# General Mandolin Topics > General Mandolin Discussions >  The saddest song ever

## mikeomando

Hi everybody!

The Chicago Tribune has run a few stories listing what various people have described as the saddest songs. #Here are links to some of the discussions:

http://blogs.chicagotribune.com/news_co....s_.html

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news....ont-hed

Since I dug the murder song list, I thought I would throw this out to the rest of the mando community. #Here are my sad songs:

500 miles (the campfire one, not The Proclaimers)
Walk Away Renee (Left Banke, but Rickie Lee JOnes also does a pretty sad version)

The saddest genre? #For me it has to be the mournful gypsy minor key dirge with extensive dolorous violin bringing everybody down.

"Seasons In The Sun" which is listed in the Trib articles isn't even close...
mikeo

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## Lee Callicutt

"Cortez the Killer," by Neil Young.

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Franc Homier Lieu, 

indexless

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## Tighthead

He's Coming to Us Dead...particularly given the times we live in and with Ron Thomason singing it.

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## mikeomando

I thought of another one: "Cry Me a River" (sung by Julie London)

The link to the song "Chicken Wire" in the Trib article gets you to a website that plays the song. I hadn't heard it before, and it is pretty sad, but I can't believe it made number one.

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## mandocrucian

_"Lick My Love Pump"_ ....in D minor, the saddest of all keys

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Franc Homier Lieu

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## f5loar

I turn to Monroe for sad songs and his 1952 "The Little Girl and the Dreadful Snake" ranks up there among the sadess he ever wrote. It was so sad even Monroe had to use a fake name when he wrote it. Sad,sad,sad what happened to that little girl after she got bit by that snake in the woods.

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indexless

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## Eric F.

"Down to Seeds and Stems Again Blues" by Commander Cody. 

Mike, for a great version of "Walk Away Rene," check out Jimmy LaFave on "Austin Skyline."

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indexless

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## mikeomando

Hey, "Lick my Love Pump" (The Spinal Tap version, I presume) IS pretty sad when Niles sings it. The stage lights go down way low, and he puts down that tiny guitar, and picks some grandmother in the front row to sing it to. He's crying by the end. To quote Levon Helm: "It would bring a tear to a glass eye"...

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## Dena Haselwander

"I've Had Enough" by Kate McGarrigle


Dena

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## mikeomando

f5loar: Is that snake one of those Freudian metaphors?

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## John Flynn

Well, I think I heard it tonight. I saw The Gordons in concert and they sang an original tune called "Follow Mother Home," about a person's inner thoughts after leaving thier mother's funeral. Maybe it was because I lost my Mom recently, but I got tore up hearing that tune tonight. I do think it was the saddest song I have ever heard. Here is a link to a clip of the tune on CDBaby, but I have to say it does not do the Gordons justice compared to hearing them live.
http://cdbaby.com/mp3lofi/gordons6-09.m3u

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## rhetoric

"One Morning," Gillian Welch.

Powerful sad.

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## Fretbear

"The Dreadful Girl and the Little Snake"
(Frank Wakefield)

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## Karen

"When the Last Leaves Fall" by Mackie Redd. Literally makes you cry to sing it.

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## jmkatcher

Doesn't it involve Mama, prison, a train and a pickup truck?

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Trav'linmando

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## Gotterdamerung

"Broken Butterflies," by Lucinda Williams, or "Over Yonder (Jonathan's Song)," by Steve Earle.

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Mandobart

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## Clyde Clevenger

Fred Eaglesmith's The Rocket always gets me, I always choke up a little on the last line. Powerful sad.

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indexless, 

Mandobart

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## cooper4205

Monroe's "I'm Blue, I'm Lonesome" and the Stanley's (with Pee Wee Lambert) classic "The Lonesome River" are tied in my book. they pull the heart strings every time

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## 8ch(pl)

"Here Comes the Bride"

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## roberto

-SWEETER THAN THE FLOWERS. The Stanley Brothers version, but any other is just as saddest.

-BODY AND SOUL. Bill Monroe.

-ALONE AND FORSAKEN. Hank Williams.

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## Brian Bushbury

The saddest and most beautiful song I've ever heard is by a friend of mine called Dick Tracey. ( Yes, it is his real name). Its a song he wrote for his mother who died of Alzheimers. Its called The love you need. You can here it at his myspace site; it plays when you load the page.

Its one of those songs that deserves to have been heard everywhere.

Dick Tracey music

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## adgefan

For me it's "In Tall Buildings" by John Hartford with a special mention for "The Moon Struck One" by The Band.

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Ken Carroll

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## Mandovark

Martyn Joseph, 'Carried in Sunlight'

Kate Rusby, 'Who Will Sing Me Lullabies?'

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## Peter Hackman

The saddest song I've heard on record is Dolly Parton's Mountain
Angel. Unfortunately, it's so sad, and real, that I can't bear listening to it.

Someday I will post a tune of mine, "Was that Life?", here. It has no lyrics,
but it's really sad. For now the title will do.

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## mandelect

For me, the saddest, most poignant songs would have to be:

Eric Bogle: "And The Band Played Waltzing Matilda" from Scraps Of Paper
Eric Bogle: "No Man's Land (Green Fields Of France)" sung by June Tabor
Guy Clark: "Let Him Roll" - from Keepers
Kate & Anna McGarrigle: "Jacques Et Gilles" from Matapedia

Of course there are many more songs that move me this way!

I first heard "And The Band Played Waltzing Matilda" in the early 80's and started to appreciate the skill of a good songsmith - before that I preferred listening to instrumental tunes - Irish, Scottish, Jazz, Classical, Folk etc.

I'm still amazed at how profoundly, a good songwriter can affect emotions; wish I could do that!

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## Bernie Daniel

How about "Across the Great Divide" by Kate Wolfe

I believe it was written after she found out about her fatal illness (that is what I have heard anyway).

Also I find the song by Vince Gill "Go High on that Mountain" to be sad considering again the context of why he wrote it.

And what about "Me and John and Paul"

And I find "The Day the Music Died" to be so sad in 1959 there was only Buddy for me (Elvis who?)-- that was one of the worst events of my highschool days. 

I was a liberal back in the '60's and supported Bobby Kennedy's bid for the nomination(don't ask why)so:

"Abraham, Martin and John" always put a tear in my eye.

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## AlanN

'Lonesome Town', as sung by Spectrum.

Somebody mentioned 'Just Walk Away, Renee'. I heard a good slow version by 2 ladies recently, maybe Linda Rondstadt and somebody else, now that was sad

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## Enigmatic Recluse

"Racing in the Streets" by Bruce Springsteen

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Mandobart

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## LateBloomer

"He Stopped Lovin' Her Today", by George Jones

"Echo Mountain" performed by Dry Branch Fire Squad - Ron Tomason can sure sing sad, lonely songs!!!!

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Mandobart

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## Deaf David

"Dead Stray Dog" by Louisiana Red

or

"Dark Was the Night" by Blind Willie Johnson

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## Lee Callicutt

How about Townes Van Zandt's "Flyin' Shoes?" '

Or Springsteen's "Atlantic City" or "The River?"

Or "The Foggy Dew?"

Or "The Lily of the West?"

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## JEStanek

I like the Pogue's version of "And the Band Played Waltzing Matilida" it's raw and sad.

"Alabama" by Coltrane

Any bluegrass song by David Lee Roth makes me sad but I don't think that's what you were after...

Jamie

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## Avi Ziv

> I like the Pogue's version of "And the Band Played Waltzing Matilida" it's raw and sad.


Jamie,

You beat me by minutes 

Good call
Avi

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## Avi Ziv

Here are a couple:

Valentine's Day by Steve Earl

Anywhere I Lay My Head by Tom Waits

Avi

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## Kero

Ederlezi - Goran Bregovic (Time of Gypsies)

http://imdb.com/title/tt0097223/

http://youtube.com/watch?v=DwA_Zg_z-...elated&search=
http://youtube.com/watch?v=qWr-mGWj0...elated&search=


goosebumps..

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## ManjoMan

What a topic. Apparently, all of you are suffering from MAS and just about any song will sound sad to you when you are going through this. I suggest going to the nearest music store (like Elderly's) and buying a new mandolin before your condition worsens.

As for me, "Carolina in My Mind" written by James Taylor and sung by Alison Krause is the saddest song I have ever heard.

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## ab4usa

How about Long Gone?

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## mandopete

*The Ship's A Goin' Down* by The Residents


_The quick brain drained the main
And the ship's a goin' down me mate
The ship's a goin' down, the ship's a goin' down_

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## Keith Erickson

"Whiskey Lullaby" by Brad Paisley and Allison Kraus definitely tugs at the heart strings every time I listen to that song  

"The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald" by Gordon Lightfoot will always haunt me from now until eternity as another sad ballad.

_"The church bell chimed till it rang 29 times for each man on the Edmund Fitzgerald"_

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## mandopete

...oh yeah, for an instrumental it would have to *Adagio for Strings* by Samuel Barber.

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## craichead

"Godspeed" by Radney Foster

He wrote it for his 5 year old son who was being taken away to live in France with Radney's ex-wife.

"God hears amen wherever you are."

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Mandobart

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## C. Carr

"And The Band Played Waltzing Matilda" - The Chieftans. This version is really haunting. The first time I heard the song though was just the 'refrain' sung by Tom Waits -- can't remember where, might have been live in Philly.

Regards,

Charlie

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## psann

Old Shep

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## Tim Conroy

Another Waits nomination-

Georgia Lee

Nothing like a slow waltz to magnify that sad feeling.

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## mikeomando

How about "Happy Birthday" done real slow?
My brother suggested "Taps"
"Shebig and Shemore" (David Bromberg version)

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## JEStanek

MandoPete, I'm gonna keep an eye on you!

Tom Waits is good for a few sad songs on any album. #I also like Adagio for Strings by Samuel Barber but I rank Vaughan Williams: Fantasia On a Theme of Thomas Tallis up there to for sad instrumentals.

A wierd one is They Might Be Giants. #So may songs with sad lyrics and happy music (e.g., Piece of Dirt, They'll Need a Crane, #Minimum Wage (never ceases to inspire melancholy).

Dang near any song by The Cowboy Junkies (esp. the Trinity Sessions or Whites Off Earth Now) will bring the mood down a notch or two, like I like it.

Many Bluegrass tunes don't make me feel sad but lots of Old Time instrumentals evoke that feeling.

Jamie

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## slow_hand

I don't know most of the songs listed but the saddest song for me is "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry" by Hank Williams. In fact, I may learn to play it on my new mando - that can't be sad.

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## tjg

"Tears In Heaven" - Eric Clapton and Will Jennings

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## Keith Owen

There are some great ones on this thread.

"Tecumseh Valley" by Townes Van Zandt is very sad.

"Red Dirt Girl" by Emmylou Harris is a tearjerker.

Two that I have a real hard time listening to are "I'll Be True To You" by the Oak Ridge Boys and "That's My Job" by Conway Twitty.

A really, really sad one is by a Texas songwriter named Jay Sims. #The song is called "Huntsville."

However, I think my winner is "Lydia", written by Karen Poston, performed by Slaid Cleaves. #I tear up every time I hear it. #It is haunting.

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Mandobart

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## DryBones

Bed by the Window or She took his Breath Away. James King definitely knows how to sing a sad song.

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## Tim2723

Along with "And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda" and "No Man's Land" (aka Green Fields of France, Willie McBride, etc.), I have to add "The Fields of Athenry", "The Dutchman", and "Patriot Game". Those tear-jerkers are requested almost every night for us. If you want a sad song, you gotta go Irish.

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## weleetkaoutlaws

Louise Taylor - "Archeology"

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## zakdl

I would second "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald".

