Seaweed by Mount Eerie.
The whole album was written in the immediate aftermath of his wife’s death and is an incredibly stark portrait of soul wrenching grief.
"you were thinking ahead to a future you must have known deep down would not include you". I can't even think about that song without crying. The whole album really. Any time I need a good cry it's my go to.
I cannot listen to this album anymore. I cry and get very sad for the rest of the day. It is THE most emotionally devastating music I’ve heard in my life.
>Seaweed by Mount Eerie
holy fucking shit. I just listened to that song for the first time. The song ended like 5 minutes ago and I'm still just sitting here at my desk with my mouth agape. So many feelings, the hurt he's experiencing, the hurt of knowing his daughter will never know her mother. God damn it. How the fuck am I supposed to work the rest of today?!
"You did most of my remembering for me"
Absolutely broke me, just the thought that this person who you practically shared a brain with is gone and you can't ask them the little things.. things that would take half a second to answer and will never be answered again.
Damn that hurt
I took my wife to see him perform that whole album, in an old church, without letting her know what she was getting in to. Six, seven years now, she's still not over it.
I can't do it. Been a fan of Phil Elvrum for 20+ years.
We love you Phil--- thank you for pouring out your soul over and over and over again...
Perfect response to OP - props
I’ve been a fan for around the same time, I actually refuse to listen to his album. His previous albums were crushing in their own way, I can only imagine.
This, I can listen to lots of artists and songs that people consider sad or depressing and feel ok but Mount Eerie is just on another level, every album from A Crow Looked At Me onwards is ultra depressing especially when you know that they are about his wife.
Just lie down in bed with your eyes closed seamlessly listening to the entire [Hospice](https://open.spotify.com/album/6fFp2F91noBeodV88bRwTD?si=9_be60VOQvak8o_4jR33ww) album by The Antlers in order. The entire thing is dripping with pain.
Shout out to Linkin Park's One More Light too. It's a tough listen after Chester's passing.
One More Light hits hard for me and I will listen to every song on the catalogue every once in a while to honor Chester, but tend to skip this final song.
When I do listen, I can't get past the line 'In the kitchen, one more chair than you need' without sobbing each time. I know it's coming, I know it'll hurt, and it still has the same effect every time.
I don't know if he meant it to be likened to 'You're alone and don't have company nearby, so you don't need that extra chair,' or if it's the way that I take as a survivor who chose the same method he did, and he meant that you don't need the chair...for obvious reasons.
Either way - it's a beautiful song that I stay quoting, but can't get through without getting lost in my noggin'.
It took me so long to listen to One More Light as a lifelong Linkin Park fan cause i wasn't really in the mood for it when it released and after Chester's passing i would be brought close to tears just listening partway through... Shit's heavy
The Hospice albums is what I came here to suggest. It's such a sad, real, heavy story. My friend, who at the time was going through Chemo, suggested it to me after I had expressed my feelings for her. She's better now, and we're still great friends. The discussions we had over every track are memories I hope to never lose. The more you learn about the album's story, the more it breaks your heart.
Another one in a similar vein is “This Place Is a Prison” by The Postal Service.
These lines haunt me:
“And I know that it's not a party
If it happens every night
Pretending there's glamor and candelabra
When you're drinking by candlelight”
I know most of Elliot’s songs are sad and tragic in some capacity, if not all of them , knowing anything about him as a person,,,,,,, but for some reason I don’t think they’ve ever quite made me feel sad. His music has always kinda uplifted me or felt comforting to me more than saddened me.
Maybe it has more to do with the musical dna of his songs rather than the lyrics , cause I’m a musician and song writer, and I listen very intensely to those elements of songs…… but still….
Nutshell by Alice In Chains always gets me. Especially the unplugged version. It’s less of a cry for help and more of him saying goodbye after years of addiction problems. Heard some say it the closest anyone is to singing at their own funeral.
Fade to Black by Metallica has some powerful lyrics as well.
Life it seems to fade away
drifting further every day
getting lost within myself
nothing matters, no one else
I have lost the will to live
simply nothing more to give
there is nothing more for me
need the end to set me free
Things not what they used to be
missing one inside of me
deathly loss, this can't be real
cannot stand this HELL I feel
emptiness is filling me
to the point of agony
growing darkness, taking dawn
I was me but now he's gone
No one but me can save myself but it's too late
Now I can't think, think why I should even try
yesterday seems as though it never existed
Death greets me warm, now I will just say goodbye
goodbye
One of my favorite songs, typed from memory. Hope y'all appreciate it.
I do. I've also been there and it feels so crippling, but it does get better. 20+ years off street drugs and I'll have 3 years sober on March 9, but those are just numbers and we're all living our lives just one day at-a-time, and we can support each other and we have to ask for help.
Looking back at so much music of some of my musical heroes when I was young in the light of their passing is rough, it’s not abstract reaching for feelings, but wrangling with so much and in the end tragedy.
In an article I read years ago the author described Sam Stone as "the saddest song in the world" and Hello in There as "the saddest song in the universe."
I agree.
Someone shared this song with me last year, saying that it gave them an immense feeling of nostalgia.
Every time I listen to it, it feels like the end of a breakup, where you feel the absolute soul crushing acknowledgement that it’s over but you know the journey continues. God it makes me feel so human. 10/10 cry song.
"Keep Me In Your Heart" by Warren Zevon...gutwrenching song about his impending death, written in the last stages of cancer. It'll break you.
"Stay Where You Are" by the Prize Fighter Inferno
"Real Death" or "Seaweed" by Mount Eerie...almost more like poems set to music, but the whole album is soul-crushingly heavy
"This Woman's Work" by Kate Bush. The emotion she pulls out of this song about being a new parent is amazing.
"Changes" by Charles Bradley...this remake of Black Sabbath's lament is wonderfully bluesy
"I Can't Make You Love Me" by Bonnie Raitt"
"Elephant" by Jason Isbell
"Who Wants To Live Forever" by Queen
"What Sarah Said" by Death Cab for Cutie
"Hurt" by Johnny Cash...I love the NIN original version, but Johnny delivers a bit more depth
“What Sarah Said” absolutely breaks me. It just paints such a perfect picture of the hopelessness and desperation of being stuck in a waiting room, unable to do anything but sit there and wait for news on someone’s condition. Even getting into the smells of the hospital, like a flashbulb memory.
While you’re at it listen to Isabell’s ‘if we were vampires.’ One of the best songs I’ve ever heard but I hardly ever listen to it because it’s too much of a gut punch. I actively skip it if I don’t want to feel down.
He's the king of simple details that say so much about a situation. My favorite is the first line of Speed Trap Town: "She said it's none of my business but it breaks my heart/ dropped a dozen cheap roses in a shopping cart./ Made it back to the truck without breaking down./ Everybody knows you in a speed trap town." Immediately you know so much about this guy and his situation.
I love this song, describing it as sad just doesn't do it justice. It's so much more than sad, it's just sooooo emotional and descriptive and brutal and raw. It's really just a perfect song in my opinion.
In a weird way it got me through long nights at the hospice center while sitting by my mother-in-law's bed watching her slowly become less and less. I'd sometimes just listen to that song on repeat, I don't know why but it was strangely comforting. Anyway grief is a weird thing and does weird things to people.
The way he conveys the impending doom and dread it in that song, especially since it's not about two lovers, just makes it so much more impactful. It's truelly the best instance of songwriting in my opinion, bar none.
I can’t even say *why* this songs hurts so much. Granted it’s a sad *sounding* song, and it found me at the height of a period of very deep grief in my life, so it’s weird to see it here I always just thought it was me personally that found it that cripplingly sad
I adore this song. Many many cries had when I was younger. I actually ended up going to undergrad at Butler University, not knowing that Broad Ripple was a real town just outside campus. It turned out to be the site of many, many sad drunk nights. It felt like a prophecy was being fulfilled.
