But I did find a place where you can listen to the very beautiful "Mad World," from my list of favorite songs. If you don't know it, take a listen. It'll make you want lock yourself in the bathroom and weep.
So what do you think is the saddest song ever?
10 comments:
I have no idea, but Air Supply had to have sung it.
Little Orphan Girl sung by Doc Watson- I can't find lyrics for it. When I first heard it in the early 80s, I said, Mom, you have to listen to this, it makes me cry every time I hear it. I played it for her, she started bawling,, turned out my grandmother used to sing it (it is an old traditional song), and although grandma had died about four years previously, was still sorely missed. It is about an little orphan girl who begs for scraps, is turned down, freezes to death on the steps of a rich man,, final phrase,, when morning came, the little girl, still lay at the rich man's door, but her soul had fled away to its home, where there's room and there's bread for the poor. I tear up just writing those words.
Sheila, Lori, did your parents or grandparents sing "Poor Babes in the Woods" to you? Mine did. Both my parents had had it sung to them, in slightly different form. I researched it once on the internet and learned that it's probably the most commonly sung oral tradition song in the US--doesn't even exist in published form. It's about "two little babes" who were "stolen away one bright summer's day, and never came back, so I've heard people say." It'll tear the heart right out of you.
The only version of it I have heard is on the Songcatcher 2 cd. I will try to post a link. It is the first tune (for some reason, Amazon didn't give a sample. I don't know if this is the same song or not.
http://music.barnesandnoble.com/search/mediaplayer.asp?ean=015707971621&disc=1&track=1
That's the one! It fascinates me that that song made it's way all over the country, through multiple generations of people, by oral tradition alone--maybe because it was a cautionary tale about children wandering off. My parents both had slightly different sets of words sung to them, but that was the tune.
I agree. He Stopped Loving Her Today is George Jones at his finest and if it doesn't bring a tear to your eye, you have no heart. Although Faded Love by Ray Price and Willie Nelson must run a close second.
The Hands of Time also known as Brians Song can make me tear up in seconds. just humming it makes me cry.
Also Amazing Grace does it to me too, but mostly cause you hear it at funerals.
I think The Long and Winding Road by the Beatles is very sad, and I really don't know why. It's not the lyrics so it's got to be the melody.
Also I cry every time I hear Angels Among Us by Alabama because LP's first or second grade class sang that at their Christmas pageant. I love it.
I'm going to have to look that one up, Emma. I do love a good sad song.
The saddest song... or perhaps it is the one that most worms it's way into my heart is Janis Ian's Seventeen.
I do not know Poor Babes in the Woods.., but interesting enough I do not recall either of my parents singing to us. Singing all the time, but not to us. Dad would always play the piano while mom was corralling all the kids. And late at night Mom would practice the piano when she had a little time to herself.
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