Couple of sappy newer country tunes always make me choke up a bit despite myself:

"Feed Jake" by Pirates of the Mississippi (I think)

and "Don't Take the Girl" by Tim McGraw

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## mandolooter

Of the many 2 that come to mind quickly are "These Days" Greg Allman and "Mountain Jam" The Allman Brothers Band, a 33 minute epic of a song that always stirs some deep emotions in me.

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## allenhopkins

*Any* song with a dying child in it: _Little Bessie, Darling Little Joe, Put My Little Shoes Away,_ etc. (Hm...maybe any song with "little" in the title? Nah, nothing too sad about _Little Maggie_.)

And, of course, songs where you have to shoot your dog: _Ol' Shep._

And a little-known sleeper: from Dick Staber's lugubrious LP _Of Graves and Epitaphs_ (really!), _Call Collect at Christmas._ Singer calls his mother (or she calls him, I forget) collect every Christmas, but this year she dies picking up the phone. Don't get much more maudlin than that.

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## f5loar

Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer. Nothing worse then sad at Christmas time.

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## Tom Smart

"Sam Stone" by John Prine

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Mandobart

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## mandelect

More selections to add to my previously posted favs - the first one at least features a couple of mandolin players, though they're playing fiddle and guitar on this one!

Norman Blake & Peter Ostroushko: "Restless Farewell" - from A Nod To Bob
June Tabor: "A Proper Sort Of Gardener"
Dick Gaughan: "A Song For Ireland"
Peter Gabriel: "Father, Son"

This is a wonderful thread; I'm of to check out a few of the unfamiliar selections. 

"And the Band Played Walting Matilda" never fails - haven't heard a bad version yet, and how could I have forgotten Tom Waits? More recommendations please  

Oh, and Planxty's "Little Musgrave" needs a mention!

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## morgan

"And, of course, songs where you have to shoot your dog: Ol' Shep." Brings to mind the Bill Morrissey song These Cold Fingers, a sad song on many levels (everything slips through these cold fingers...) but with a verse about putting the dog down. A decision I am having to face with my nearly 17 year old beagle mutt, so sad indeed.

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allenhopkins

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## Tom C

Echo Canyon (or mountains or something like that)....where man thinks the family dog attacked his baby and after killing the dog realized the dog saved the baby from a coyote.

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## newbreedbrian

Tom Waits - Christmas Card From a Hooker in Minneapolis
Hank Williams - I'm so Lonesome I Could Cry
Springsteen - Downbound Train
Stan Rogers - 45 Years
Lightnin' Hopkins - Another Fool in Town
Fred Eaglesmith - Me and Ester

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## AlanN

And I'll add 'Mama Hated Diesels So Bad' by the Commander.

"The first I ever seen her cry, was after one of them things went by"

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billykatzz

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## JimD

If you go back 150 years there are some intensely sad songs. The first one that comes to mind is:

"Father's a Drunkard and Mother is Dead" 

Though it seems a bit over the top now, it was a staple of temperance rallies in the 19th century.

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## Michael H Geimer

Galveston Flood ( Wasn't that a Mighty Storm? )

Can the Circle Be Unbroken?

Motherless Children (got hard times in this world)

Hicks' Farewell

Bonaparte's Retreat (if I think about the story of Grooms' Tune, or Deadman's Tune)

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## MikeEdgerton

> Fred Eaglesmith's The Rocket always gets me, I always choke up a little on the last line. #Powerful sad.


I'm with you on that one.

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## Frank Russell

Alt/Country group the Handsome Family has two or three of the weirdest, saddest songs I've ever heard, the two worst being "My Ghost," which deals with mental illness, and "So Much Wine," which deals with alcoholism and domestic violence. The weird part is that both songs are sometimes hilarious. My vote for saddest song ever? "Dead Skunk in the Middle of the Road," by Loudon Wainwright. Tragic. I play it in local jams all the time. Frank

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## StatrixBob

"Louise" Bonnie Raitt
"Powderfinger" Neil Young (Cowboy Junkies version though)
"Angel from Montgomery" John Prine

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## C. Carr

When Bruce Springsteen sang "My City In Ruins" at the 2006 New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival (JAZZFEST) there were at least 50,000 people with tears in their eyes. Post Hurricane Katrina a sad song can bring fragile emotions very close to the surface. 

I'd thought that the song was about NYC on 9/11, not so though, Bruce wrote it about Asbury Park. It sure felt like it was about New Orleans that day!

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## cooper4205

has anyone mentioned the greatest, most perfect country & western song ever written "You Never Even Called Me By My Name"

_Well, I was drunk the day my Mom got outta prison.
And I went to pick her up in the rain.
But, before I could get to the station in my pickup truck
She got runned over by a damned old train._

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## fatt-dad

Body and Soul - NGR
Wreck on the Highway - Roy Acuff

f-d

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Robert Mitchell

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## Lee

I'll go with "On the Banks of the Nile" as sung by Sandy Denny. #A story of a young lady wanting to dress up like a man to be able to join the English Army and accompany her new husband as he heads out to fight in the desert sands of Eqypt.

"Oh, cursed be those cruel wars, that ever they began,
For they have robbed our country of manys the handsome men.
They've robbed us of our sweethearts while their bodies they feed the lions,
On the dry and sandy deserts which are the banks of the Nile."

RIP, Sandy

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## cgwilsonjr

"A little rain", Tom Waits
"Anabelle Lee", Gilian Welch
"Crying my heart out over you", Flatt/Scruggs
"I can't help it if I'm still in love with you", Hank
"The Master's Bouquet", Stanley Bros
"Little Joe", Bill Monroe

These are a few that popped into my head, Chuck

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## Bernie Daniel

> Tom C: Echo Canyon (or mountains or something like that)....where man thinks the family dog attacked his baby and after killing the dog realized the dog saved the baby from a coyote.


Good call!

Yes its "Echo Mountain" and James King is the usual singer but he did not write it -- but its a sadd'en fur sure.

In fact I really can't stand to hear it -- the idea of a faithful dog being shot goes over my tolerance level. Great song but I just do not want to think about it.

I feel the same way about the Little Girl and the Awful Snake by Monroe -- just don't want to think about it either.

Now that IS sad.

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## James P

Sadder songs have already been mentioned, but I'll give a nod to 'Deadwood, South Dakota' by Eric Taylor.

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## Jim Nollman

Fields of San Tatien.

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## Philip Halcomb

Bob Dylan has to be the king of sad songs:

Desolation Row
My Back Pages
I Don't Believe You
Spanish Harlem Incident

Just to name a few...

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## Tim

Ron Thomason's name has come up a couple of times. #The one that gets me is "The Cowboy Song" from their first live album.

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## Skin it Back

Wayfaring Stranger- Traditional
Senor- Bob Dylan
Love Hurts- Gram Parsons

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## Ted Eschliman

Wow, nobody has mentioned the saddest "key" yet!
From 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 _(edited by poster)_".

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## MartinD_GibsonA

Gene Watson's "Farewell Party"
Charley Pride's "Does my Ring Hurt Your Finger"
And another vote for Paul Siebel's "Louise" (as sung by Bonnie Raitt)

Don Smith

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## Katie

I will second the Eric Bogle songs, though does anybody know his lesser known "Banjo" and "Bar Harbor?" They're on his Color of Dreams album and I usually have to skip them cause I can't listen. Waltzing Matilda has been played often enough that I can handle it. 

As far as sad music of the non song variety...Mozart's Lacrimosa. He died writing that movement. I remember singing it my first semester in college and the director stopped us in the middle and said "This is the spot where he died. The rest was completed after his death," and the was silence before we continued the rehearsal.

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## Jim Broyles

Ted, Niles mentioned it last night, but without editing it.

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## hoffmannia2k7

Lua - by Bright Eyes, I just saw him this monday in NY with Gill and David Rawlings and the three of them played it together. Excellent.

Lightning Express???

There will come a time

And yes, that Dry Branch song about him coming home dead made me cry twice at grey fox last year

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## ejkauf99

How about "The Dutchman" I Don't know who wrote it, but it awlays hits me hard. Also Lucinda williams "Sweet old World"
To name but a two of my favorites.
Ed

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## JEStanek

Father Adieu by Reeltime Travelers

I can't keep from adding more... I love sad songs.

Jamie

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## om21ed

Danny Boy

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## Jim Rowland

"I Never Could Do Nothin' Right" by Lacy J. Dalton.
Jim

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## Tighthead

I don't mean to quibble, or to send this thread off on a tangent, but I'm pretty sure D#minor is the saddest key.
The description from Christian Schubart's Ideen zu einer Aesthetik der Tonkunst:

D#minor: Feelings of the anxiety of the soul's deepest distress, of brooding despair, of blackest depresssion, of the most gloomy condition of the soul. Every fear, every hesitation of the shuddering heart, breathes out of horrible D# minor. If ghosts could speak, their speech would approximate this key.

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## sgarrity

Vince Gill - Go Rest High on That Mountain, listening to Vince and Allison Krause sing this will bring a tear to a glass eye
Ron Thomasson or Norman Blake - He's Coming to Us Dead, powerful sad, especially today
Johnny Cash - I Still Miss Someone

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## cutbait2

"bringing mary home" performed by the country gentlemen

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## Chippster

How about "Hello in There" or "Sam Stone" by John Prine ... two powerfully sad songs. In country music "I never go around mirrors" by Don Rollins (George Jones cut it) Don also wrote "The Race is on" and eventually killed himself. Now THAT'S real country music! A former boss of mine, Townes Van Zandt wrote some pretty sad stuff. Willie Nelson did too "So Much To Do (since you've gone)". I heard John Prine on a radio show quote Steve Goodman - who wrote "The Dutchman" ... Steve said "There will always be more sad songs, because when you're happy, you're doing happy things and living your life ... when you're sad, you've got all the time in the world to write."

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Mandobart

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## first string

> How about Townes Van Zandt's "Flyin' Shoes?" '


I don't know if I'd personally pick that one, but whatever the saddest song ever written is, my bet is that it's a Van Zandt tune. That man was seriously tortured, and had a gift for sharing it with the world. There's a a part in the excellent documentary about him, "Be Here to Love Me," where Townes sings "Waiting Around to Die," and there is an old man who is just sitting there listening with tears pouring down his cheeks. 

But actually I think it's sort of an impossible question to answer, even on a personal level. After all there are different kinds of sadness. Something can be bittersweet and poignant, or it can be soul crushingly bleak, or it can be sad in a way that makes you sick to be a member of the human species, and so on.

For instance Dylan's "Girl From the North Country," for would take the cake for the first category in my book, but I would have difficulty stating that it is the saddest song when it comes to utter despair or heartrending inhumanity.

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## TommyK

"House of the Rising Sun", sung in the original, woman's point of view.

Then, "Will the Circle Be Unbroken", 'course most any funeral song is quite, quite sad.

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## Jim MacDaniel

> Danny Boy


Agreed -- IMO, nothing is sadder than _Danny Boy_ (but _taps_ comes in at a close second).

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## fatt-dad

Looks Like Rain - Bob Weir

f-d

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## mikeomando

Mandohack: see page one for a "witty" discussion of D minor, "Lick my Love Pump".
Lots of great songs coming through. Here's another:
"A Change Is Gonna Come" Sam Cooke
A sad title, but not such a sad song:
"Girlfriend In A Coma" (Morrissey/The Smiths)

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## twaaang

Chuck (cgwilsonjr) -- you're right about that Gilian Welch number "Anabelle Lee". The simple dry way she sings "She was the apple of my eye" scores a direct hit on me every time. The fewer the people who can relate to that song, the better. -- Paul

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## Tim

Steve Goodman has a live recording where he does a medley of "dead girl songs".

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## Steve Scott

Take Me To The River (with the line "I'm gonna walk until my straw hat floats"

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## groveland

> ...oh yeah, for an instrumental it would have to *Adagio for Strings* by Samuel Barber.


Ditto.