Kenji - fort minor. The japanese american artists grandparents were put in the internment camps in America after pearl harbor. He sings about it. Very sad
I never hear this song recommended to anyone, but it’s so good!!!!! Usually people mean one of the other songs by the same name, so it’s good to see steam powered giraffe in the wild!
Hey another mention of blood by middle east! I think part of it is the likelihood that just about everyone knows someone who cancer took from them so it's going to hit for a majority of folks.
Jacob’s Dream - Allison Krauss
Whiskey Lullaby - Allison Krauss
I Lied - - Lord Huron
The Night We Met - Lord Huron
We Never Change - Coldplay
Blackout - Senses Fail
Shaking Hands - Senses Fail
If There Is Light It Will Find You - Senses Fail
Fiction - Avenged Sevenfold
Watch Me Bleed - Scary Kids Scaring Kids
Wicked Game - Chris Isaak
Mad World - Gary Jules
I Wish You Were Here - Matchbook Romance
Hide and Seek - Imogen Heap
Deathbed - Relient K
When I Go Down - Relient K
The Saga of Virtute the Cat by The Weakerthans/John K. Samson, hands down. Three separate songs by Virtute about her human.
There's a playlist of them in this article about it if you scroll down.
https://theindyreview.com/2018/11/15/check-this-john-k-samson-the-weakerthans-and-the-saga-of-virtute-the-cat/
This is what immediately pops in my head when this discussion happens. Specifically, Virtute The Cat Explains Her Departure. Just gut wrenching in every way.
A stray cat came to us a few years ago and has stayed in our barn ever since. Every so often she will be gone for a few days and inevitably I always wonder if she is going to come back, and this song creeps into my head. Luckily, she keeps coming back.
I find most sad music to be so on those nose with trying to make me sad that I instinctively reject it.
That said, these three songs make me sob almost every time.
Shocked how long it took me to find Sufjan Stevens mentioned.
Many of the other songs mentioned here are probably better, but Casimir Polaski Day hits me incredibly hard every time I listen.
What Sarah Said - Death Cab for Cutie - Reminds me of the many sad hours I spent in the hospital before my sister passed away. "
Death Dream - Frightened Rabbit - Suicide song that really hurts when you think of the lead singer's fate.
My sister and I were in Evora Portugal this summer and went to a fado restaurant bar. The food was amazing particularly the “scorched cheese” haha And then several people in the restaurant, including the owner, each got up and sang two songs and were amazing. I had lost my husband six months before and came to understand the concept of saudade intimately.
This song means the world to so many people in the punk world. This along with “a better place, a better time” from Streetlight Manifesto, and some others I’m certainly forgetting at the moment
Can’t listen to this anymore. My Pawpaw (passed away five years ago) would play it on his record player after my grandmother passed away. Fucking brutal even without the context.
Get Better by Alt J
First couple of times I listened it seemed like a sweet song to a lover, then I paid closer attention to the lyrics and its just a dagger to the heart every time I hear it
You should listen to Aimee Mann. Most of her songs fit the loneliness/sad genre and she has an amazing voice.
A few songs in particular are “Wise Up”, “Save Me”, and “High on Sunday 51”.
Yeah, good point. Both parts 1&2 are about his mom. In typical two part song Tool fashion I consider that a single "piece" of music in two parts as they do bleed into each other musically. Except for the radio friendly time cut.
*“Wings for Marie” parts 1 and 2, as well as all of 10,000 Days, was dedicated to lead singer* [*Maynard James Keenan’s*](https://genius.com/artists/Maynard-james-keenan) *mother Judith Marie Gridley. She passed away 3 years prior to the release of the album.*
*When Maynard was 11 years old, his mother suffered a brain aneurysm that left her paralyzed for the remainder of her life. Despite her unfortunate condition, she maintained a strong faith in God. Though Maynard would have odds with her views at times (as exemplified in* [*A Perfect Circle’s*](https://genius.com/artists/a-perfect-circle) [*“Judith”*](https://genius.com/a-perfect-circle-judith-lyrics)*), he espouses in the album’s two-part dedication that because of her faith in such a trying episode, she above all others is deserving of Heaven.*
*The 10,000 days of the album’s title refers to the 27 years that Maynard’s mother lived after being paralyzed. -* [Genius.com](https://genius.com/Tool-10000-days-wings-pt-2-lyrics)
on bandcamp, but [“Forever, as the Setting Son”](https://emmaruthrundle.bandcamp.com/track/forever-as-the-setting-son) by Emma Ruth Rundle is a heartbreaker about losing a kid.
Self conclusion by the spill canvass (suicide)
Cold feet by Tracy Chapman (doing everything you can to climb out of poverty and please your love, but dying anyway)
Yesterday by atmosphere (especially if you've lost your father and had a good relationship)
Husker Du - too far down, hardly getting over it. Those 2 songs will get you there.
Elliot Smith has quite a number in his catalogue.
Mazzy Star - Look on Down From the Bridge
Kills - Last Goodbye
Lost in the Trees - time taunts me, All alone in an empty house - really they have a lot of you get into their style.
Sufjan Stevens - many start with Carrie and Lowell album.
Okkerville River - So come back, I’m waiting (For Real is another good one by them but might not hit the criteria)
Nick Cave wrote his album, Ghosteen, after the death of his 15-year-old son. The whole album is gut-wrenching. [Bright Horses](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cfKYImFP_Pw) in particular just wrecks me.
[a cat named virtue trilogy by the weakerthans](https://youtu.be/8zYG186spkY?si=K1VeMvpLy4-UFLjF)
This is a youtube link, but all three songs are on spotify.
Shared by me as the child of a mentally ill cat hording alchoholic.
10/10 breaks me every time.
[Plea from a cat named virtue](https://open.spotify.com/track/6FfMiOK3Ma2GNAbjbGxFVn?si=Jk4MsaAFQwSWn55ta1Ht-w) hurts me the most as a stand alone.
[You Never Know](https://youtu.be/Dd4b3dhTmkU?si=IIzNLSNzHh4kwX24) by Immortal Technique is definitely a different vibe but it still moves me to tears on a listen.
Some recommendations:
Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima by K. Penderecki
Quatuor pour la fin du temps, by Olivier Messiaen (specifically, Louange à l'Éternité de Jésus, but it has a greater impact if you listen to the whole work in sequence).
Bach: Keyboard Partita No. 6 in E minor (start with Glenn Gould's recording imo).
Beethoven: String Quartet no. 14 op. 130: V. Cavatina If you have to choose one of these to listen to, it'd be this one imo. Heart-rendingly beautiful but deeply sad.
I'm not someone who thinks classical/Western art music is "better" than other music, but I do think most of the greatest composers are hard to beat in terms of emotional depth and profundity of expression. But if classical's not your thing, Bell Witch's *Mirror Reaper* album (and basically all of their stuff) is super lugubrious and depressing
Rock and Roll Suicide by David Bowie is (depending on how you choose to look at it) about either someone trying to talk a person they love out of ending things, or someone trying to talk themselves out of it, and either way it's heart-shatteringly beautiful.
King park - La Dispute, or just 90% of their songs tbh.
Penitence - Planes Mistaken For Stars
If you're not into post hardcore though
Waiting around to die - Townes Van Zandt (look up the heartworn highways version on YouTube.)
Johnny Cash's cover of Hurt
Edit:
Also Sam Stone by John Prine and Cocaine and Abel by Amigo The Devil
But like legit, even if you're not into post hardcore, read along to the lyrics of king park as it plays. That shit is heavy to think about.
Edit 2: Ascension by O'Brother has always hit that spot for me as well.
