepoet]

From 1969, Terry Reid's cover of "Stay With Me Baby"

 

[Minnesota Flats]

 

[Bill Ashton]

Maybe just because I have been too involved with this sort of thing...not this incident of course, happened before
I was born, but the song gets me every time...

cold missouri waters cry cry cry - Google Search

www.google.com

The first version I ever heard was by Cry Cry Cry, I have added this second one as the images may well be better...



I can't seem to get past that first verse without clouding up.

 

[jp]

This one always gets me. Here's a great live version.



Update:
How could I forget this one.

 

[James Hart]

I tear up every damn time!

 

[crank]

Maybe just because I have been too involved with this sort of thing...not this incident of course, happened before
I was born, but the song gets me every time...

cold missouri waters cry cry cry - Google Search

www.google.com

The first version I ever heard was by Cry Cry Cry, I have added this second one as the images may well be better...



I can't seem to get past that first verse without clouding up.

I have read Young Men and Fire more than once.

 

[lungimsam]

There's a few but this one ranks in the top 5 probably:
Same Deep Water as You

 

[Maguchi]

I Got the Blues - The Rolling Stones

 

[tonepoet]

Tim Buckley "I Must Have Been Blind"

To hold something real
And not believe it
To live in life
And never trust it
To give all you know and never feel it
To hold back each day
Until it dies away

Both of us know how hard it is
to love and let it go
Both of us know how hard it is
to go on living that way
When so few understand
what it means to fall in love
And so few know how hard it is
to live without it
I must have been blind

 

[tonepoet]

John Prine "Hello In There" can choke me up.

You know that old trees just grow stronger
And old rivers grow wilder every day
Old people just grow lonesome
Waiting for someone to say, "Hello in there, hello"

So if you're walking down the street sometime
And spot some hollow ancient eyes
Please don't just pass 'em by and stare
As if you didn't care, say, "Hello in there, hello"

 

[Rich Cohen]

This one's pretty sad. Rodney Crowell: Rock of My Soul.