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## Lee Callicutt

[I don't know if I'd personally pick that one, but whatever the saddest song ever written is, my bet is that it's a Van Zandt tune. That man was seriously tortured, and had a gift for sharing it with the world. There's a a part in the excellent documentary about him, "Be Here to Love Me," where Townes sings "Waiting Around to Die," and there is an old man who is just sitting there listening with tears pouring down his cheeks.]


Yeah, it was probably Lyle Lovett's rendition of the song at Van Zandt's funeral at the end of the film which made me nominate that one, which pretty well illustrates your larger point about our (viewer/listener)contextual perception of sadness.

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## Steve Scott

Here's another one: Queen of the Rails by Utah Philips. About a hobo and his dog named "Queen of the Rails". Briefly, the hobo dies under a rail car and "leaves his little pal alone". Always brings a tear.

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## JEStanek

Mikeomando- The Smiths... fertile territory. I used to LOVE the Smiths. Now I just really like them. I was more depressed then! Morrisey should be the poster boy for anti-depressants.

I remember when Jonny Mar left the Smiths for The Pretenders he apologized to the world for the Smiths. Frankly, I thought his guitar work was great.

Jamie

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## sunburst

Well, somebody beat me to the one that is becoming the saddest song for me; "Happy Birthday", but I'll nominate "Tonight the Bottle Let Me Down" by Merle Haggard. Now _that's_ sad!

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## Lee Callicutt

Okay, how about this desolation bomb: Johnny Cash's renditon of Trent Reznor's "Hurt."

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## Steve Cantrell

So true, Lee. It makes you want to lie down.

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## JEStanek

Has anyone seen the Sad Kermit version of Hurt by Trent Reznor / Cash. Not sad. Actually wrong, but funny...

This and the Murder Ballads has been my favorite thread in a while. Thanks!

Jamie

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## ShaneJ

Forgive me for not reading through all the posts to see if this one has been posted already (surely it has). In case everyone has forgotten David Alan Coe's "perfect country & western song"...

"I was drunk the day my mom got out of prison.
I went to pick her up in the rain.
But before I got to the station in my pickup truck,
She got ran-ed over by a damned old train...."

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## Mike Buesseler

Somebody mentioned Steve Goodman awhile back. I heard him sing "My Old Man" all by himself in Anchorage about 25 years ago. I almost stopped breathing....(_My_ old man was killed when I was six.)

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Mandobart

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## Lee Callicutt

> Has anyone seen the Sad Kermit version of Hurt by Trent Reznor / Cash. Not sad. #Actually wrong, but funny...


No, but that sounds like a good one!

For a slight variation, how about the most uplifting sad song?

My first nominee would be Jim Webb's "Highwayman" sung by Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings, Kris Kristofferson and the IMMORTAL Johnny Cash!

----------


## Lee Callicutt

> So true, Lee. It makes you want to lie down.


Yeah, I call that one a bone crusher.

----------


## Rick Jones

My first vote - "Sand and Water", by Beth Neilsen Chapman.

My Old Man, by Steve Goodman was great too. He also did The Dutchman, though the song was written by Michael Smith.

Speaking of Michael Smith - "Ballad of Elizabeth Dark" is a gem ... 

Probably my favorite sad song is "Blood Count" ... written by Billy Strayhorn very shortly before he died. Any of Stan Getz' versions will about bring you to tears ... he says more with a few notes than most lyricists could say with a whole pad of paper.

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## chipotle

saddest song....Strange Fruit sung by Billie Holliday, also Gloomy Sunday, aka the Hungarian suicide song.

Sorry, no bluegrass content, jmho

----------

Mandobart

----------


## mikeomando

Don't apologize, this isn't a bluegrass thread. By the way, I believe the saddest key signature for a standard-tuned mandolin is gb minor.

----------


## Ivan Kelsall

Have a listen to the 'Greenbriar Boys' singing a song written by Marty Robbins - " At the end of a long,lonely day". It's guaranteed to bring a tear to a glass eye.It's also a very beautiful song. Another tear jerker is Tim O'Brien's song "Late in the day",again a beautiful song.
 Beth Neilsen Chapman sings a song called "Amazing Grace" (not THE Amazing Grace),which is a totally awesome song,but is also extremely sad,
 # # # # # # # # # # # # # #  Saska

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## swampstomper

Honourable mention:

Mary of the wild moor (sung by Charlie Moore, of course)
They're at rest together (Callahan Brothers, revived by the Dream Scene -- Connell and Duffy)
Tiny broken heart (Louvins, revived by AK)

and #1 ...

Little Roy the crippled boy (Del McCoury, John Duffy)

----------


## chirorehab

Tony Rice's version of "House of the Rising Sun"

----------


## K3NTUCKI8oy

I hear a sweet voice calling by Bill

----------


## roberto

-IF I COULD ONLY FLY. Billy Joe Shaver
-MY LAST DAYS ON EARTH. Bill Monroe
-MANIFIESTO DE INVIERNO. La Ronda de Boltaña (the best band in the Spanish traditional music field)

----------


## Soupy1957

"He Stopped Loving Her Today" (George Jones didn't write it, but he gave it life).

Having said that, you know what you get when you play a Country song backwards? 

You get your house back, your wife back, your dog back.....

-Soupy1957

----------


## B. T. Walker

Soupy, you forgot to say that you sober up.

SJennings, "You Never Even Call Me By My Name" is the song I thought of. Must be a Texas thang.

----------


## Bret Roberts

For me it would have to be Concrete Angel by Martina McBride. Have to add Silent Night for personal reasons.

----------


## PhilGE

Don't think anyone's mentioned "Long Black Veil" yet...

----------


## MikeEdgerton

Martin Mull's "They never met". Now that was a sad song.

----------


## Chippster

I'm the one who brought up Townes Van Zandt. He loved other people's sad songs more than his own! He used to call them "Razor Songs" as in "the kinda song that'll make you wanna go out and slash yer wrists." I was at his house one time (bringing him vodka) and while there i picked up a piece of paper on the table beside me and started reading the saddest poetry ... i said "Townes, this is a sad song" and he said "That's not a song, it's a suicide note!"

----------


## Frank Russell

Guy Clark's "Desperadoes Waitin for a Train," the Jerry Jeff version. Pure misery. Also, Stevie Ray Vaughn's "Life Without You," from the Soul to Soul album. Sure, it's a bit of a "Little Wing" ripoff, but it was my favorite sad song of all in college, and I can barely listen to it at all since Stevie Ray was killed. Frank

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## martini

What a great thread! Here are some that come to mind:
Love Has No Pride
Long Long Time
[both of these sung by Linda Ronstadt]
How I Wanted To [Richard Thompson]
Georgia Lee [Tom Waits; w/ the heartbeaking refrain, "why wasn't god watching?!"]
Dream of the Miner's Child [Doc Watson]
and indeed, Danny Boy. 
[and for whatever reason, i find Audrey Hepburn singing Moon River to be wonderfully sad.]
=
m

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## tkdboyd

Any one mention:"I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry" by Hank Williams, I am partial to Monroe and then the much later version by Cash on the American IV: The Man Comes Around CD.

Just went back and looked, someone else already mentioned it!
Most of the New Alison Krauss CD is very sad. Well done, but freak'n sad!

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## MikeEdgerton

> How about "The Dutchman" I Don't know who wrote it, but it awlays hits me hard


The Dutchman was written by Michael Smith. Steve Goodman called it "The only love song ever written that didn't grunt". I don't see that as a sad song, I see it as a touching love song. YMMV.

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## Bob Sayers

Well, it's not bluegrass, but, hands-down, the saddest, most haunting songs I've ever heard are by the great Indianapolis bluesman Leroy Carr and his guitarist partner Francis Scrapper Blackwell, e.g., "Blues Before Sunrise," "Midnight Hour Blues," "Corn Likker Blues," and for truly plum pitiful, "Christmas in Jail - Ain't It a Pain"!!! Think I'll go stick my head in the oven right now...

Bob

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## JEStanek

Mad World by Tears for Fears as covered by Michael Andrews and Gary Jules. Sounds like Michael Stipe but isn't

"I find it Kind of funny
I find it kind of sad
but the dreams in which I'm dying
are the best I've ever had..."

Jamie

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## JEStanek

We aren't alone in our sad song longing...
A Google searchof Saddest Song Ever opened a bunch of good ideas and songs overlooked.

This is fun! Perhaps I need the medication...
Jamie

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## chipotle

I have to echo the previous posts regarding Neil Young and Tom Waits, I am a huge fan of both and would toss in "cold cold ground" by Tom Waits despite the funky caliope music.

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## Soupy1957

Linda Rondstadt has an old tune on her newest (I THINK it's her newest) duet CD, called "When I'm Too Old To Die Young" that is very sad.

-Soupy1957

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## mandelect

Another one to add to my growing list:

Damien Jurado - "Medication"

It's so, so sad

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## Jim MacDaniel

> Wow, nobody has mentioned the saddest "key" yet!...


If D Minor is the saddest key, what might be the happiest key, F Major perhaps?  :Wink:

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## Joe Dodson

> Any one mention:"I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry" by Hank Williams ...


Yeah - that would get my vote too. I mean, c'mon:

Have you ever heard a robin weep,
As leaves begin to die,
That means she's lost the will to live,
I'm so lonesome I could cry.

For my money, it just don't get any sadder than that.

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## Andrew Reckhart

"Alyssa Lies" makes me cry every time I hear it (And I'm not a real emotional guy). #It just pulls on my heartstrings because I know how real and how horrible child abuse is. I have a huge soft spot for abused and under-priveledged children.

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## Joe Dodson

Having read through the rest of the thread, I'd agree that Townes V.Z is entitled to honorable mention at least, but nobody has mentioned his absolute saddest tearjerker - Marie. Man alive, that song jabs a knife in my heart.

----------


## MadMax

"Who Will Watch the Home Place," by Laurie Lewis, is one of the saddest songs I've ever heard.

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## incoserv

Without a doubt, _Danny Boy_. Especially as the father of a draft-age young man whose country is ostensibly at war. Definitely _Danny Boy._

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## cooper4205

"You'll Find Her Name Written There" is another sad one

_No more, no more, she'll walk this earth
Her face like a beautiful flower
But all alone, there's a marble stone
You'll find her name written there_

along with "River of Death" and "On the Old Kentucky Shore"

Bill sure must of been one sad dude, singing all the sad ol' songs

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## Mental Floss

Sam Stone by John Prine is a sad ol song...."climbing wall while sitting in the chair.....the smell of death hanging in the air.."

I heard the tear jerker by Tim Mcgraw again the other day
"DONT TAKE THE GIRL" I cry every time I hear that one...as a matter of fact a tear fell to its salty depths right now just thinking about it.

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## allenhopkins

Don't know if it's the saddest _song,_ but one of the saddest _song verses_ I've run across is from the Louvin's _When I Stop Dreaming:


I'd be like a flower unwanted in spring
Alone and neglected transplanted in vain
To a garden of sadness where its petals would fall
In the shadow of undying pain._

Ah yes, "the shadow of undying pain" -- been there, done that...

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## Goodin

Hands down "The Little Girl and the Dreadful Snake". WHat could be more sad than your little girl die in your arms from a snake bite???

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## manicmando

anything by Neil Young and Dylans "Times They Are A Changing" the whole album it always makes me choke

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## mandelect

Danny Boy has been mentioned a few times - not my absolute No.1 choice but very worthy nevertheless. Just curious, but is anyone familier with Sinead O'Connor's version on Davy Spillane's "Sea Of Dreams"? Used to think that Danny Boy was overly sentimental until I heard Sinead sing it - what a stunning version?

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## Boombloom

"Call Collect on Christmas"

So every year on Christmas I would call her
and say that I'd be home before too long
But one night when I called
There was no answer there at all
And then I knew that there must be something wrong.