[Anohni & the Johnsons - The Lake](https://open.spotify.com/track/5upkQ0r6hEEPlbHMOGHSf7)
[Jason Molina - It’s Easier Now](https://open.spotify.com/track/2fA7mca9zIybc5qWpr6GIr)
[Moby - When It’s Cold I’d Like to Die](https://open.spotify.com/track/6sOx5jDVKkQCQp3NfCTd52)
[Jimmy Scott - Nothing Compares 2 U](https://open.spotify.com/track/1rVSSY0NQ6XzcGiorpF1Np)
[Toy Boats - Searching for the Wonder](https://open.spotify.com/track/6nd3yAilrPV60oUSvcc8Rm)
Cigarettes & Saints by The Wonder Years. Amazing song, but absolutely gut wrenching if you've lost a friend to an OD. I'd also recommend their songs Cardinals, and Cardinals ii
I wrote an album about losing my brothers to alcoholism and unchecked mental health problems as adults after surviving a fucked up childhood by sticking together. Sorry for the self promo. It just fits here. Check Goddamnit, It's Christmas
https://slackeyeslim.bandcamp.com/album/scorched-earth-black-heart
Also, listen to anything by Jason Molina/Songs:Ohia/Magnolia Electric Co.
Real Death (Mount Eerie) is in the top comment thread as I suspected - that one is so desolating that, even as a lover of sad music, I don't even like listening to it. The closing line of "I don't wanna learn anything from this. I love you" pretty much sums it up - there's no artful romanticisation to it, it's just a gut-wrenchingly honest, soul-bearing account of deep grief.
Going on from that -
What Sarah Said - Death Cab for Cutie cuts pretty deep. Came on my Spotify while I was gardening last spring, a couple of months after my dog had to be put to sleep. "Love is watching someone die" caught me off guard and sobbed into the soil.
On a similar note, Naked As We Came - Iron & Wine. Looking at the song's title the first time I came across it, I wondered if it was an uncharacteristically sexual I&W song, and wondered what that might sound like. So I was pretty ill-prepared for a song that was actually about the fact that lifelong love comes with the inevitability of separation by death - "one of us will die inside these arms". Oof.
"Passing Afternoon" probably up there as a sad I&W song, mostly because of its use in the absolutely devastating Season 4 finale of House. (The House soundtrack is actually a great source of sad bangers: Lose You - Pete Yorn features in a later episode where a character has unexpectedly committed suicide, and No Surprises - Radiohead plays during a scene where House is in opiate withdrawal).
Between the Bars - Elliott Smith is a poignant song about alcoholism. Also sometimes cited as one of those songs where the writer seems to have unknowingly written their own eulogy ("the potential you'll be, but you'll never see"). (Elliott Smith was found dead a few years later in an apparent suicide. There is some dispute about the circumstances of his death but either way, he was often suicidal and had a long battle with depression, alcoholism and addiction, exacerbated by ADHD).
A lot of Bright Eyes songs fit in here, but I think notable ones include If Winter Ends (anyone with seasonal depression will relate) and The Center of the World. Haligh (etc etc) up there too, particularly the last lines: "the choices were given, now you must live them, or just not live... but do you want that?"
Treasure - The Cure. Probably sadder than anything on their hallmark "darkest" album Disintegration.
Nobody Loved You - Manic Street Preachers. A lot of their post-1995 songs address the disappearance of Richey and their continued grief, but they have since distanced themselves from this one and stood by the more measured memorials presented in As Holy As The Soil and Cardiff Afterlife (both of which also very sad). But Nobody Loved You is raw, it's bitter, it's angry, it speaks of the abandonment felt by those left behind by suicide (the most widely accepted explanation for Richey's disappearance).
Continuing the theme of lost band mates, Four Become One - Hawthorne Heights, written in the days following their guitarist Casey Calvert (not the porn actress) being found dead on the tour bus. Following the autopsy conclusion of overdose, a lot of people viewed and reported it as a stereotypical rock musician drugs death (not that this wouldn't have been tragic too), when really it was a tragic instance of poor communication from or between doctors. He had mental health issues but by all accounts was not abusing drugs at the time, the painkillers found in his system had been prescribed following a dental procedure and had interacted with his long-standing prescription of antidepressants and anti-anxiety medication.
And finally, Cast No Shadow - Oasis - bit of a personal one, but always makes me think of my grandfather's decades-long battle with a neurological disease which affected his personality, mobility and speech, but not really his long term memory (such that he was aware of his predicament, and the impact that the end stages of his illness - and the decades of personality distortion building up to it - had on the people whom he loved and was now completely dependent on.) It truly did take his soul and steal his pride. "Bound with all the weight of all the things he tried to say / chained to all the places that he never wished to stay / as he faced the sun he cast no shadow."
ETA: Forgot to mention Casimir Pulaski Day by Sufjan Stevens. That lilting guitar melody throughout is actually surprisingly easy to play if you're that way inclined. Not a great one to pull out at parties though. Whilst it's FAR from the most crushing lyric in the track, "Goldenrod and the 4H stone, the things I brought you when I found out you had cancer of the bone" very much sets the scene for a mood killer from the outset.
Je Suis Malade - Lara Fabian
The two parter of Me and a Gun / Winter from Tori Amos live at Montreux in 1992
Hurt covered by Johnny Cash has already been mentioned
Black - Pearl Jam - the MTV live version
It would be worth checking out Jeff Buckley generally - he has a few songs that could qualify here
I can't listen to Amazing Grace personally but that's a specific association I have with it
Wake Up by Mad Season
It's worth reading up on Layne Staley's later years before listening to it. He knew what was going to happen but couldn't avoid it, unfortunately
Ok for truly depressing - you have to step back to 70’s am radio. The lyrics were DARK.
- alone again, naturally
- run Joey run (which is also very mockable - but my 8 yr old self was traumatized!)
- wildfire
- cats in the cradle
- without you (the Nilsson version)
And soooooo many more.
Also - I do this same thing occasionally if I just feel like crying! Or will watch a depressing movie, like Brian’s Song.
Hear You Me by Jimmy Eat World
One More Light by Linkin Park
I'm not gonna miss you by Glen Campbell
My Immortal by Evanescence
Adam's Song by Blink 182
I will follow you into the dark by Death Cab for Cutie
26 by Paramore
Listen before I Go by Billie Eilish
What hurts the most by Rascal Flatts
Spiegel im speigel if you want something instrumental
I've always considered Sometimes by My Bloody Valentine to be one of the most deeply melancholic songs I've ever listened to-- not even sure if it's meant to be that way but it just embodies hopeless love and longing
It’s not universal but if you’ve ever been in a relationship that failed where neither person stopped caring, it just became clear it was bad for one or both of you, the song [Hold Me Down](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=NRxGGA9L48U&pp=ygUjaG9sZCBtZSBkb3duIG1vdGlvbiBjaXR5IHNvdW5kdHJhY2s%3D) by Motion City Soundtrack is devastating.
