Saddest Songs of All Time

[Glacier]

Just curious, what song do you consider the saddest song you have ever heard? Here is my list in reverse order.

Honourable Mention: Seasons In the Sun - Terry Jacks
5) Tears in Heaven - Eric Clapton
4) Last Kiss - Pearl Jam
3) Whiskey Lullaby - Brad Paisley
2) Cats in the Craddle - Harry Chapin
1) He Stopped Loving Her Today - George Jones

[zzontar]

A classic bit of Spinal Tap:

[Nigel is playing a soft piece on the piano]
Marty DiBergi: It's very pretty.
Nigel Tufnel: Yeah, I've been fooling around with it for a few months.
Marty DiBergi: It's a bit of a departure from what you normally play.
Nigel Tufnel: It's part of a trilogy, a musical trilogy I'm working on in D minor which is the saddest of all keys, I find. People weep instantly when they hear it, and I don't know why.
Marty DiBergi: It's very nice.
Nigel Tufnel: You know, just simple lines intertwining, you know, very much like - I'm really influenced by Mozart and Bach, and it's sort of in between those, really. It's like a Mach piece, really. It's sort of...
Marty DiBergi: What do you call this?
Nigel Tufnel: Well, this piece is called "Lick My Love Pump".

[Captain Awesome]

Israel Kamakawiwo'Ole - 'Somewhere Over The Rainbow

Joan Armatrading - Save me

[RR24K]

Just curious, what song do you consider the saddest song you have ever heard? Here is my list in reverse order.

Honourable Mention: Seasons In the Sun - Terry Jacks
5) Tears in Heaven - Eric Clapton
4) Last Kiss - Pearl Jam
3) Whiskey Lullaby - Brad Paisley
2) Cats in the Craddle - Harry Chapin
1) He Stopped Loving Her Today - George Jones

Here's another one you add http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IE-AcC53OYY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bjvah1TDZxE

[JLives]

Long Slow Goodbye - Queens of the Stone Age (Live - Natasha Shneider benefit) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Y_zhw3EUU0

[gardengirl]

What Might Have Been-Little Texas
http://www.clevver.com/music/video/2630 ... -been.html

[Woodenhead]

Beth Gibbons & Rustin Man - Show

Smog - River Guard

Bon Iver - The Wolves (Act I & II)

M83 - Safe (if you're not gonna look at any, forget it - check this one out anyway. Seriously. Great great great great band.)

Port Royal - Jeka (one of my fave albums of all time)

Sigur Rós - Svefn-g-englar (I'd post Viðrar vel til loftárása but I already did in another thread)

Trespassers William - Lie In The Sound (check Different Stars, too)

Elbow - Scattered Black and Whites (if Coldplay had original talent)

Eddie Vedder - Society (if you haven't seen this
Eddie Vedder - Guaranteed movie yet, get it now)

That's enough for now. I could go on for days about music...

[Catz]

What Do You Say...Reba

I have no idea how to put it on here, but wow...

[Homeownertoo]

A better Harry Chapin pick than Cat's in the Cradle is, imho, Taxi. Here's the lyrics:

It was raining hard in 'Frisco,
I needed one more fare to make my night.
A lady up ahead waved to flag me down,
She got in at the light.
Oh, where you going to, my lady blue,
It's a shame you ruined your gown in the rain.
She just looked out the window, and said
"Sixteen Parkside Lane".
Something about her was familiar
I could swear I'd seen her face before,
But she said, "I'm sure you're mistaken"
And she didn't say anything more.
It took a while, but she looked in the mirror,
And she glanced at the license for my name.
A smile seemed to come to her slowly,
It was a sad smile, just the same.
And she said, "How are you Harry?"
I said, "How are you Sue?
Through the too many miles
and the too little smiles
I still remember you."
It was somewhere in a fairy tale,
I used to take her home in my car.
We learned about love in the back of the Dodge,
The lesson hadn't gone too far.
You see, she was gonna be an actress,
And I was gonna learn to fly.
She took off to find the footlights,
And I took off to find the sky.
Oh, I've got something inside me,
To drive a princess blind.
There's a wild man, wizard,
He's hiding in me, illuminating my mind.
Oh, I've got something inside me,
Not what my life's about,
Cause I've been letting my outside tide me,
Over 'till my time, runs out.
Baby's so high that she's skying,
Yes she's flying, afraid to fall.
I'll tell you why baby's crying,
Cause she's dying, aren't we all.
There was not much more for us to talk about,
Whatever we had once was gone.
So I turned my cab into the driveway,
Past the gate and the fine trimmed lawns.
And she said we must get together,
But I knew it'd never be arranged.
And she handed me twenty dollars,
For a two fifty fare, she said
"Harry, keep the change."
Well another man might have been angry,
And another man might have been hurt,
But another man never would have let her go...
I stashed the bill in my shirt.
And she walked away in silence,
It's strange, how you never know,
But we'd both gotten what we'd asked for,
Such a long, long time ago.
You see, she was gonna be an actress
And I was gonna learn to fly.
She took off to find the footlights,
And I took off for the sky.
And here, she's acting happy,
Inside her handsome home.
And me, I'm flying in my taxi,
Taking tips, and getting stoned,
I go flying so high, when I'm stoned.

Chapin did a sequel about a decade later, including the lines:

And she said, “How are you Harry?
Haven't we played this scene before?”
I said, “It's so good to see you, Sue
Had to play it out just once more.

[fvkasm2x]

Don't Take The Girl - Tim McGraw

[gardengirl]

Virtually anything by James Ingram.

http://www.whosdatedwho.com/music/songs ... ingram.htm

[fluffy]

A few years back, when the TV series "ER" was still relatively new, my daughter told me I had to see it. The first episode I watched ended with a heart wrenching scene involving an aging lesbian couple, one of which was terminally ill and in great pain, and a newly wed couple who's first child had been born severely premature and wouldn't live more than a couple of days. They wouldn't euthanize the dying woman because they wouldn't recognize her partner's status as spouse and there was no one else to sign the paperwork. So you've got these newly weds, with their baby fighting to survive against hopeless odds, and down the hall you've got this lady at the end of her life, fighting to end the suffering. In the background they were playing this song that capped off the whole scene by ripping your heart out.

After I recovered I went on the net to find out what I could about the performer and found it had come from the heart of a songwriter/performer named Beth Neilson Chapman, who wrote the song upon coming out of years of not working after the death of her husband at an early age from cancer. The song is called "Sand and Water" and still turns me to goo every time.

I wish it was a beter quality reocrding but you'll get the drift. Check it out:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V9z1Fc7hUYs

[eMeM]

George Canyon - My Name.

I cry just thinking about this song. A MUST listen for anyone that's lost a baby before he/she was born. The video is pretty good too.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FbUWw1SKc8Q

[Corneliousrooster]

Mazzy Star - Fade into You - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fF0lRYhhiwI
This song just captures melancholy beautifully

Ben Harper - Another lonely Day - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zr5mCBFejIE

Radiohead - how to dissapear completely - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nZq_jeYsbTs

Radiohead - Street Spirit (Fade Out) - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nPX3u0XJzKM

[Jo]

Eddie Vedder - Society

That was one of the songs I was thinking about as well, I can listen to it endlessly, it's very haunting. I've never seen the movie, but the book was good.