[I]The ones who found her thought she'd tried to call the doctor
Where she lay she was still reaching for the phone
But in my heart I knew that she 
Had been reaching out for me
The one who broke her heart and left her all alone.

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## Clyde Clevenger

I Couldn't Find My Walkin' Shoes, is sadder than the words, if you've been down that road.

----------


## harwilli55

My nomination for the saddest song ever, makes me sad whenever I hear, think, or remember it.

I first heard it on the companion DVD to the Ken Burns Civil War series and I think it was performed by the McGarrigle Sisters/family. 

It is called *"The Vacant Chair"*. The story of a family learning that their son had been killed in battle as they were sitting down to Thanksgiving dinner. 


*Chorus:*
We will meet, but we will miss him
There will be one empty chair
We shall linger to caress him
While we breathe our evening prayer

*Vs.*

When a year ago we gathered
There was joy in his blue eyes
But a Golden Chord is severed
And our hopes in ruin lie

At our fireside, sad and lonely 
Often will the bosom swell,
At remembrance of the story
How our noble Willie fell

How he strove to bear our banner
Through the thickest of the fight,
And uphold our country's honor
In the strength of manhood's night.

True, they tell us wreaths of glory
Ever more will deck his brow,
But this soothes the anguish only
Sweeping o'er our heartstrings now.

Sleep today, Oh early fallen,
In thy green and narrow bed,
Dirges from the pine and cypress,
Mingle with the tears we shed.


Harlan

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## Rroyd

For those who are dealing with the ravages of Altzheimer's, be it with a friend, parent, or mate, I nominate Doyle and Quicksilver's version of "Saving Grace."

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## Clyde Clevenger

Maybe a little personal and even selfish, but "I'll Be Home for Christmas" alway chokes me up. I spent two Christmas' with my Uncle Sam '68 and '70, no White Christmas in Saigon.

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## halfamind

So many great one's mentioned already...

I'm hesitant to post the one that is saddest to me at the moment, it's a bit personal, but what the hell... Jeff Buckley's version of Halleluja. Leonard Cohen wrote my marriage, and its end, perfectly, and Buckley's voice... *shudder*

no need to share sympathies (not trolling for that)... I'm much the better for it.

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## homermando

"Marie" by Townes Van Zandt.

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## Bramble

"Kilkelly, Ireland" will get me weepy everytime.

Then there's "With a memory like mine" on Darryl Scott/Tim O'Brien's "Real Time".

----------

Chuck Leyda

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## Lee Callicutt

Did anyone mention "Mr. Bojangles?" 

Any song with a dog dying in it gets my vote.

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## F5G WIZ

"Lee and Paige" by King Wilke is quite the tear jerker. Any song about youngins' gettin killed has got to be a sad song! Also that it happens to be true doesn't hurt the sad factor much.

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## nashvillebill

Just about any song from Dale Watson's "Every Song I Write is For You" album, but particularly "These Things We'll Never Do" and "Your Love I'm Gonna Miss". He wrote the songs over about a three year period after his fiance was killed in an auto accident. It's one of the best country albums ever recorded- but I can barely listen to it because it's so sad.

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## nashvillebill

Two David Wilcox songs:
"Eye of the Hurricane" (a young lady dies in a motorcycle crash.)
"Chet Baker's Unsung Swan Song" (about the great jazz trumpeter's addiction and death)

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## epicentre

Darlin Little Joe, and Darcy Farrell. Pretty sad.

When they start singing about patting the ol dog on the head in 'Darlin Little Joe', I leave the room.

 Epi.

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## Keith Owen

My iPod just reminded me of maybe the saddest song ever.

Johnny Cash covering Gordon Lightfoot's "If You Could Read My Mind" off of Ameican V: A Hundred Highways.

That is a sad, sad song.

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## Paul Kotapish

So many great songs already listed, but my current favorite weeper is "Keep Me in Your Heart," written and performed by Warren Zevon as he was dying of cancer. It is a lovely song and Zevon gives a wonderful performance, even though he was too weak to stand during the recording sessions. Never fails to choke me up. 

Hunter and Garcia's "Bird Song" is another favorite from the melancholy list, as is Gillian Welch's "Orphan Girl," and lots of Carter Family songs, including "My Texas Girl."

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Mandobart

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## John Hill

My attempt at Tanyards is pretty darn sad  .

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## clem

"Ruby, Don't Take Your Love To Town." It doesn't get any sadder .... 

And what's sadder is that the song is so apropos again.

----------


## Bob Sayers

Here are a couple more worthy candidates: Paul Siebel's "Louise" and Dillard and Clark's "Through the Morning, Through the Night."

Bob

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## Dena Haselwander

During a conversation with my family about dust bowl days and the depression #_Brother, Can You Spare A Dime_ was mentioned. #That haunting melody and plaintive lyrics--too sad to sing...


Dena

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## oldtimestrings

OK, I'll admit that I didn't read the entire thread to see if this has been mentioned yet, but the Stanley Brothers' classic "White Dove" has got to be one of the saddest (and most beautiful) bluegrass songs of them all, and that's saying something. Just ponder the last verse and the chorus:


As the years roll by I often wonder
Will we all be together someday 
And each night as I wander to the graveyard 
Darkness finds me where I kneel to pray


White doves will mourn in sorrow
The willows will hang their head
I live my life in sorrow
Since mother and daddy are dead


Cheery stuff.

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## John Ritchhart

Aye, if thares' any Irish in ya, this'll do it.   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zKCvFjuTT6Q

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## morristownmando

Keith whitley(Miami,My amy) Dry Branch Fire squad(orphan child) Hazel Dickens(My Mama's Hands) Stanley Bros(The fields have turned brown,Will u miss me,Trajic Romance,Mothers not dead she's only sleeping,white dove,Angel band,The lonesome River)Bill Monroe(Wayfaring Stranger)and he also has the saddest song without words(My Last Days on Earth)Those all will bring tears to a Glass eye.

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## Tom Gibson

So many good picks here. #Add me to the Little Girl and Dreadful Snake list, that one's so sad I can't listen to it.

Also, of those I can think of now...

Puff the Magic Dragon
Asleep/I Know it's Over, others by the Smiths
I Can't Make You Love Me - Bonnie Raitt
China Doll/Black Peter - Grateful Dead
Annan Waters/Rose In April, many others by Kate Rusby
Kern River - Merle Haggard
Goodbye - Steve Earle (also as done by Emmylou)
The Final Cut - Pink Floyd
Fiddler's Green - The Tragically Hip
Go Rest High On That Mountain - Vince Gill
Promises - Randy Travis
St. James' Hospital - Doc Watson
Annabelle - Gillian Welch (I think it's just Annabelle, not Annabelle Lee)
Pontiac - Lyle Lovett
Don't Close Your Eyes - Keith Whitley

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## morristownmando

> Keith whitley(Miami,My amy) Dry Branch Fire squad(orphan child) Hazel Dickens(My Mama's Hands) Stanley Bros(The fields have turned brown,Will u miss me,Trajic Romance,Mothers not dead she's only sleeping,white dove,Angel band,The lonesome River)Bill Monroe(Wayfaring Stranger)and he also has the saddest song without words(My Last Days on Earth)Those all will bring tears to a Glass eye.


Oh yeah i forgot Old merle haggards Mama tried

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## GDAE

"Last Lost Highway" by Kevin Welch...written for his friend and former musical partner who took his own life.

"Fire in the Hole" by Pat Long, the friend for whom Kevin wrote "Last Lost Highway". It's about a mining disaster and breaks my heart. Hear that one here, as it wasn't released:

http://www.bluerosefamily.com/Fire.mp3

By the way, Kevin Welch also wrote "Till I'm Too Old To Die Young", referenced above in regards to Linda Ronstadt's cover.

----------


## Tom Gibson

Also, Morning Dew. I know the Dead's version, but someone else wrote it.

----------


## Mike Snyder

I think "Teardrops in the Snow" Patsy Montana by way of Laurie Lewis. But, there's alot of really sad ones in this thread. You guys dug out some really obscure ones. Thanks.

----------


## Cheryl Watson

"Georgia Lee" about a murdered runaway girl by Tom Waits. It starts out, "Cold was the night, hard was the ground; they found her in a small grove of trees..." I used to sing my own mournful grassy version at gigs but it made people very upset and cry so I don't play it out anymore.

Twang

----------


## SGraham

"I Flew Over Our House Last Night"


Steve

----------


## TonyP

the one that still gets me is the old Hot Rize song "Just Like You". So true, so sad. Dr. Banjo Pete wrote that one.

----------


## Byrdmando

> _"Lick My Love Pump"_ ....in D minor, the saddest of all keys


D minor has made grown men weep.

----------


## Byrdmando

Stanley Brothers "Stone Walls and Steel Bars" not sure if that is the exact name but lock down the thread as this is the saddst song ever.

----------


## wadeyankey

I have to agree with "Tall Buildings", but a new one that's really been killing me is "Scared at Night" off of the new Kathleen Edwards record. The whole record is great, but man, she is KILLING me with that one. Check it out anyway though.

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## RevRichard

I think it's interesting how many definitions of "sad" are represented here. My nominees:
"Red Dirt Girl," Emmylou Harris (I know someone else mentioned it)
"Lost Highway," Hank Williams
The sadness of both is in the sense of hopelessness and waste, imho.

----------


## morristownmando

> I think it's interesting how many definitions of "sad" are represented here. #My nominees:
> "Red Dirt Girl," Emmylou Harris (I know someone else mentioned it)
> "Lost Highway," Hank Williams
> The sadness of both is in the sense of hopelessness and waste, imho.


Lost highway is definately a tearjerker.Old hank could sing a happy song and make you cry!

----------


## Mike Bunting

Blaze Foley's "If I Could Only Fly", also covered by Haggard. Also Merle's "Looking for a Place to Fall Apart"

----------


## Mike Bunting

"Walking Through Your town in the Snow" by Utah Phillips. And pick a Townes tune.

----------


## allenhopkins

> And pick a Townes tune.


_Tecumseh Valley._

Or, let's go back even farther (by the way, what revived this thread after a 12-month hiatus?):

_Queen Jane
Down By the Greenwood Side
The Trees They Do Grow High
Long Lankin
Matty Groves
House Carpenter
Bonnie Susie Cleland ("Her father did put up the stake, her brothers did the fire make, and Bonnie Susie Cleland was burned in Dundee")
Flandyke Shore
Lady Diamond
Annochie Gordon
Mary Hamilton_ or _The King's Four Maries
Geordie_
-- list goes on and on...

----------


## mandolirius

&lt;D minor has made grown men weep.&gt;

In a Klezmer band I used to be in the singer would often say "Dm...it's a living."   

Another of her great lines, "Nobody died and everyone got paid...it was a good gig."

----------


## mandolirius

And to the topic: 

"The Jeannie C" (Stan Rogers)

----------

Mandobart

----------


## jasona

> Tom Waits is good for a few sad songs on any album.


_Martha_ by Waits is a heart rending song of regret. On this note there is also Harry Chapin's _Cats in the Cradle_. _To the River_ by REM is melancholic to the point of sadness for me. _War on Drugs_ by Barenaked Ladies is a pretty visceral song about suicide. _Needle and the Damage Done_ by Neil Young...

Lots of sad songs out there, but sad for different reasons to me.

----------


## jasona

> "And the Band Played Walting Matilda" never fails - haven't heard a bad version yet


From the same song writer is _My Youngest Son Came Home Today_. I have a haunting version by Billy Bragg somewhere around here..

----------


## Denny Gies

"The Water's So Cold" by who knows? Learned this one from a friend years ago. A sample:
 The crest of a wave, breaks over my head
 My strength almost gone and soon I'll be dead
 I'd rather be dead, out here in the sea
 Than to love a woman, who doesn't love me
  Oh the water's so cold, out here in the dark
  Oh the water's so cold, as cold as your heart
  The lights from the shore are fast growing dim
  And I am so cold that I can't hardly swim.
There are two more verses. Learned this one in the key of D.