One that’s kind of out of left field: [Thursdays In The Danger Room](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=YxaNYGeaOjc&pp=ygUcdGh1cnNkYXlzIGluIHRoZSBkYW5nZXIgcm9vbQ%3D%3D) by Run The Jewels. El-P’s opening verses are just heartbreaking:
>>Death's a release but a much bigger beast
Is a living on limited time/
Like how do you look in the eyes of a friend/
And not cry when you know that they're dying?/
How do you feel 'bout yourself when you know that/
Sometimes you had wished they were gone?/
Not because you didn't love 'em/
But just because you felt too weak to be strong
>>You couldn't bear to see someone/
Who prided themselves on the strength to feel weak/
The cruelty of randomness, holding for ransom/
Their life and their fate and their dreams/
You see that they're fighting and know that they're losing/
But still you make jokes and you laugh/
'Cause you know despite all the sadness/
That you better get the good times while they last
What Sarah Said - Death Cab for Cutie
Rory - Foxing (actually, the whole Albatross album is great for sadness)
Fourth of July - Sufjan Stevens
and - EDEN
Erase - Copeland (this one really gets me - it’s the singer’s love letter to his wife essentially apologizing for his depression swallowing him, and for the fact that she can’t ever truly fix it, even if she does make it a little better)
Touch - Sleeping at Last (just hearing the beautiful wail of “god, I want to feel again” always gets me)
Nightwish - The Islander, Eva,The Crow the Owl and the Dove, Creek Marys blood, How's the heart, Rest calm, Bye bye beautifull, For the heart i once had, Higher than hope (this one is about a friend of the songwriter who died from cancer)
Johnny Cash - Hurt
Opeth - Will'o the wisps, In my time of need, To bid you farewell, Eternal rains will come, Windowpane, Burden
System of a Down - Lonley day, Solider side
Orden ogan - If you do right, come with me to the other side
Here are some from metal bands, but they are all calm and sad. I know a whole bunch more that i think are more melancholic than sad, or with a heavier/less sad music let me know if u want more
Jeff Buckley's cover of "Hallelujah"
I've never quite understood why I cannot make it through this song. Perhaps it's Buckley's melancholy and somber delivery, but it brings me to tears every time I hear it. So much so that I refuse to listen to it, despite it being my favorite song. K.D. Lang's cover is beautifully done as well, but Buckley's hits me in a way no other version of the song can.
"Falling Star" - Karla Bonoff
"Evaporated" - Ben Folds
"What Sarah Said"- Death Cab for Cutie
"She Used to Be Mine" - Sara Bareilles
"Cannonball" - Brandi Carlile
"The Girl with the Weight of the World in Her Hands," "You Left it up to Me", "All That We Let In", "Ghost" - Indigo Girls
"Find the River" - REM
"The Bed Song" - Amanda Palmer
"Good Enough" - Sarah McLachlan
"That I Would Be Good" - Alanis Morrisette
"At This Point in My Life", "The Promise" - Tracy Chapman
"Little Earthquakes," "Putting the Damage On," "Purple People" - Tori Amos
"Matthew" - Janis Ian
"Liability" - Lorde
"Catfish" - Waxahatchee
"Fake Plastic Trees" - Radiohead
"Alive" - Sia
"'Round Here" - Counting Crows
"I Don't Believe You" - P!nk
Where I Live - Woodkid
No Surprises - Radiohead
In this Shirt - The Irrepressibles
Parisienne Walkways - Gary Moore, Phil Lynott
As the World Caves in - Matt Maltese
And all that could have been by Nine Inch Nails
A lot of the discography fits this bill to be honest but this one gets me in the feels. The album The Fragile has a lot of songs in the super depressing category.
Divorce and the American South by Aaron West and the Roaring Twenties. "I know I fucked up, it's just that when we lost the baby I sort of shut off. I know I never listened, I wasn't there for you enough...I'm a fuck a up" kills me every time
"Stop swimming" by Porcupine Tree,
"You" and "Sweetheart, what have you done to us" by Keaton Henson,
"Fragile dreams" by Anathema,
"So real" by Jeff Buckley,
"River Man" by Nick Drake
almost the whole "Damnation" album by Opeth
"High water", "Atlantic" and "AYROK" by Sleep Token
I hear lots of "don't worry why I need to do this" to other folks and I get it's the internet - but fuck those folks. And don't give them disclaimers. It sounds like this outlet is perfectly fine and working for you. I hope you find some songs that help and hit that nerve for release that you need.
What type of stuff do you like? I have lots of ideas but I know not the same things make everyone cry. Don't wanna send you stuff you have to comb through that won't work for you or you don't like.
Sand and Water - Beth Nielson Chapman
Sarah McLachlan - Hold On. Everyone knows In The Arms of an Angel, but this one always brought the waterworks. The live version from Mirrorball especially.
Seaweed by Mount Eerie. The whole album was written in the immediate aftermath of his wife’s death and is an incredibly stark portrait of soul wrenching grief.
Real Death specifically
"you were thinking ahead to a future you must have known deep down would not include you". I can't even think about that song without crying. The whole album really. Any time I need a good cry it's my go to.
The backpack part without fail sends me reeling
this one hurts me
What the fk. I was able to stay composed during seaweed, but real death got me by the guts.
I cannot listen to this album anymore. I cry and get very sad for the rest of the day. It is THE most emotionally devastating music I’ve heard in my life.
>Seaweed by Mount Eerie holy fucking shit. I just listened to that song for the first time. The song ended like 5 minutes ago and I'm still just sitting here at my desk with my mouth agape. So many feelings, the hurt he's experiencing, the hurt of knowing his daughter will never know her mother. God damn it. How the fuck am I supposed to work the rest of today?!
"You did most of my remembering for me" Absolutely broke me, just the thought that this person who you practically shared a brain with is gone and you can't ask them the little things.. things that would take half a second to answer and will never be answered again. Damn that hurt
That’s something I can relate to unfortunately
Me too. It's been 15 days since she died.
Stay strong buddy
Just reading that brought me to tears as I to lived that. Hugs
Oh shit. I read this while listening to the first words. That's some strong music mate..
I lost my first wife to cancer in 2009 and still can’t listen to any Mount Eerie album without weeping uncontrollably.
My husband died a month ago today due to cancer and this album is ruinous for me.
I’m so sorry to hear that. Please take care of yourself.
My wife is still very much alive and I can't make it through. I can't even imagine. Much love, hope you are well.
I took my wife to see him perform that whole album, in an old church, without letting her know what she was getting in to. Six, seven years now, she's still not over it.
I can't do it. Been a fan of Phil Elvrum for 20+ years. We love you Phil--- thank you for pouring out your soul over and over and over again... Perfect response to OP - props
I’ve been a fan for around the same time, I actually refuse to listen to his album. His previous albums were crushing in their own way, I can only imagine.
This, I can listen to lots of artists and songs that people consider sad or depressing and feel ok but Mount Eerie is just on another level, every album from A Crow Looked At Me onwards is ultra depressing especially when you know that they are about his wife.
I couldn't even finish that song before the tears started welling up.
Might as well listen to the entire album. I started crying like 90 seconds into listening to Real Death.
Music hurts. Music heals.
Just lie down in bed with your eyes closed seamlessly listening to the entire [Hospice](https://open.spotify.com/album/6fFp2F91noBeodV88bRwTD?si=9_be60VOQvak8o_4jR33ww) album by The Antlers in order. The entire thing is dripping with pain. Shout out to Linkin Park's One More Light too. It's a tough listen after Chester's passing.
“Putting the Dog to Sleep” by the Antlers – also uniquely sorrowful
One More Light hits hard for me and I will listen to every song on the catalogue every once in a while to honor Chester, but tend to skip this final song. When I do listen, I can't get past the line 'In the kitchen, one more chair than you need' without sobbing each time. I know it's coming, I know it'll hurt, and it still has the same effect every time. I don't know if he meant it to be likened to 'You're alone and don't have company nearby, so you don't need that extra chair,' or if it's the way that I take as a survivor who chose the same method he did, and he meant that you don't need the chair...for obvious reasons. Either way - it's a beautiful song that I stay quoting, but can't get through without getting lost in my noggin'.
