The Bitterest Pill - The Jam
The Song is Over - The Who
Why Should I Cry For You? - Sting
Angie - Rolling Stones
The Drugs Don't Work - The Verve
Fake Plastic Trees - Radiohead
Here's Where the Story Ends - The Sundays
Every Time We Say Goodbye - Annie Lennox (via Cole Porter)
I Wish I Never Saw the Sunshine - Beth Orton
The Ghost in You - Psychedelic Furs
Don't Answer Me - Alan Parsons Project
Is She Really Going Out With Him? - Joe Jackson
Pictures of You - The Cure
Don't Go Away - Oasis
Waiting For that Day - George Michael
Wish You Were Here - Pink Floyd
This Modern Love - Bloc Party
The Unforgettable Fire + Promenade - U2
Exactly my point!
I've never found Wish You Were Here a sad song for instance. Sure, it's moving etc, (and a great song) but it's also uplifting and celebratory at the same time. To me a sad song is something like Nina Simone's 'The Other Woman' - particularly the version sang at Town Hall in 1959. Her whole oeuvre is infused with a sense of melancholy of course, and even here, when she's confident that her husband will always return to her - when she's being celebratory and victorious and strong at the end of the song, 'She will always cry herself to sleep' - that's the saddest part. She was simply incredible. On the other side of the story, is Doris Duke's 'The Other Woman' - same title, totally different song. She's the woman having the affair -
To the other woman
I'm the other woman
And the other woman is his wife
Everybody calls me stupid
For playing second fiddle
At least I know I'm number two
That whole album, 'I'm A Loser',
is a sad album. Some find it depressing. Have to say I don't.
So many names, Elliott Smith, Leonard Cohen (tho he too is swimming with wit, and self depreciating humour), Johnny Cash, Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday, Antony & The Johnson's electrifying 'Hope There's Someone', all those Blues artists - hundreds to choose from - all American.
Woke up this morning and slipped on The House of Love's debut LP - one or two in that LP, but I don't know if any one track really counts as sad. 'Man To Child' possibly.
Will check out one or two of those choices of yours that I don't know, or need reminding of. Except Sting. Oof.