----------


## jasona

> So many great songs already listed, but my current favorite weeper is "Keep Me in Your Heart," written and performed by Warren Zevon as he was dying of cancer. It is a lovely song and Zevon gives a wonderful performance, even though he was too weak to stand during the recording sessions. Never fails to choke me up.


Yes! That whole album in fact is soaked in the awareness of his mortality.

----------


## MWM

In the Bluegrass tent, Monroe's "My Last Days on Earth" is probably the saddest instrumental. For a song "Tears Fell on Missouri" by Blue Highway is a good contender that nobody's mentioned. I quit singing it as it seemed too easy to makes folks cry.

----------


## blacksmith

"The Living Years" by Mike and the Mechanics. Oh man, if i hear that while i'm driving I have to pull over, can't see for the tears.

----------


## Chris Travers

"Tears fell on Missouri" by Blue Highway is pretty sad.

----------


## CES

I'm sure they've been mentioned, but He Stopped Loving Her Today and I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry, by George and Hank respectively, are right up there for me. Also, on a more spiritual note, Todd Agnew has a song called "My Jesus" essentially calling out lukewarm/"churchy" Christians..."My Jesus wouldn't be welcome in my church...the blood and dirt on his feet might stain the carpet" gets me everytime (tearing up now).

----------


## terrierguy

I must agree with "incoserv" Danny Boy. I used to sing it to the one dog that would actually stay in the room when I played. He died a few years ago. Now I get misty when ever I play it.

----------


## Bill James

Garnet Rogers "Frankie and Johnny".

----------


## Zako

The saddest instrumental that I can remember is probably "Son and Sylvia," by Eric Clapton on the Reptile album, and that will probably change.
"Johnny Has Gone for a Soldier" is also pretty melancholy.

----------


## MikeEdgerton

Fred Eaglesmith's "The Rocket".

Man, this is a pretty good restart of an old thread.

----------


## cmorbro

Bell Bottom Blues ..Eric Clapton

How Can I miss you if you won't go away.. Dan Hicks & his Hot Licks

----------


## JiminRussia

The prize for the saddest song in the world,(Instrumental) is.............





It's a tie! "Pavane for a Dead Princess" by Maurice Ravel and "The Last Days of My Life" by Bill Monroe.

----------

Mandobart

----------


## cmorbro

I miss the Mississippi and You...Doc & Merle Watson version

----------


## Steve Cantrell

I think Bonnie Raitt's "I Can't Make You Love Me" is pretty depressing.

----------


## Keith Erickson

The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald

----------


## mandolirius

&lt;How Can I miss you if you won't go away.. Dan Hicks & his Hot Licks&gt; 

Great song, but it's pretty campy and totally tongue-in-cheek. How is it sad?

----------


## hattio

Okay, I only read through the first 4 1/2 pages. But I'd like to nominate two I havent' seen mentioned yet. Kilkelly Ireland. I know it by Moloney, O'Connel and Keene, but they didn't write it. Brought tears to my eyes live though.

The second would be a traditional (I think) called I am stretched out on my grave. I have it by Kate Rusby. Sinead O'Connor does a very good (but not AS good) version too.

----------


## Caleb

I don't have a song to add, but I will mention a story about Townes Van Zandt since he's been mentioned so much. 


If you've not seen the documentary about him titled Be Here To Love Me, you really should. His entire life was a sad song. But there was one point where Townes was being interviewed (in Australia, I think) toward the end of his life. The interviewer asked him, "Why are so many of your songs so sad?". Townes looks at him in a very deep way that I'm not sure I can entirely communicate in words (maybe if I were Steinbeck, but...) and says, "Well, if you haven't noticed, life's kind of sad. Don't you think?". At that point Townes just sort of stared at the man looking like he wanted to cry. To me, that was the most moving part of the entire documentary. His eyes had a haunting effect to them at that moment that is rarely seen in life. Very moving.

----------


## Andy Nichols

I heard Larry Sparks singing  A face in the crowd  the other day. Thats a pretty sad song.

----------


## Eddie Sheehy

Honey - but I hate it.
I'm Nobody's Child - a real tear-jerker.
Scorn Not His Simplicity - my youngest is autistic.
You Will Live in My heart Forever - written by Steve Wariner for Chet.

----------


## Eddie Sheehy

Kilkelly moistened my eyes too...

----------


## Caleb

I don't think he wrote it, but Tommy Emmanuel does a song called "I Still Can't Say Goodbye" about his father that is very, very moving and very, very sad.

----------


## Jim MacDaniel

David Allen Coe's _You Never Even Called Me By My Name_; esp. the last verse in the updated version:

"I was drunk the day my momma got out of prison
And I went to pick her up in the rain
But before I could get to the station in my pickup truck
She got runned over by a d###ed old train"

----------


## aphillips

How about the old hymn Were you There? That one gets me...

----------


## Jim

"Down in the valley"

----------


## D C Blood

Willie Roy, The Crippled Boy...Country Gentlemen, Doc Williams(?)
The School House Fire - The Stanley Brothers
No School Bus In Heaven (about the Kentucky school bus wreck of about fifteen years ago)

----------


## Gutbucket

"Lost Little Children" by Tim O'Brien on his,The Crossing,c.d. It's about Irish children whose parents were already in America, and no one is there to meet them on the pier when the children arrive. Very sad and often true.

----------


## squidbrain

Kilkelly Ireland ranks at the top for me

----------


## Gary S

"Old Shep" and "The Lightning Express" are pretty darn sad.

----------


## pager

Guess I'll Hang My Tears Out To Dry - from Sinatra's 'Only The Lonely' LP. 
"The torch I carry is handsome
It's worth it's heartache in ransom.
And when the twilight steals,
I know how the lady in the harbor feels.

When I want rain, I get sunny weather,
I'm just as blue as the sky ..."

That is one rough LP to get through. You need an RX to listen to it.

----------


## Andrew DeMarco

Dylan's Don't think twice, it's alright.

----------


## lyric_girl

Camera (about a good friend of the band who died in a flood)
So. Central Rain (about a relationship that broke up)
Both by REM

Of course, in terms of the band's hits, they'res always Everybody Hurts.

----------


## Eliot Greenspan

Steve Goodman singing Michael Smith's song "The Dutchman"
literally makes me cry sometimes

also, Goodman's "Penny Evans"

Goodman and John Prine actually wrote "You Never Even Call Me By My Name" David Allen Coe made it a hit. 

John Prine's got some sad ones as well, "Sam Stone" for ex...

sorry if any of these already mentioned, didn't read all the previous pages

----------


## chordbanger

I heard Waltz of the Angels at our jam session yesterday. First time I ever heard the song, and it really got to me.

----------


## Keith Erickson

You know what song I haven't heard in forever until this morning?

_I haven't seen Mary in years_

Boy every time I hear that tune it tugs at my heart strings

----------


## Eric F.

"Today's the Day" by Lucy Kaplansky. I don't know how she can even sing it, it's so sad.

----------


## James P

"The Long Ride Home" by Patty Griffin. Easy on the ears, but a devestating lyric.

----------

Mandobart

----------


## John Ritchhart

Don't know if this was already mentioned but Caleb's icon reminded me of Martha: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CNA9NqGaIWw

----------


## Alex Orr

Wowhow has no one mentioned Moon Mullicans classic, The Leaves Mustnt Fall http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=izwtn...eature=related
Okay, perhaps its a bit too sappy to be truly sad, but in terms of songs that the great bluegrass DJ Ray Davis labeled plum pitiful tunes, it certainly has an exalted place. Ray Davis often plays a great version of Charlie Moore singing this tune with just his voice and a guitar.

Waltzing Matilda is a heartbreaker, even more so these daysand even more so when you live and work near Walter Reed and NIH.

When God Comes to Gather His Jewels is a criminally over-looked masterpiece by ol Hank that is as sad as they come http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BvZi7Q0mZqc
The first tune I heard Scott Brannon and the basement band playing that on the Ray Davis Show I totally choked up. 

Ashokan Farewell conveys sadness really powerfully, no matter how many times I play and/or hear it.

Martha by Tom Waits  man, that one is just so sad and touching. Actually, there are just so many good, sad Waits tunes. I agree with Martini, Georgia Lee is a Heartbreaker. Gonna Take It With Me When I Go is also pretty touching.

Any old mossy bluegrass tune about mama dying, or missing a dead mother  man, they could really write the tear jerkers on that subject back in the day, couldnt they? The saddest? Ill have to say, I Dreamed About Mama Last Night. Good Lordthat one is just devastating.

A quick non-blugrass/country nod needs to go to Broken Heart by the British psych-rock band, Spiritualized. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K9xPNaq9uec

The Civil War-era ballad Lorena is also a real heart-tugger.

Guy Clarks Desperados Waiting for a Train gets another vote for me.

Oooooh Ive got one. How about Let Me Fly Low? Whew, that one is a tear jerker.

Kate Rusby has a few. The Sleepless Sailor and My Young Man are both shatteringly sad and beautiful. There is a tears-from-a-glass eye youtube vid that someone did juxtaposing old photos of coal miners alongside My Young Man that iswellit should just be seen: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5AjblYI9KEY Maybe that is the saddest song/video combo ever.

This is a cool thread  :Cool:

----------


## amandokat

1) "Water Lilly" written by Tom T. Hall performed by Ralph Stanley and Tom T. Hall

2) "Daddy Doesn't Pray Anymore" performed by James King

3) "She Took His Breath Away" performed by James King

4) "Echo Mountain" performed by James King

5) "He Stopped Loving Her Today" George Jones

----------


## MikeEdgerton

It looks like we listen to the same people Kevin.

----------


## Celt of the wood

in the tribune article they list #2 billie Holiday - Gloomy Sunday. That song is not only sad, it's CREEPY as all get out. Do a search on YouTube for Diamanda Galas and listen to her version. I don't sleep right at night after listening to that.

Celt

----------


## Tom Smart

"Queen of the Rails" by the late, great Utah Phillips.

I used to well up every time I heard it. When I decided to learn it myself, the biggest obstacle was that I couldn't get all the way through it without choking up. I'm sorry to say that learning it has finally made me immune to its effects, but now I have a good weapon to make other people cry.

Chorus:
The black smoke choo-choo's gone away,
Bumming, it's just not the same,
Dreams are few and far between
But memories seldom fail--
And waiting down there by the track
For her master to come back
You can count on seeing that old dog,
Old "Queen of the Rails"

The very next day after I learned it, I heard the news that Utah had decided against a heart transplant and was returning home to die.

If there's a place for some old friend
Who waits until the journey's end
The Boomer he'll be glad to see
Old "Queen of the Rails"

----------


## Jordan Ramsey

We just lost Moon Mullins last Sunday. One that always gets the tears rolling for me is "Together in our Hearts", which was co-written by Moon's son Joe. It's on the Traditional Grass CD Songs of Love and Life. It's about a brother and sister who get separated after their mother dies and a couple wants to adopt the girl but not the boy.

 "Brother what will we do, they don't want you too. They'll move me away, and leave you all alone. Sister, do not despair if they take us apart, we'll always be together in our hearts."

Damn, I'm getting teary just thinking about that song.

Jordan Ramsey
myspace.com/crosspicker
--------------
'07 Gibson Sam Bush

----------


## billkilpatrick

i saw a film in the 60's about a cargo cult in new guinea:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cargo_cult

... poignant beyond belief.

as a result - on the rare occasions when i'm obliged to hear one - i find any song expressing faith to be very sad.