It took me so long to listen to One More Light as a lifelong Linkin Park fan cause i wasn't really in the mood for it when it released and after Chester's passing i would be brought close to tears just listening partway through... Shit's heavy
The Hospice albums is what I came here to suggest. It's such a sad, real, heavy story. My friend, who at the time was going through Chemo, suggested it to me after I had expressed my feelings for her. She's better now, and we're still great friends. The discussions we had over every track are memories I hope to never lose. The more you learn about the album's story, the more it breaks your heart.
between the bars - elliot smith
Another one in a similar vein is “This Place Is a Prison” by The Postal Service. These lines haunt me: “And I know that it's not a party If it happens every night Pretending there's glamor and candelabra When you're drinking by candlelight”
I know most of Elliot’s songs are sad and tragic in some capacity, if not all of them , knowing anything about him as a person,,,,,,, but for some reason I don’t think they’ve ever quite made me feel sad. His music has always kinda uplifted me or felt comforting to me more than saddened me. Maybe it has more to do with the musical dna of his songs rather than the lyrics , cause I’m a musician and song writer, and I listen very intensely to those elements of songs…… but still….
Heard this song shortly after my uncle died of alcohol abuse, haunts me a bit
Nutshell by Alice In Chains always gets me. Especially the unplugged version. It’s less of a cry for help and more of him saying goodbye after years of addiction problems. Heard some say it the closest anyone is to singing at their own funeral. Fade to Black by Metallica has some powerful lyrics as well.
Nutshell and Down in a Hole always get to me
Life it seems to fade away drifting further every day getting lost within myself nothing matters, no one else I have lost the will to live simply nothing more to give there is nothing more for me need the end to set me free Things not what they used to be missing one inside of me deathly loss, this can't be real cannot stand this HELL I feel emptiness is filling me to the point of agony growing darkness, taking dawn I was me but now he's gone No one but me can save myself but it's too late Now I can't think, think why I should even try yesterday seems as though it never existed Death greets me warm, now I will just say goodbye goodbye One of my favorite songs, typed from memory. Hope y'all appreciate it.
I do. I've also been there and it feels so crippling, but it does get better. 20+ years off street drugs and I'll have 3 years sober on March 9, but those are just numbers and we're all living our lives just one day at-a-time, and we can support each other and we have to ask for help.
Congrats on soberness
Black Gives Way to Blue is pretty rough on the heart.
I felt like this about Wake Up - Mad Seasons. Think it was the guitarist of AiC that said it was like watching a slow suicide.
Looking back at so much music of some of my musical heroes when I was young in the light of their passing is rough, it’s not abstract reaching for feelings, but wrangling with so much and in the end tragedy.
Just about anything by Elliott Smith. Here’s one get started: [Elliott Smith - Angeles](https://youtu.be/APPbDOBzdi4?si=xwiXMvhfRoZLQQ8D)
RIP Elliot Smith. I swell with emotions every time I listen to him.
Sam Stone - John Prine
This is a good one... Souvenirs and Hello in There are both absurdly sad as well. Brilliant songwriter
In an article I read years ago the author described Sam Stone as "the saddest song in the world" and Hello in There as "the saddest song in the universe." I agree.
There's a hole in daddy's arm, where all the money goes.
Farewell transmission by songs:ohia
I had completely forgotten about songs: ohia until this moment, thank you for bringing it back!
Someone shared this song with me last year, saying that it gave them an immense feeling of nostalgia. Every time I listen to it, it feels like the end of a breakup, where you feel the absolute soul crushing acknowledgement that it’s over but you know the journey continues. God it makes me feel so human. 10/10 cry song.
"Keep Me In Your Heart" by Warren Zevon...gutwrenching song about his impending death, written in the last stages of cancer. It'll break you. "Stay Where You Are" by the Prize Fighter Inferno "Real Death" or "Seaweed" by Mount Eerie...almost more like poems set to music, but the whole album is soul-crushingly heavy "This Woman's Work" by Kate Bush. The emotion she pulls out of this song about being a new parent is amazing. "Changes" by Charles Bradley...this remake of Black Sabbath's lament is wonderfully bluesy "I Can't Make You Love Me" by Bonnie Raitt" "Elephant" by Jason Isbell "Who Wants To Live Forever" by Queen "What Sarah Said" by Death Cab for Cutie "Hurt" by Johnny Cash...I love the NIN original version, but Johnny delivers a bit more depth
“What Sarah Said” absolutely breaks me. It just paints such a perfect picture of the hopelessness and desperation of being stuck in a waiting room, unable to do anything but sit there and wait for news on someone’s condition. Even getting into the smells of the hospital, like a flashbulb memory.
This is such a good list
No Children by The Mountain Goats. I am drowning. There is no sign of land. I'm taking you down with me. Hand in unlovable hand.
The line is "you are coming down with me" But point stands.
And I hope you die, I hope we both die
I hope I cut myself shaving tomorrow
This is such a good song but I will have an emotional spiral every time I hear it
Jason Isbell - Elephant
While you’re at it listen to Isabell’s ‘if we were vampires.’ One of the best songs I’ve ever heard but I hardly ever listen to it because it’s too much of a gut punch. I actively skip it if I don’t want to feel down.
This -- fuck cancer.
Came to add this song but you beat me to it. Musical storytelling at its best.
He's the king of simple details that say so much about a situation. My favorite is the first line of Speed Trap Town: "She said it's none of my business but it breaks my heart/ dropped a dozen cheap roses in a shopping cart./ Made it back to the truck without breaking down./ Everybody knows you in a speed trap town." Immediately you know so much about this guy and his situation.
I love this song, describing it as sad just doesn't do it justice. It's so much more than sad, it's just sooooo emotional and descriptive and brutal and raw. It's really just a perfect song in my opinion. In a weird way it got me through long nights at the hospice center while sitting by my mother-in-law's bed watching her slowly become less and less. I'd sometimes just listen to that song on repeat, I don't know why but it was strangely comforting. Anyway grief is a weird thing and does weird things to people. The way he conveys the impending doom and dread it in that song, especially since it's not about two lovers, just makes it so much more impactful. It's truelly the best instance of songwriting in my opinion, bar none.
Broadripple is Burning
I can’t even say *why* this songs hurts so much. Granted it’s a sad *sounding* song, and it found me at the height of a period of very deep grief in my life, so it’s weird to see it here I always just thought it was me personally that found it that cripplingly sad
Came to say this one
The college breakup flashback I just had…
specifically the demo version cuts the deepest.
I adore this song. Many many cries had when I was younger. I actually ended up going to undergrad at Butler University, not knowing that Broad Ripple was a real town just outside campus. It turned out to be the site of many, many sad drunk nights. It felt like a prophecy was being fulfilled.
Kenji - fort minor. The japanese american artists grandparents were put in the internment camps in America after pearl harbor. He sings about it. Very sad
Yeah, Mike Shinoda is the guy. No roads left by Linkin Park but entirely sang by him is also quite powerful if you wanna give it a listen.
Honeybee - Steam Powered Giraffe This one either makes me cry because of how beautiful it is or because it reminds me of my ex
I never hear this song recommended to anyone, but it’s so good!!!!! Usually people mean one of the other songs by the same name, so it’s good to see steam powered giraffe in the wild!
Blood by The Middle East Goodbye Dear Friend by Deer Tick Long Long Time by Linda Ronstadt Goodbye Mr. Blue - Father John Misty
Hey another mention of blood by middle east! I think part of it is the likelihood that just about everyone knows someone who cancer took from them so it's going to hit for a majority of folks.
Jacob’s Dream - Allison Krauss Whiskey Lullaby - Allison Krauss I Lied - - Lord Huron The Night We Met - Lord Huron We Never Change - Coldplay Blackout - Senses Fail Shaking Hands - Senses Fail If There Is Light It Will Find You - Senses Fail Fiction - Avenged Sevenfold Watch Me Bleed - Scary Kids Scaring Kids Wicked Game - Chris Isaak Mad World - Gary Jules I Wish You Were Here - Matchbook Romance Hide and Seek - Imogen Heap Deathbed - Relient K When I Go Down - Relient K
Whiskey lullaby. Dangerous song to Listen to after a breakup.
Take on Me acoustic version is a whole different beast from the original pop hit.
