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Saddest song you've heard


seanp33

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Last summer my wife and I had the opportunity to see the Milk Carton Kids. They were absolutely fantastic and could probably have a career as stand-up comedians. Tom Brosseau opened for them and I had only heard one of his songs before which I had liked so I was excited to hear more of him. For the concert he was playing a 1947 Martin 00-18. He told me after the show he was planning to sell it to finance his this new album that is coming out in March of this year. After playing some songs from his previously released albums he played a song he was working on called "Hard luck boy". It is the saddest song I have ever heard in my life. He has gotten around to recording it for his new album:

 

My link

 

What's the saddest song you've ever heard?

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I am sure so many of you will post up a song that will make me say, "oh yeah... that is the saddest..."

 

Anyhow, I saw John Hiatt play this song with Lyle Lovett last year. It was the first time I had heard the song. I was tearing up listening to the story in John's song. I thought how sad it must be to be this cold and forlorn lonely woman in this bar.

 

Icy Blue Heart...

 

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Townes Van Zandt has at least a dozen: "Marie," "Waitin' 'Round to Die," "Nothing," "Tecumseh Valley" but the most painful to hear because it's so devoid of hope would be "A Song For" off the album *No Deeper Blue*. The studio version sounds like he can barely make it through the song. The shakes have gotten so bad he can barely sing it. Chokes me up every time.

 

Ribbons of love, please keep me true sane

Until I reach home on the morrow

Never, never to wander again

I'm weak and I'm weary of sorrow

 

London to Dublin, Australia to Perth

I gazed at your sky, I tasted your earth

Sung out my heart for what it was worth

Never again shall I ramble

 

There's nowhere left in this world where to go

My arms, my legs they're a-tremblin'

Thoughts both clouded and blue as the sky

Not even worth the rememberin'

 

Now as I stumble and reel to my bed

All that I've done, all that I've said

Means nothin' to me, I'd soon as be dead

All of this world be forgotten

 

No words of comfort, no words of advice

Nothin' to offer a stranger

Gone the love, gone the spite

It just doesn't matter no longer

 

My sky's getting far, the ground's gettin' close

My self goin' crazy, the way that it does

I'll lie on my pillow and sleep if I must

Too late to wish, I'd been stronger

Too late to wish, I'd been stronger

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Any ballad by Spiritualized is always a tearjerker for me (bonus points to this clip for the Gibson forum in that he's playing a beautiful black '30s L-0)

 

 

Classic'60s girl group heartbreak: Past, Present, Future by the Shangri Las

 

 

Elvis Costello has a great voice for sad songs, especially when he covers George Jones

 

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ySQlU3hussQ

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Glad to hear I'm not the only one completely agape at the hopeless of TVZ at his most bleak and hopeless.

 

Throwing a curveball in here, Mark Kozelek, of Red House Painters and Sun Kil Moon, has a number of sad songs that match a voice that is deceptively simple but that conveys great emotional pain.

 

On one of his many solo LP/EPs, he wrote and recorded "Ruth Marie," a song about his girlfriend's grandmother living in a home with Alzheimer's. My mother passed this way, so I know how close he comes to nailing it.

 

 

I grew so old in that house I lived in

They brought me here 'cause I can't take care

I lost my worth and my purpose here

I feel you cry, but I can't speak my mind

Will you hold me and never let me go?

'Cause I hated when you walk outside that door

'Cause I know I won't ever see your eyes

The eyes I gave you

 

When my eyes shut, they'll take me to the land

For fifty years I lived there with my man

And on my own, I lived for forty more

I watched you grow up from babies on the floor

To the beautiful women that you are

And I hated that you've gone away so far

'Cause I know I won't ever see those eyes

The eyes I gave you

 

The evenings fall, they'll drag me out the hall

Up to my bunk and drug me 'til I'm numb

But pass the haze, I see your pretty face

Remember me when I'm gone

You know I love you, though I can hardly say

And I hate it when you see me in this way

But in darkness, I'll always see those eyes

The eyes I gave you

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