----------


## Monrovia

"Your Long Journey" by Doc Watson and Rosa Lee Watson:

God's given us years of happiness here 
Now we must part 
And as the angels come and call for you 
The pains of grief tug at my heart 

Oh my darling 
My darling 
My heart breaks as you take your long journey 

Oh the days will be empty 
The nights so long without you my love 
And when God calls for you I'm left alone 
But we will meet in heaven above 

Oh my darling 
My darling 
My heart breaks as you take your long journey 

Fond memories i'll keep of happy ways 
That on earth we trod 
And when I come we will walk hand in hand 
As one in Heaven in the family of God 

Oh my darling 
My darling 
My heart breaks as you take your long journey

----------


## dtank

Let's try Johnny Cash again. How about "Spiritual" on the "Unchained" album.

----------


## danoNC

I always thought that Nanci Griffith did some of the most powerfully sad songs ever. Like "Gulf Coast Highway" "There's A Light Beyond These Woods" and "If Wishes Were Changes"

I also agree about the Steve Goodman song "My old man" 

Wow, this is making me sad just thinking about songs I haven't heard in a while.

Dan J

----------


## man dough nollij

My pick for "I am dying of unrequited love" song is Playing Bogart, by Any Trouble. If I remember correctly, he sings about his heart: "I tie it up in barbed wire, and beat it senseless". Yikes.

----------


## lmartnla

I just found this list because it was up on #the board, and I didn't take the time to read them all, but the last time I sang 'Rocksalt and Nails' by #Utah Phillips the fiddle player laughed and said: "Lou, that's the saddest song I ever heard".

Strangely, that one doesn't break me up. The toughest one for me to do is a war between the states song called 'Last Letter Home" by David McDade/James H. Brown.

C	F
I can hear the cannon thundering at night,
C	G
And I cannot help from wondering what is wrong and what is right,
C	F
And the morphine seems to do no good at all,
C	G	C
I would run all the way if I wouldn't fall.

Chorus:

Am	G
And I dreamed of a rose in a Spanish garden,
Am	G
And I kissed you as I placed it in your hair,
C	F
If I'm ever on my feet again I will,
C	G	C
I will run all the way just to meet you there.

C	F
Well I joined the Southern cavalry for fun
C	G
I had rode a thousand horses, Always had a way with a gun,
C	F
Now among the fallen riders lying still,
C	G	C
Swallowed up by the cause on hero's hill.


C	F
Through the day I watched those Southern boys go down.
C	G
And we lay like Georgia peaches, Bruised and broken on the ground.
C	F
Through the night I wondered if it was worth the pain,
C	G	C
And I cried out not revenge, but I called your name.


To me, the sad songs and minor keys have great impact and hitting the emotions hard is one thing we seek from music. #Just don't do too many in a row.---Lou

----------


## shadco

> "Sam Stone" by John Prine


.

I'm with you on this one.

There's a hole in daddy's arm where all the money goes

How can it get any sadder than that.

Actually John has penned a bunch of sad ones

----------


## woodwizard

Now some of those old traditional ballads tend to be pretty ... Sad. 
Like "Little Matty Grove", "Knoxville Girl". and "Banks of The Ohio" to name a few.

----------


## 8STRINGR

One of the saddest songs I know recently (maybe a few years) is from Dan Tyminski's "Carry Me Across the Mountain" Cd #Track 8, "Please, Dear Mommy" written by Ronnie Bowman.

It's a great, sad tune that sometimes when I'm playing the Cd I have to skip that track because it's a little "too sad" for me to hear... at times.  #

----------


## Jim

Carmaleta, Hold me closer
I beleive I'm sinkin' down
And I'm all strung out on Heroin
On the wrong side of town.

----------

Mandobart

----------


## King Dave

How about "I Hear You Calling Me" by Jonathan Richman?

----------


## Tim Pike

"My Last Days on Earth" (I think that's the title) by Bill Monroe.

----------


## Eddie Sheehy

You know that old trees just grow stronger
Old rivers grow wider every day
But old people just grow lonesome
Waiting for someone to say
Hello in there! Hello.

John Prine

----------

Mandobart

----------


## mandolirius

"Love Has No Pride". Can't recall who wrote it, but it's on an early Bonnie Raitt album. 

Also "Somewhere Over The Rainbow". I normally think of it as more melancholy, almost wistful. But there's a version by Eva Cassidy that really digs deep into a aspect of the song that wasn't obvious to me until I heard her rendition. 

Another singer who can do a sad song without being maudlin is Dinah Washington. I like "Just Friends" and "A Stranger On This Earth".

----------


## troika

"Little Angel little brother" by Lucinda Williams. "Everybody hurts" by REM "100 Years" by Five For Fighting (not so much sad as sentimental. These'll make an Ice Road Trucker cry.

----------


## Jim

[QUOTE]"Love Has No Pride". Can't recall who wrote it, but it's on an early Bonnie Raitt album. 

Eric Kaz & Libby Titus wrote it and Linda Ronstadt did it too. Great song!

----------


## shadco

> You know that old trees just grow stronger
> Old rivers grow wider every day
> But old people just grow lonesome
> Waiting for someone to say
> Hello in there! Hello.
> 
> John Prine


.


That song has made me pay extra attention to old folks ever since I 1st heard it.

A smile, a nod, just a little something to acknowledge them.

but I still think Sam Stone is the one.

----------


## Eddie Sheehy

My youngest is autistic. But even before I had kids this song made me look at Downes kids more sympathetically. Now it it fills me with profound sadness.... http://martindardis.com/id129.html

See[C] the child with the golden hair but[Dm] eyes that show the emptiness inside
Do[G] we know can we understand just[C] how he feels or[G] have we really[C] tried
See[C] him now as he stands alone and[Dm] watches children play a childre's game
Simple[G] child he looks almost like the[C] others yet they[G] know he's not the[C] same

Scorn not his sim[Fm]plicity but[C] rather try to love him all the more,,[Am],,
Scorn not his sim[Fm]plicity oh[G] no,oh[C] no.

See him stare not recognizing that kind face that only yesterday he loved
The loving face of a mother who cant understand what she's guilty of
How she cried tears of happyness the day the doctor told her its a boy
Now she cries tears of helplessness and thinks of all the things he wont enjoy

Scorn not his simplicity but rather try to love him all the more
Scorn not his simplicity oh no,oh no.

Only he knows how to face the future hopelessly sournded by dispair.
He wont ask for your pity or your sympaty but surly you should care.

Scorn[C] not his sim[Fm]plicity but[C] rather try to love him all the more,,[Am]
Scorn not his sim[Fm]plicity oh[G] no,oh[G7] no,oh[C] no

----------


## Bertram Henze

"Twist in my Sobriety" by Tanita Tikaram for me.

----------


## kmiller1610

> "Love Has No Pride". Can't recall who wrote it, but it's on an early Bonnie Raitt album.


From "Give it Up" 1972, probably her best album and loaded with dixieland, great ballads, jazz and lots of suggestive lyrics. 

Raitt has recorded many sad songs that capture moments of resignation and recognition of some of the saddest moments in life.

"I can't make you love me.." is one example.

Probably my favorite is "Matters of the Heart"

----------


## Uncle Choppy

I always used to cry listening to "Puff the Magic Dragon" as a child. I still do!

"Needle of Death" by Bert Jansch.

"The Trees They do Grow High" (trad) and "January Man" (Dave Goulder) both sung by Martin Carthy.

"She Moves Among Men (The Barmaid's Song)" by June Tabor.

In recent days I've been watching the Ken Burns US Civil War DVD (a birthday present) and so "Ashokan Farewell" (mentioned previously) is up there. 

On an associated note, I've also been listening to "Lincoln's Funeral Train" by Norman Blake and Tony Rice. It's a very powerful song.

----------


## Robert Beene

"Thorn Tree in the Garden" by Bobby Whitlock on the Lyla LP by Derek amd the Dominos.

----------


## mandocrucian

It's been mentioned already (at least once), but _"A Little Rain"_ by Tom Waits (off the *Bone Machine* album) is probably my pick, although Randy Newman's _"In Germany Before The War"_ is its competitor. (_"Soldier's Thing"_, off *Swordfishtrombones*, is a real close second in the Waits category.) 

Richard Thompson has written a few really downer classics: _"End Of The Rainbow", "Al Bowlly's In Heaven", "God Loves A Drunk", "Farewell, Farewell"_.

_"Fly"_ - Nick Drake
_"She's Already Made Up Her Mind"_ - Lyle Lovett

Billy Strayhorn's jazz classic, _"Lush Life"_ deserves mention.

As far as instrumentals are concerned, _"Peltoniemien Hinktriikin Surumarssai"_ (trad. off JPP's *Kaustinen Rhapsody*) is as sad as they come. (Translation of the title....._Hintrikki Peltoniemi's Funeral March"_)

NH

----------


## goose 2

"Lee and Paige" by King Wilkie is the sddest one I know. Gret mandolin tune as well.

----------


## Alex Orr

Another sad Richard Thompson tune is "Beeswing"...oh, that one's touching.

----------


## Tony Pearce

A poster cited a tune by The Hansome Family, well, I Still Miss Someone by them gets my vote. As does 'Till I Gain Control Again'(not by them!)

----------


## Uncle Choppy

> My youngest is autistic. #But even before I had kids this song made me look at Downes kids more sympathetically. #Now it it fills me with profound sadness.... http://martindardis.com/id129.html


Gosh, I'd forgotten about that one.
A beautiful song - Luke's rendition is always a real tear-jerker.

----------


## Bertram Henze

A late contribution, but I just stumbled across this one of Karen Matheson:

Crucan Na bPaiste

The title means "Cemetery of the Children". No further explanation needed.

Bertram

----------


## ehOhioGrown

box of rain, is one i tend to listen to when losing somebody close

"A a box of rain will ease the pain and love will see you through"

"such a long long time to be gone and a short time to be here"

----------


## AlanN

Grateful Dead sad: Black Peter
Bluegrass sad: Tiny Broken Heart
Rock sad: Today (Airplane)

----------


## Michael Eck

"A Little Bit of Rain" Fred Neil
"Who Knows Where The Time Goes" Sandy Denny

----------


## Mandolin Fan

"Time To Learn" by Tim O'Brien

----------


## Bruce Evans

"In the Baggage-Coach Ahead"

On a dark stormy night, as the train rattled on,
All the passengers had gone to bed,
Except one young man with a babe in his arms
Who sat there with a bowed-down head.
The innocent one began crying just then,
As though its poor heart would break.
One angry man said, "Make that child stop its noise,
For it's keeping all of us awake."

"Put it out," said another, "Don't keep it in here;
We've paid for our berths and want rest."
But never a word said the man with the child,
As he fondled it close to his breast.
"Where is its mother? Go take it to her,"
this a lady then softly said.
"I wish I could," was the man's sad reply.
"But she's dead in the coach ahead."

While the train rolled onward, a husband sat in tears,
Thinking of the happiness of just a few short years.
Baby's face brings pictures of a cherished hope that's dead,
But baby's cries can't waken her in the baggage coach ahead.

Every eye filled with tears when his story he told
Of a wife who was faithful and true;
He told how he'd saved up his earnings for years,
Just to build up a home for two;
How when Heaven had sent them this sweet little babe,
Their young happy lives were blessed;
His heart seemed to break when he mentioned her name,
And in tears tried to tell them the rest.

Every woman arose to assist with the child;
There were mothers and wives on that train.
And soon was the little one sleeping in peace,
With no thought of sorrow or pain.
Next morn at a station he bade all goodbye,
"God bless you," he softly said,
Each one had a story to tell in their homes
Of the baggage coach ahead

----------


## Steve Cantrell

I can't recall if it has been mentioned here or not, but the instrumental "Christmas Time is Coming, Anna", is just about as emotional as a song can be. Jim Richter does an excellent mandolin version on his YouTube Channel.