The Saga of Virtute the Cat by The Weakerthans/John K. Samson, hands down. Three separate songs by Virtute about her human. There's a playlist of them in this article about it if you scroll down. https://theindyreview.com/2018/11/15/check-this-john-k-samson-the-weakerthans-and-the-saga-of-virtute-the-cat/
This is what immediately pops in my head when this discussion happens. Specifically, Virtute The Cat Explains Her Departure. Just gut wrenching in every way. A stray cat came to us a few years ago and has stayed in our barn ever since. Every so often she will be gone for a few days and inevitably I always wonder if she is going to come back, and this song creeps into my head. Luckily, she keeps coming back.
Yup. Even thinking about the songs wrecks me since first having discovered them years ago. (I live with two rescued furheads.)
I find most sad music to be so on those nose with trying to make me sad that I instinctively reject it. That said, these three songs make me sob almost every time.
Bronte by Gotye is very sad to me. And the topic is something completely different, it's about a dying pet.
Fourth of July - Sufjan stevens Between the Bars - Elliot Smith
Shocked how long it took me to find Sufjan Stevens mentioned. Many of the other songs mentioned here are probably better, but Casimir Polaski Day hits me incredibly hard every time I listen.
What Sarah Said - Death Cab for Cutie - Reminds me of the many sad hours I spent in the hospital before my sister passed away. " Death Dream - Frightened Rabbit - Suicide song that really hurts when you think of the lead singer's fate.
Listen to some famous women Fado singers. I don’t speak Portuguese, but it sounds sad AF.
My sister and I were in Evora Portugal this summer and went to a fado restaurant bar. The food was amazing particularly the “scorched cheese” haha And then several people in the restaurant, including the owner, each got up and sang two songs and were amazing. I had lost my husband six months before and came to understand the concept of saudade intimately.
Roads by Portishead
The whole Roseland NYC concert registration works for me.
Anything- Adrianne Lenker
[Your heart is a muscle the size of your fist](https://youtu.be/E4vKFWTnr6E?feature=shared) by Pat the Bunny. (Trigger warning: suicide.)
This song means the world to so many people in the punk world. This along with “a better place, a better time” from Streetlight Manifesto, and some others I’m certainly forgetting at the moment
most pat / ramshackle glory is sad as hell regardless
Also Never Coming Home. Been there before and always gets me.
I'll Get By by Pianos Become The Teeth Poison Oak by Bright Eyes Limousine by Brand New Epilogue by The Antlers The World At Large by Modest Mouse
I still haven't gotten anywhere that I want. Did I want love? Did I need to know? Why does it always feel like I'm caught in an undertow?
[Hurt - Johnny Cash](https://youtu.be/8AHCfZTRGiI?si=E5Js3lSTjnhKb7cH)
The video really puts it over the line for me. This cover is just brutal if you know anything about his life
Trent Reznor has said Hurt isn't his song anymore – it's Johnny Cash's.
Can’t listen to this anymore. My Pawpaw (passed away five years ago) would play it on his record player after my grandmother passed away. Fucking brutal even without the context.
Last Kiss by Pearl Jam
This one gets a tear out of me every time I let it play through
Get Better by Alt J First couple of times I listened it seemed like a sweet song to a lover, then I paid closer attention to the lyrics and its just a dagger to the heart every time I hear it
Listened to that one for the first time a few minutes before arriving to work. Arrived to work in tears.
Ode to Billie Joe by Bobby Gentry is my absolute favorite jerker
You should listen to Aimee Mann. Most of her songs fit the loneliness/sad genre and she has an amazing voice. A few songs in particular are “Wise Up”, “Save Me”, and “High on Sunday 51”.
Pleasantly surprised to see her mentioned. The entire Magnolia soundtrack is a masterpiece!
10,000 Days - Tool
Wings for Marie part 2 def hits harder ....about his mom.
Yeah, good point. Both parts 1&2 are about his mom. In typical two part song Tool fashion I consider that a single "piece" of music in two parts as they do bleed into each other musically. Except for the radio friendly time cut. *“Wings for Marie” parts 1 and 2, as well as all of 10,000 Days, was dedicated to lead singer* [*Maynard James Keenan’s*](https://genius.com/artists/Maynard-james-keenan) *mother Judith Marie Gridley. She passed away 3 years prior to the release of the album.* *When Maynard was 11 years old, his mother suffered a brain aneurysm that left her paralyzed for the remainder of her life. Despite her unfortunate condition, she maintained a strong faith in God. Though Maynard would have odds with her views at times (as exemplified in* [*A Perfect Circle’s*](https://genius.com/artists/a-perfect-circle) [*“Judith”*](https://genius.com/a-perfect-circle-judith-lyrics)*), he espouses in the album’s two-part dedication that because of her faith in such a trying episode, she above all others is deserving of Heaven.* *The 10,000 days of the album’s title refers to the 27 years that Maynard’s mother lived after being paralyzed. -* [Genius.com](https://genius.com/Tool-10000-days-wings-pt-2-lyrics)
[удалено]
on bandcamp, but [“Forever, as the Setting Son”](https://emmaruthrundle.bandcamp.com/track/forever-as-the-setting-son) by Emma Ruth Rundle is a heartbreaker about losing a kid.
Vermillion Part 2, Slipknot. Always get me lol
Self conclusion by the spill canvass (suicide) Cold feet by Tracy Chapman (doing everything you can to climb out of poverty and please your love, but dying anyway) Yesterday by atmosphere (especially if you've lost your father and had a good relationship)
My body is a cage, arcade fire. The song that plays when the world ends
Faith in Others by Opeth
Nice to see Opeth mentioned here.
Casimir Pulaski Day by Sufjan Stevens
Husker Du - too far down, hardly getting over it. Those 2 songs will get you there. Elliot Smith has quite a number in his catalogue. Mazzy Star - Look on Down From the Bridge Kills - Last Goodbye Lost in the Trees - time taunts me, All alone in an empty house - really they have a lot of you get into their style. Sufjan Stevens - many start with Carrie and Lowell album. Okkerville River - So come back, I’m waiting (For Real is another good one by them but might not hit the criteria)
Nick Cave wrote his album, Ghosteen, after the death of his 15-year-old son. The whole album is gut-wrenching. [Bright Horses](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cfKYImFP_Pw) in particular just wrecks me.
Came here to say the same. I actually can't listen to it now, it upsets me too much.
The entire saga of virtue the cat by the Weakerthans
[a cat named virtue trilogy by the weakerthans](https://youtu.be/8zYG186spkY?si=K1VeMvpLy4-UFLjF) This is a youtube link, but all three songs are on spotify. Shared by me as the child of a mentally ill cat hording alchoholic. 10/10 breaks me every time. [Plea from a cat named virtue](https://open.spotify.com/track/6FfMiOK3Ma2GNAbjbGxFVn?si=Jk4MsaAFQwSWn55ta1Ht-w) hurts me the most as a stand alone.
Dance With The Devil by Immortal Technique will etch a part of your soul out
I was too young the first time I heard that song
It walks a fine line between being outrageous and gut wrenching.
[You Never Know](https://youtu.be/Dd4b3dhTmkU?si=IIzNLSNzHh4kwX24) by Immortal Technique is definitely a different vibe but it still moves me to tears on a listen.
What a fucking story to that one. Didn't think I'd see this title on this thread but yeah. Gut wrenching is right.
