Playlist Challenge

[curgoth]

Playlist Challenge time again;

Ten most depressing songs. Post your own ten here or in your own LJ.

1. The Swans, "God Damn The Sun"


2. Rasputina, "A Quitter"


3. Nine Inch Nails, "Hurt" (Depending on how old you are, Johnny Cash's version may pack a stronger punch)


4. Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, "The Weeping Song"


5. Joy Division, "Love will Tear Us Apart"


6. Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, "Song of Joy"


7. Tom Waits, "And No One Knows I'm Gone"


8. VNV Nation, "Holding On"


9. The Smiths, "Last Night I Dreamt That Somebody Loved Me"


10. Leonard Cohen, "Famous Blue Raincoat"

Some day I will get around to writing that post on religious imagery in VNV Nation songs.

Comments

[corwin77.livejournal.com]

I'd add Amanda Palmer's Another Year, almost any cover of Gloomy Sunday though Lydia Lunch's is awesome, and Johnny Cash is saddness personified so throw some of him in there...say his cover of Hank William's I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry or Give My Love to Rose.

[curgoth]

His cover of "Danny Boy" is so depressing even I can't listen to it.

[stillsostrange.livejournal.com]

But "The Weeping Song"'s video is so awesome it can't be depressing.

I don't believe in RPS (not rock/paper/scissors), but I do indulge in fantasies about Blixa going back to the Bad Seeds and getting Nick to shave his unfortunate pornstache.

[50-ft-queenie.livejournal.com]

Apparently Nick's wife has seen to that already.

[curgoth]

I think, secretly, Nick still has his moustache, hidden in a box, wrapped in silk and buried under a gallows tree.

[50-ft-queenie.livejournal.com]

That thought pleases me greatly and somewhat paradoxically, seeing as I hated that moustache.

[curgoth]

The video is saved from being depressing by its irrepressible awesomeness, I agree, but I still keep the audio of my list of songs to angst to.

[fr-defenestrato.livejournal.com]

Let me dip into your artist pool for alt songs:

Tom Waits, "Christmas Card from a Hooker in Minneapolis"
Leonard Cohen, "Everybody Knows"
Bruce Springsteen, "State Trooper"
Yaz, "Winter Kills"
Ewan MacColl et al., "Dirty Old Town"
Pink Floyd, "One of the Few"
Beck, "Whiskeyclone, Hotel City 1997"
Neutral Milk Hotel, uh... all of it?
Neil Young, "Needle and the Damage Done"
Of Montreal, "The Past is a Grotesque Animal"
Kate Bush, "Hello Earth"

[djinnthespazz.livejournal.com]

Oo. Everybody Knows. I first heard this one by Concrete Blonde, and that rasping female voice defines this one for me!

[50-ft-queenie.livejournal.com]

1. Swans - Failure

2. NIN - Something I Can Never Have

3. Joy Division - Atmosphere

4. The Cure - Siamese Twins

5. Jesus and Mary Chain - Nine Million Rainy Days

6. Dresden Dolls - First Orgasm

7. Depeche Mode - Fly on the Windscreen

8. Ultravox - Dancing with Tears in my Eyes

9. Sinead O'Connor - The Last Day of our Acquaintance

10. Kristen Hersh - Your Ghost

[corwin77.livejournal.com]

Yes! First Orgasm is the most depressing song about masturbation ever.

[50-ft-queenie.livejournal.com]

No kidding eh? I didn't think it was possible to make masturbation sound depressing, but they sure as hell managed it.

[50-ft-queenie.livejournal.com]

Bonus song:

Michael Gira - You See Through Me

[misslynx.livejournal.com]

The two songs I can think of offhand that are so depressing I can't even listen to them are:

Inkubus Sukkubus, "We Belong to the Dead"
Emiliana Torrini, "The Boy Who Giggled So Sweet"

The latter, in particular, easily qualifies as my personal top choice for most depressing song ever, by anyone. Though I suspect non-parents might find it slightly less so. It has the added disadvantage of being a persistent earworm, so I'm actually finding it kind of upsetting to even write about, as I've now got it going through my head and it will probably stick there for days, making me either want to slash my wrists or start phoning A & N every 5 minutes to make sure Aidan is OK.

[funos.livejournal.com]

Hmm...

Pink Floyd - Empty Spaces (movie version)
Johnny Cash - Hurt (holy crap did that one hurt when I heard it)
Pink Floyd - Time
Motorhead - Don't Let Daddy Kiss Me Goodnight
Fabienne Thibeault - Le Monde Est Stone (from the "Starmania" rock opera. Forget about the english translation, it's flat.)
Samuel Barber's Adagio for Strings (and the choral version will rip your heart in twain)
Albinoni's Adagio, fit for a funeral.

[fr-defenestrato.livejournal.com]

I considered Barber's Adagio but thought it didn't really count since it's not a song. See (hear) also:

Chopin, Prélude in c, Op. 28, No. 20
Shostakovich, String Quartet No. 8 (also in c), Op. 110
Tchaikovsky, Symphony No. 6, 'Pathétique', Op. 74: IV. Finale – Adagio lamentoso
Weill, Die sieben Todsünden (The Seven Deadly Sins)
Ives, Psalm 67 – 'God be merciful unto us'

I never considered 'Time' (Dark Side being pretty much one big organic downer).

[funos.livejournal.com]

On second thought, both adagios don't count anyway: they are merely profoundly sad, not depressing as such.

[djinnthespazz.livejournal.com]

Smiths... don't know the title but the refrain 'sing me to sleep' was great depression fodder back in my college days...

[g33kboi.livejournal.com]

What's on my iPhone right now...

Indigo Girls, Leeds
Chris Pureka, Unwelcome
Ani Difranco, Grey
Brandi Carlile, Cannonball
Indigo Girls (covering Vic Chesnutt), Free of Hope

All of the really depressing music is safely locked away in my computer at home.