----------


## pocketbones

> Vince Gill - Go Rest High on That Mountain, listening to Vince and Allison Krause sing this will bring a tear to a glass eye
> Ron Thomasson or Norman Blake - He's Coming to Us Dead, powerful sad, especially today
> Johnny Cash - I Still Miss Someone


that's actually patty loveless singing with vince

----------


## ilovemyF9

Emmylou Harris, "Red Dirt Girl", gets me; I need a box of tissues every time I hear it.  Superb song!

----------


## pocketbones

in no particular order

jacob's vision-allison krauss

clay & ottie-tim stafford -by bluehighway

how's the world treating you?-louvins  by a.krauss & james taylor

ghost in this house- performed by a.krauss

mary, merry christmas-carter stanley just before he passed away dec.1966

a lonesome night-carter stanley recorded later by skaggs

the drunken driver-carter stanley recorded later by skaggs

rock salt and nails-utah phillips   never meant to be released as a song, he wrote it after his wife left him and was sung to a friend who published it, later recorded by jd crowe 7 new south

----------


## lakedog mando

"Captain and The Kid"  by  Jimmy Buffett ...  I play it with  lots  of tremolo and always get teary...

Pick on...

----------


## Got8Strings

Michael W. Smith's "Hello, Good-bye" about a child that dies shortly after birth

Where's the navigator of your destiny
Where is the dealer of this hand
Who can explain
Life and its brevity
'Cause there is nothing here
That I can understand
You and I
Have barely met
And I just don't want to let go of you yet

Chorus:
Noah, hello, good-bye
I'll see you on the other side
Noah, sweet child of mine
I'll see you on the other side

And so I hold your tiny hand in mine
For the hardest thing I've ever had to face
Heaven calls for you
Before it calls for me
When you get there save me a place
A place where I can share your smile
And I can hold you for more than just awhile

Chorus:
Noah, hello, good-bye
I'll see you on the other side
Noah, sweet child of mine
I'll see you on the other side

----------


## JimRichter

John Lennon -- Mother

----------


## Alex Orr

Yeah, "Ghost in this House" is sad and really powerful - perhaps most of all because of Alison's singing.

How about that song about the father who goes to the depot and tells the agent at the window he's there to pick up his son who's coming home from the war...  The agent says there's no passenger cars coming today and the father tells the agent he's mistaken - "he's not comin' to us livin', he's comin' to us dead."  Is that one just called "He's Comin' To Us Dead"?  Man, that's a sad one.  Ray Davis has a recording of (I think) Charlie Moore doing that one, and it's just a flat out heartbreaker.

----------


## swampy

> Grateful Dead sad: Black Peter
> Bluegrass sad: Tiny Broken Heart
> Rock sad: Today (Airplane)


Black Peter gets me everytime.
The little girl and the dreadful snake is definitely a sad one for me.

----------


## Scotti Adams

"Tears Fell On Missouri" by Blue Highway...the words coupled with the melody is pure D. saddness. If you can listen to this song and not have a tear then you have never been through a divorce with children involved.



He called from Kansas City
He said I'm on the Missouri side
She said you had me worried
I was expecting you tonight
The silence that followed caused her heartbeat to race
so she got out a map, her hands trembling as she sat
for the next words he would say

Chorus:
Then her tears fell on Missouri
Like rain a-pourin' down
he just called and told her
about a new love he'd found
the children lay a-sleepin'
they don't know their daddy's gone
and her tears fell on Missouri
from their little Georgia home

She said what about our babies 
Don't you remember the day
the doctor gave 'em to you
and your tears of joy fell on their face
you should've thought of their feelings 'cause it's not just you and me alone
and what am I gonna say to our angels when they wake
and ask why dad's not coming home

Chorus

----------


## pocketbones

> "Tears Fell On Missouri" by Blue Highway...the words coupled with the melody is pure D. saddness. If you can listen to this song and not have a tear then you have never been through a divorce with children involved.


i haven't.

----------


## Scotti Adams

> i haven't.


  No highly recommended. :Smile:

----------


## Boombloom

> *Any* song with a dying child in it: _Little Bessie, Darling Little Joe, Put My Little Shoes Away,_ etc. (Hm...maybe any song with "little" in the title? Nah, nothing too sad about _Little Maggie_.)
> 
> And, of course, songs where you have to shoot your dog: _Ol' Shep._
> 
> And a little-known sleeper: from Dick Staber's lugubrious LP _Of Graves and Epitaphs_ (really!), _Call Collect at Christmas._ Singer calls his mother (or she calls him, I forget) collect every Christmas, but this year she dies picking up the phone. Don't get much more maudlin than that.



"The ones who found her thought she'd tried to call the doctor
Where she lay she was still reaching for the phone
But in his heart he knew that she had been reaching out for me
The one who broke her heart and left her all alone."

----------


## Golman8

"Blue Eyed Boston Boy," has some great lines to bring tears to your eyes.  The poetry of the author is great.
Straight way was the course to the top of the hill
And the Rebels with shot and shell
plowed furrows of death in the toiling ranks 
and guarded them as they fell.

----------


## Matt DeBlass

Hmm... I'd have to lean towards one of the many versions of "Barbara Allen," a classic for centuries. The one I sing is drawn from an Appalachian version and the collector, J.J. Niles, got one set of words from a young girl who would only speak them because "it's just too sad to sing."

Lots of doomed lover songs in all traditions, "And the Band Played Waltizin' Matilda" is a great one, and lots of sad war songs both from "way back" and the modern day. 

Another great category of sad song, from the Celtic tradition, or the famine/immigration songs. 
For example, from the Pogues' "Thousands Are Sailing," which deals with the surface optimism and underlying loneliness and despair of the new immigrants coming into New York, the narrator speaks to one of the ghosts of Ellis Island, asking about his life here, and gets the reply:

"Oh no, says he, it was not to be
on a coffin ship I came here
and I never even got so far
that they could change my name"

----------


## Mandoviol

> And, of course, songs where you have to shoot your dog: _Ol' Shep._


This is by far *THE* saddest song ever written by anybody.  I sit down and cry every time I hear it.  :Crying:

----------


## barney 59

> I think Bonnie Raitt's "I Can't Make You Love Me" is pretty depressing.


Bonnie Raitt is the best sad song ballad singer of all time --but I have to go with "Love Has No Pride"---

----------


## Jim

Love has no pride

----------


## buckles

How about "Stacked 'Em Up In Piles," a civil war song played with a few fragments of remembered words, the chorus, by Melvin Wine, the great W. Va. old-time fiddler.

"We run 'em nine miles and we stacked em up in piles
Besides what we drowned in the river"

Hmmm.... maybe more horrifying than sad.

----------


## Charlieshafer

"Our Town"; Iris Dement. About an old lady being packed up,and shipped out as the last living resident of her dying, and now dead, town. Between Iris voice and this eerie, gauzy bass line, and very sparse arrangement, it's as sad a it gets.

----------

Mandobart

----------


## turpintony

Here is a great (sad) Louvin Brother song by Alison and JT. excuse me gotta cry....



www.youtube.com/watch?v=KzVqzBwXJAo

----------


## brianf

It doesn't go quite as far back as Barbara Allen, but Bradley Kincaid used to sing, "For Sale, a Baby".

----------


## brianf

:Frown: It doesn't go quite as far back as Barbara Allen, but Bradley Kincaid used to sing, "For Sale, a Baby".

----------


## 8ch(pl)

here is a well known (here in Nova Scotia) artist named Bruce Guthro.  A number of years ago he did a beautiful song called "Falling".  It just played on the radio, and I think it could be included in this post.

It appears like a song to a jilted lover, who he calls Mrs Martin, until the end when he asks her forgiveness, aasking can you do that for your son.  

"I don't have a lot of time, to right the wrongs I've left behind.........."  great lyrics.

----------


## Matt DeBlass

Another unique one that gets me when I hear it is Richard Thompson's "From Galway to Graceland."  

Oh she dressed in the dark and she whispered amen
She was pretty in pink like a young girl again
Twenty years married and she never thought twice
She sneaked out the door and walked into the night
And silver wings carried her over the sea
From the west coast of Ireland to West Tennessee
To be with her sweetheart, oh she left everything
From Galway to Graceland to be with the king

She was humming Suspicion, that's the song she liked best
She had Elvis I Love You tattooed on her breast
When they landed in Memphis, well her heart beat so fast
She'd dreamed for so long, now she'd see him at last
She was down by his graveside day after day
Come closing time they would pull her away
Ah to be with her sweetheart, oh she'd left everything
From Galway to Graceland to be with the king

Ah, they came in their thousands from the whole human race
To pay their respects at his last resting place
But blindly she knelt there and she told him her dreams
And she thought that he answered or that's how it seems
Then they dragged her away it was handcuffs this time
She said my good man are you out of your mind.
Don't you know that we're married? See, I'm wearing his ring.
From Galway to Graceland to be with the king.
I come From Galway to Graceland to be with the king.

----------


## P Josey

"Poor Boy's Christmas" by The McPeek Brothers
"Auld Lang Syne" (depending on what kind of year you had) :-)

----------


## MikeEdgerton

> "Our Town"; Iris Dement. About an old lady being packed up,and shipped out as the last living resident of her dying, and now dead, town. Between Iris voice and this eerie, gauzy bass line, and very sparse arrangement, it's as sad a it gets.


I'm with you on this one.

----------


## 8ch(pl)

Our town is one of my Favorites as well.

----------


## Bill James

"Mama Hated Diesels" by Commander Cody and the Lost Planet Airmen. It's on the "Hot Licks, Cold Steel and Other Truckers Favorites" album.

Brings a..sniff..tear just thinking about it.

----------


## Glassweb

I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry

... is there anyone greater than the great Hank Williams?

----------


## mrmando

"Wall of Heaven" by Lost Dogs...

----------


## ColdBeerGoCubs

> "Our Town"; Iris Dement. About an old lady being packed up,and shipped out as the last living resident of her dying, and now dead, town. Between Iris voice and this eerie, gauzy bass line, and very sparse arrangement, it's as sad a it gets.


My favorite show of all time, Northern Exposure ended with this song and a last viewing of all the characters moving on with their lives. 

Damn near crushed me. Great show, great song.

----------


## Chris Rogers

What a great thread. One more from Richard Thompson (of course): Woods of Darney, about a WWI soldier who finds a photo of a girls in a dead soldier's pocket, finds the girl when he returns home, comforts her, eventually marries her, but knows that she will always love the other man best. He eventually answers the call to duty in WWII knowing he may die but that at least he will have that in common with the dead soldier, so maybe she will love him too... 

Pretty heart-wrenching. A master lyricist right along with his musicianship.

----------


## brianf

"Oh, Mommy, Please Stay Home With Me"

----------


## Mandoviol

> My favorite show of all time, Northern Exposure ended with this song and a last viewing of all the characters moving on with their lives. 
> 
> Damn near crushed me. Great show, great song.


That was a great show, and it had a lot of great music.  I still have to learn the theme song.

----------


## Andy Fielding

The saddest song I know that's _customarily played on mandolin_ is Simon Mayor's beautiful, and also very sad, "Buttermere Waltz".

There's a nice video of Simon playing it (with great stereo sound) here on his website. Unfortunately, he plays it considerably faster than most of the renditions I've heard. (He's no doubt played it many times, and seems to be part of human nature that the more we play a song, the faster it gets—maybe because we think we have to speed it up to keep it "fresh"?)

Anyway, if you can imagine Simon playing about half that fast—or better yet, play it half as fast yourself—you'll understand.

BTW, I certainly don't mean to denigrate Simon's playing... Indeed, he has a gorgeous touch. Amazing, ain't it, how good a mandolin can sound when one isn't chopping away and using it as an assault weapon?   ;?)

----------


## Jock

Townes Van Zandt's "Marie" is king of the hopelessly sad, especially the Willie Nelson version. 