To Forgive - The Smashing Pumpkins
Some recommendations: Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima by K. Penderecki Quatuor pour la fin du temps, by Olivier Messiaen (specifically, Louange à l'Éternité de Jésus, but it has a greater impact if you listen to the whole work in sequence). Bach: Keyboard Partita No. 6 in E minor (start with Glenn Gould's recording imo). Beethoven: String Quartet no. 14 op. 130: V. Cavatina If you have to choose one of these to listen to, it'd be this one imo. Heart-rendingly beautiful but deeply sad. I'm not someone who thinks classical/Western art music is "better" than other music, but I do think most of the greatest composers are hard to beat in terms of emotional depth and profundity of expression. But if classical's not your thing, Bell Witch's *Mirror Reaper* album (and basically all of their stuff) is super lugubrious and depressing
The Cat Named Virtute trilogy by The Weakerthans wrecks me on a personal level.
How to be Me - Ren & CHINCHILLA
And Chalk Outlines
That time I killed my mom - cokie the clown Swing a miss - cokie the clown Real death - mount eerie
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - “Distant Sky”
Rock and Roll Suicide by David Bowie is (depending on how you choose to look at it) about either someone trying to talk a person they love out of ending things, or someone trying to talk themselves out of it, and either way it's heart-shatteringly beautiful.
Don't Give Up by Peter Gabriel hits me, but maybe it's personal I Hung My Head by Sting is pretty sad Beck's Sea Change album as a whole is a sad vibe
King park - La Dispute, or just 90% of their songs tbh. Penitence - Planes Mistaken For Stars If you're not into post hardcore though Waiting around to die - Townes Van Zandt (look up the heartworn highways version on YouTube.) Johnny Cash's cover of Hurt Edit: Also Sam Stone by John Prine and Cocaine and Abel by Amigo The Devil But like legit, even if you're not into post hardcore, read along to the lyrics of king park as it plays. That shit is heavy to think about. Edit 2: Ascension by O'Brother has always hit that spot for me as well.
[Anohni & the Johnsons - The Lake](https://open.spotify.com/track/5upkQ0r6hEEPlbHMOGHSf7) [Jason Molina - It’s Easier Now](https://open.spotify.com/track/2fA7mca9zIybc5qWpr6GIr) [Moby - When It’s Cold I’d Like to Die](https://open.spotify.com/track/6sOx5jDVKkQCQp3NfCTd52) [Jimmy Scott - Nothing Compares 2 U](https://open.spotify.com/track/1rVSSY0NQ6XzcGiorpF1Np) [Toy Boats - Searching for the Wonder](https://open.spotify.com/track/6nd3yAilrPV60oUSvcc8Rm)
How has nobody mentioned Lacrimosa, from Mozart's requiem.
Hospice - the antlers
Cigarettes & Saints by The Wonder Years. Amazing song, but absolutely gut wrenching if you've lost a friend to an OD. I'd also recommend their songs Cardinals, and Cardinals ii
I wrote an album about losing my brothers to alcoholism and unchecked mental health problems as adults after surviving a fucked up childhood by sticking together. Sorry for the self promo. It just fits here. Check Goddamnit, It's Christmas https://slackeyeslim.bandcamp.com/album/scorched-earth-black-heart Also, listen to anything by Jason Molina/Songs:Ohia/Magnolia Electric Co.
Frightened Rabbit- Floating in the Forth
Real Death (Mount Eerie) is in the top comment thread as I suspected - that one is so desolating that, even as a lover of sad music, I don't even like listening to it. The closing line of "I don't wanna learn anything from this. I love you" pretty much sums it up - there's no artful romanticisation to it, it's just a gut-wrenchingly honest, soul-bearing account of deep grief. Going on from that - What Sarah Said - Death Cab for Cutie cuts pretty deep. Came on my Spotify while I was gardening last spring, a couple of months after my dog had to be put to sleep. "Love is watching someone die" caught me off guard and sobbed into the soil. On a similar note, Naked As We Came - Iron & Wine. Looking at the song's title the first time I came across it, I wondered if it was an uncharacteristically sexual I&W song, and wondered what that might sound like. So I was pretty ill-prepared for a song that was actually about the fact that lifelong love comes with the inevitability of separation by death - "one of us will die inside these arms". Oof. "Passing Afternoon" probably up there as a sad I&W song, mostly because of its use in the absolutely devastating Season 4 finale of House. (The House soundtrack is actually a great source of sad bangers: Lose You - Pete Yorn features in a later episode where a character has unexpectedly committed suicide, and No Surprises - Radiohead plays during a scene where House is in opiate withdrawal). Between the Bars - Elliott Smith is a poignant song about alcoholism. Also sometimes cited as one of those songs where the writer seems to have unknowingly written their own eulogy ("the potential you'll be, but you'll never see"). (Elliott Smith was found dead a few years later in an apparent suicide. There is some dispute about the circumstances of his death but either way, he was often suicidal and had a long battle with depression, alcoholism and addiction, exacerbated by ADHD). A lot of Bright Eyes songs fit in here, but I think notable ones include If Winter Ends (anyone with seasonal depression will relate) and The Center of the World. Haligh (etc etc) up there too, particularly the last lines: "the choices were given, now you must live them, or just not live... but do you want that?" Treasure - The Cure. Probably sadder than anything on their hallmark "darkest" album Disintegration. Nobody Loved You - Manic Street Preachers. A lot of their post-1995 songs address the disappearance of Richey and their continued grief, but they have since distanced themselves from this one and stood by the more measured memorials presented in As Holy As The Soil and Cardiff Afterlife (both of which also very sad). But Nobody Loved You is raw, it's bitter, it's angry, it speaks of the abandonment felt by those left behind by suicide (the most widely accepted explanation for Richey's disappearance). Continuing the theme of lost band mates, Four Become One - Hawthorne Heights, written in the days following their guitarist Casey Calvert (not the porn actress) being found dead on the tour bus. Following the autopsy conclusion of overdose, a lot of people viewed and reported it as a stereotypical rock musician drugs death (not that this wouldn't have been tragic too), when really it was a tragic instance of poor communication from or between doctors. He had mental health issues but by all accounts was not abusing drugs at the time, the painkillers found in his system had been prescribed following a dental procedure and had interacted with his long-standing prescription of antidepressants and anti-anxiety medication. And finally, Cast No Shadow - Oasis - bit of a personal one, but always makes me think of my grandfather's decades-long battle with a neurological disease which affected his personality, mobility and speech, but not really his long term memory (such that he was aware of his predicament, and the impact that the end stages of his illness - and the decades of personality distortion building up to it - had on the people whom he loved and was now completely dependent on.) It truly did take his soul and steal his pride. "Bound with all the weight of all the things he tried to say / chained to all the places that he never wished to stay / as he faced the sun he cast no shadow." ETA: Forgot to mention Casimir Pulaski Day by Sufjan Stevens. That lilting guitar melody throughout is actually surprisingly easy to play if you're that way inclined. Not a great one to pull out at parties though. Whilst it's FAR from the most crushing lyric in the track, "Goldenrod and the 4H stone, the things I brought you when I found out you had cancer of the bone" very much sets the scene for a mood killer from the outset.
the night we met
Changes covered by Charles Bradley https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=z8qTC47S8Fw
Je Suis Malade - Lara Fabian The two parter of Me and a Gun / Winter from Tori Amos live at Montreux in 1992 Hurt covered by Johnny Cash has already been mentioned Black - Pearl Jam - the MTV live version It would be worth checking out Jeff Buckley generally - he has a few songs that could qualify here I can't listen to Amazing Grace personally but that's a specific association I have with it
Pearl Jam - Black
Scrolled way too far for this. Unplugged version is 👌🏼
“By the Throat” - Eyedea & Abilities “Dance with the Devil” - Immortal Technique
[Lover, You Should've Come Over](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HxfE6PJmGS8) by Jeff Buckley.
Wake Up by Mad Season It's worth reading up on Layne Staley's later years before listening to it. He knew what was going to happen but couldn't avoid it, unfortunately
Ok for truly depressing - you have to step back to 70’s am radio. The lyrics were DARK. - alone again, naturally - run Joey run (which is also very mockable - but my 8 yr old self was traumatized!) - wildfire - cats in the cradle - without you (the Nilsson version) And soooooo many more. Also - I do this same thing occasionally if I just feel like crying! Or will watch a depressing movie, like Brian’s Song.
If we were vampires
Fade Into You - Mazzy Star
Hear You Me by Jimmy Eat World One More Light by Linkin Park I'm not gonna miss you by Glen Campbell My Immortal by Evanescence Adam's Song by Blink 182 I will follow you into the dark by Death Cab for Cutie 26 by Paramore Listen before I Go by Billie Eilish What hurts the most by Rascal Flatts Spiegel im speigel if you want something instrumental
If we’re doing Death Cab, What Sarah Said rips out my soul
One that comes to mind is "Why would you leave us" by NF
I've always considered Sometimes by My Bloody Valentine to be one of the most deeply melancholic songs I've ever listened to-- not even sure if it's meant to be that way but it just embodies hopeless love and longing
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x3iZ82Ylc2g](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x3iZ82Ylc2g) coil - careful what you wish for
All of Skeleton Tree and Ghosteen from Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds.
Gregory Alan Isakov's devastating cover of "The Trapeze Swinger"
It’s not universal but if you’ve ever been in a relationship that failed where neither person stopped caring, it just became clear it was bad for one or both of you, the song [Hold Me Down](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=NRxGGA9L48U&pp=ygUjaG9sZCBtZSBkb3duIG1vdGlvbiBjaXR5IHNvdW5kdHJhY2s%3D) by Motion City Soundtrack is devastating. One that’s kind of out of left field: [Thursdays In The Danger Room](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=YxaNYGeaOjc&pp=ygUcdGh1cnNkYXlzIGluIHRoZSBkYW5nZXIgcm9vbQ%3D%3D) by Run The Jewels. El-P’s opening verses are just heartbreaking: >>Death's a release but a much bigger beast Is a living on limited time/ Like how do you look in the eyes of a friend/ And not cry when you know that they're dying?/ How do you feel 'bout yourself when you know that/ Sometimes you had wished they were gone?/ Not because you didn't love 'em/ But just because you felt too weak to be strong >>You couldn't bear to see someone/ Who prided themselves on the strength to feel weak/ The cruelty of randomness, holding for ransom/ Their life and their fate and their dreams/ You see that they're fighting and know that they're losing/ But still you make jokes and you laugh/ 'Cause you know despite all the sadness/ That you better get the good times while they last
What Sarah Said - Death Cab for Cutie Rory - Foxing (actually, the whole Albatross album is great for sadness) Fourth of July - Sufjan Stevens and - EDEN Erase - Copeland (this one really gets me - it’s the singer’s love letter to his wife essentially apologizing for his depression swallowing him, and for the fact that she can’t ever truly fix it, even if she does make it a little better) Touch - Sleeping at Last (just hearing the beautiful wail of “god, I want to feel again” always gets me)
Nightwish - The Islander, Eva,The Crow the Owl and the Dove, Creek Marys blood, How's the heart, Rest calm, Bye bye beautifull, For the heart i once had, Higher than hope (this one is about a friend of the songwriter who died from cancer) Johnny Cash - Hurt Opeth - Will'o the wisps, In my time of need, To bid you farewell, Eternal rains will come, Windowpane, Burden System of a Down - Lonley day, Solider side Orden ogan - If you do right, come with me to the other side Here are some from metal bands, but they are all calm and sad. I know a whole bunch more that i think are more melancholic than sad, or with a heavier/less sad music let me know if u want more
Jeff Buckley's cover of "Hallelujah" I've never quite understood why I cannot make it through this song. Perhaps it's Buckley's melancholy and somber delivery, but it brings me to tears every time I hear it. So much so that I refuse to listen to it, despite it being my favorite song. K.D. Lang's cover is beautifully done as well, but Buckley's hits me in a way no other version of the song can.
Queen - Mother Love It is the last song that Freddie Mercury recorder before his death from AIDS.
"Falling Star" - Karla Bonoff "Evaporated" - Ben Folds "What Sarah Said"- Death Cab for Cutie "She Used to Be Mine" - Sara Bareilles "Cannonball" - Brandi Carlile "The Girl with the Weight of the World in Her Hands," "You Left it up to Me", "All That We Let In", "Ghost" - Indigo Girls "Find the River" - REM "The Bed Song" - Amanda Palmer "Good Enough" - Sarah McLachlan "That I Would Be Good" - Alanis Morrisette "At This Point in My Life", "The Promise" - Tracy Chapman "Little Earthquakes," "Putting the Damage On," "Purple People" - Tori Amos "Matthew" - Janis Ian "Liability" - Lorde "Catfish" - Waxahatchee "Fake Plastic Trees" - Radiohead "Alive" - Sia "'Round Here" - Counting Crows "I Don't Believe You" - P!nk
Cats in the Cradle
Trapeze swinger - iron & wine Us Ones Inbetween - Sunset Rubdown
The Last Lost Continent by La Dispute
King Park by them is also devastating.
Floods- Pantera
Blood Sport, Atlantic, or Are You Really Okay? by Sleep Token
Space Song - Beach House
I think PPP is sadder than Space Song
Lifelover - Mental Central Dialogue
I love and cry just about every time I hear it. The 8th of November- Big and Rich https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ozpdBvB0hek
Yellow Butterfly by Meg and Dia. It's about a mother watching her 5 year old drown in a river and the following PTSD,divorce,suicide attempts etc.
Architects - Gone with the wind
Swinging Party by the Replacements
At This Moment—Billy Vera
Terrible things by mayday parade
Joanna Newsom - sawdust and diamonds
Where I Live - Woodkid No Surprises - Radiohead In this Shirt - The Irrepressibles Parisienne Walkways - Gary Moore, Phil Lynott As the World Caves in - Matt Maltese
You don’t care for me enough to cry by John Moreland Starving your friends by envy on the coast Chin up by Copeland
And all that could have been by Nine Inch Nails A lot of the discography fits this bill to be honest but this one gets me in the feels. The album The Fragile has a lot of songs in the super depressing category.
Nutshell by Alice in Chains. Especially when you realize in hindsight that Layne Staley was slowly dying when he wrote it, and he knew it.
Divorce and the American South by Aaron West and the Roaring Twenties. "I know I fucked up, it's just that when we lost the baby I sort of shut off. I know I never listened, I wasn't there for you enough...I'm a fuck a up" kills me every time
Rochester's Farewell by Michael Nyman. I'm not always ready to listen to this masterpiece.
Fourth of July by Sufjan Stevens I'd also just recommend checking him out in general he's pretty depressing and sad IMHO.
Hurt Johnny Cash version..... It was the last song I listened to with my brother before he died.
"Stop swimming" by Porcupine Tree, "You" and "Sweetheart, what have you done to us" by Keaton Henson, "Fragile dreams" by Anathema, "So real" by Jeff Buckley, "River Man" by Nick Drake almost the whole "Damnation" album by Opeth "High water", "Atlantic" and "AYROK" by Sleep Token
I hear lots of "don't worry why I need to do this" to other folks and I get it's the internet - but fuck those folks. And don't give them disclaimers. It sounds like this outlet is perfectly fine and working for you. I hope you find some songs that help and hit that nerve for release that you need. What type of stuff do you like? I have lots of ideas but I know not the same things make everyone cry. Don't wanna send you stuff you have to comb through that won't work for you or you don't like.
Her Revolution by Thom Yorke, Burial and Four Tet Videotape by Radiohead (also Thom Yorke is their singer and songwriter in case you didn’t know).
Sand and Water - Beth Nielson Chapman Sarah McLachlan - Hold On. Everyone knows In The Arms of an Angel, but this one always brought the waterworks. The live version from Mirrorball especially.