Nostalgically sad I'd have to go for Norlin winds/wild geese a poem by Violet Jacob put to music by Jim Reid.

Both make me greet  :Crying:

----------


## 8ch(pl)

The Northern Exposure song was the previously mentioned "Our Town", it was performed for the show by Iris DeMent.

----------


## Skip Kelley

Here's another vote for the "little girl and the dreadful snake". The first time I heard that I cried.

----------


## lmartnla

Some songs i must sing many times before I can get all the way through without choking up.  One such is "Last Letter Home" by David McDade/James H. Brown, sung by Jon Wilson (mandolin) of the Rincon Ramblers with our friend Bill Flores on dobro on the CD 'The Green Rolling Hills Of La Conchita', (Sam Bush has a YouTube video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9w3Ync9RAdk)) about a mortally wounded Southern cavalryman remembering his love back home:

Last Letter Home (David McDade/James H. Brown)

C	F
I have heard the cannon thundering at night,
C	G
And I cannot help from wondering what is wrong and what is right,
C	F
And the morphine seems to do no good at all,
C	G	C
I would run all the way if I wouldn't fall.

Chorus:

Am	G
And I dreamed of a rose in a Spanish garden,
Am	G
And I kissed you as I placed it in your hair,
C	F
If I'm ever on my feet again I will,
C	G	C
I will run all the way just to meet you there.

C	F
Well I joined the Southern cavalry for fun
C	G
I had rode a thousand horses,  Always had a way with a gun,
C	F
Now among the fallen riders lying still,
C	G	C
Swallowed up by the cause on hero's hill.


C	F
Through the day I watched those Southern boys go down.
C	G
And we lay like Georgia peaches,  Bruised and broken on the ground.
C	F
Through the night I wondered if it was worth the pain,
C	G	C
And I cried out not revenge, but I called your name.

Chorus

----------


## argonewt

Long ago I picked up my first Leo Kottke album (an 8-track!)
"Tiny Island" appeared on that album, and still affecs me when I listen to it.
Somebody mentioned Leonard Cohen ( a sad dude, no doubt), his "Famous Blue Raincoat" is as sad as it gets
And, my newest favorite singer/songwriter; Eilen Jewell has a sad tale in the song "In the end"
And I would be remiss if I didn't mention "No Light" by George Gritzbach

----------

Mandobart

----------


## Pete Hicks

Some of the saddest ones I know are:
Poppa Come Home,  Gone Home, and Mary of the Wild Moor.

----------


## Pete Hicks

Oh, I forgot, "Orphan Child".

----------


## barney 59

Mickey Newbury's "Are my thoughts with You"

----------


## Joe Dodson

> _"Lick My Love Pump"_ ....in D minor, the saddest of all keys


Heh heh.  Well played.

----------


## smsuryan

Give my love to rose

----------


## Joe Hinkebein

I would have to nominate Reno & Smiley's "Someone will Love You in Heaven".  The song involves a funeral of a young boy's mom and dad, both in the casket.  A kindly neighbor holds the child up to view his parents and than... a recitation by Don Reno in an appropriately mournful voice, longing for Dad to get up and play fetch with him and old rover, and mom to get up and tuck him into bed and say the evening prayers.  And than as they lower the caskets into the grave and his heart is about to burst, the preacher says "son, someone will love you in heaven".

Used to be in the top five of the "Maudlin Masterpieces" section of a BG radio show I used to do.

----------


## ColdBeerGoCubs

Tom Waits is always good for a sad song, Day After Tomorrow being a great one. Especially for those with or that have been in a war.

----------


## Ronny Stecher

AB's Song - Marshall Tucker
Before The Next Tear Drop Falls - Freddie Fender
Please Call Home - Allman Brother's
Peace In The Valley - Elvis
The Circus Left Town - Eric Clapton (another song about his 4 yr old son Conor's passing)


Here's another version of Hank's I'm So Lonesome w/ Elvis on vocals and James crooning his Tele, This was the version that jumped out as I read the thread title......





EDIT: One more....... Just Ain't Easy by the Allman Brothers... Hauntingly Beautiful.


.......

----------


## rnjl

Saddest song ever? 

Well, there's a fine line between sad and maudlin (not to mention between clever and stupid) but Bashful Brother Oswald did a great old weepy number called "Should I Tell My Wife I'm Dying," wherein (if I remember correctly) the protagonist finds out he's mortally ill, and doesn't tell his wife, so she goes out and lives it up with other guys in the bars, and he can't bear to spoil her fun and make her feel guilty. 

Man, that's sad.

----------


## mandowilli

There is a great independent film from Canadian director Guy Maddin titled "The Saddest Music in the World" which depicts an international compitition to determine just that.  It is way over the top and very well filmed.

----------


## mandolirius

> My favorite show of all time, Northern Exposure ended with this song and a last viewing of all the characters moving on with their lives. 
> 
> Damn near crushed me. Great show, great song.


 
I completely agree. After that show went off the air, I gradually drifted away from watching television. I looked for something that approached it in terms of quality of  writing, quirkiness and just plain ol' originality but there was nothing that came even close. I pulled the plug for good soon after.

As for the song, it's a good one. I also like Kate Brislan & Jody Stecher's version, which they do quite differently, layering part of the song over another part. Also highly inventive.

----------


## JeffD

Here is a great oldie. Relentlessly sad.

----------


## Rick Schmidlin

By far "Strange Fruit" song by Billy Hoilday is the saddest song.

 Just go to : Strange Fruit Billy Hoilday U Tube and you will know why.

----------


## EdSherry

A lot of great songs listed here.  Of the ones listed so far, (in no particular order) Danny Boy, I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry, The Dutchman, Louise, Tecumseh Valley, And The Band Played Waltzing Matilda, No Man's Land (Green Fields of France), Fields of Athenry, Love Has No Pride, Who Will Watch The Home Place, Brother Can You Spare A Dime, Kilkelly, Wayfaring Stranger, Love Hurts -- are all songs I've loved to sing over the years, some of which I still occastionally choke up trying to sing.  

Some personal favorites I haven't seen mentioned yet:  Stephen Foster's "Hard Times Come Again No More."  "Paddys Lament" (aka "Paddy's Lamentation") and "The Parting Glass" (I sung it at my father's funeral), Norman Blake's "Last Train From Poor Valley,"  Simon & Garfunkel's "Old Friends" and "Bookends," Stan Rogers' "First Christmas Away From Home" and "Song Of The Candle," Tom Paxton's "Last Thing On My Mind."

----------


## eestimando

one very sad song is The Blue Nile´s "Lets Go Out Tonight". 
Craig Armstrong made a good arrangement to this song. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=osP05...om=PL&index=11

----------


## CES

Taps, if not yet listed (I've visited this thread several times but don't have the time to reread presently), based purely on military funeral settings...all I've attended have been well done and at those of friends/close relatives, I managed to hold it together until that song.

Also, it's funny how the setting in which you hear a song can change its meaning (Taps is a good example...for those on active duty or training, it can be a welcome end to the day)...How Great Thou Art is one of my favorite hymns, and is basically an old school praise song.  But at my grandfather's funeral that's the one that really got me, and every time I hear it now I get just a twinge of that emotion.  Amazing Grace done (well) on bagpipes has the same effect on me.

In newer stuff, I think "How to Grow a Woman from the Ground" is up there...the guy in that song is just at such a place of desolation and isolation that by the end it's just haunting (esp done live).  Taken in the context of that album telling a story it's even more chilling...not the saddest song ever (I still heartily vote for I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry, closely followed by "He Stopped Loving Her Today), but good.

----------


## ColdBeerGoCubs

> I completely agree. After that show went off the air, I gradually drifted away from watching television. I looked for something that approached it in terms of quality of  writing, quirkiness and just plain ol' originality but there was nothing that came even close. I pulled the plug for good soon after.
> 
> As for the song, it's a good one. I also like Kate Brislan & Jody Stecher's version, which they do quite differently, layering part of the song over another part. Also highly inventive.


I completely relate. To this day I don't really watch tv, except for the occassional sports. That show set a high water mark that will probably never be hit again. Everything about it was astounding, the music included. I even recall some mando music, of course well never know because universal didnt release the original music when they released the DVD set.

----------


## kmiller1610

Graceland

----------


## Mandolin Mick

I haven't listened to this stuff for 30 years, but I'd say things off the Sloppy Seconds album by Dr. Hook & the Medicine Show like "Last Morning" or "Carry Me Carrie".

----------


## billkilpatrick

taxi - harry chapin:

----------


## JeffD

That will work.

----------


## chris scott

well this thread is had a few great tunes mentioned, and Lee back in 2007 mentioned  Townes, I'll have to say my favorite sad tune is Marie by Townes Van
zante. I have been playing it for a few years and people say, wow what a great tune about the plight of the homeless. The song can bring tears and discussion, the mark of a great sad song.

----------


## smithkathy

Without a doubt, the saddest song I've ever heard is "An Undoing World" by the Klezmatics. It makes me tear up when I listen to it. Second place has to be Samuel Barber's "Adagio for Strings."

----------


## wsugai

> Doesn't it involve Mama, prison, a train and a pickup truck?


If you don't mind, I'm going to steal this. It's that good.

----------


## David Rambo

Desolation Row-Bob Dylan
Vimy-Tanglefoot

----------


## D C Blood

Wow!!! This one's back (that's pretty sad in itself)
'
Blind Man In The Bleachers  (It's the first time my dad's ever seen me play)
Class of '57...Statlers

----------


## un5trung

Both Aunt Molly Jackson and her half-sister Sarah Ogan Gunning had parodies of "Precious Memories" they called "Dreadful Memories."  Although they are different songs they share some lyrics and are both inspired by the struggles of coal miners in eastern Kentucky in the 20s and 30s.  For me they are the saddest songs because they are not abstractions; the images evoked by the songs were drawn from real life experiences in the not-so-distant past.  I've lost the lyrics to the first parody, but here is the second, penned by Sarah Ogan Gunning and sung to the tune of Precious Memories.  FWIW, this was the first tune I learned on the mandolin:

Dreadful memories, how they linger,
How they ever flood my soul.
How the workers and their children
Die from hunger and from cold.

Hungry fathers, wearied mothers,
Living in those dreadful shacks.
Little children cold and hungry,
With no clothing on their backs.

Dreadful gun-thugs and stool-pigeons
Always flock around our door.
What's the crime that we've committed?
Nothing, only that we're poor.

When I think of all the heartaches
And all the things that we've been through.
Then I wonder how much longer
And what a working man can do.

Really, friends, it doesn't matter
Whether you are black or white.
The only way you'll ever change things
Is to fight and fight and fight.

We will have to join the union,
They will help you find a way
How to get a better living
And for your work get better pay.

----------


## B. T. Walker

"Doom. A Sigh", by Istvan Marta performed by Kronos Quartet.  You hear an ethnic Hungarian Romanian woman lamenting her people being removed from their homes and farms as the land is inundated because of a hydroelectric project.  You don't have to speak Hungarian to hear the pain in this woman's voice, and the music worked around her words just made you want to bawl.  Very, very powerful stuff.

----------


## Rockville847

I don't remember the name but it goes something like this.  An obviously poor man goes into a florist and asks for 1 red rose.  The florist says that'll be $5.00.  The man says he only has 3.00.  Just then a pretty girl comes in and asks for a dozen roses.  The florist charges her 3.00 for a dozen. The old man asks the florist why he gave the woman such a deal.  When the florist asks why he wants the rose the man says, my daughter got run over by a train, all I have is $3.00 and I wanted a rose to put on her fresh grave. Well the florist gives a dozen roses.  That may not be exact but you get the idea...sad.

----------


## Dan Hoover

Blue in Green-Miles Davis...can make me bawl at the right time...Good Old World-Tom Waits...Vissi d'arte-from Puccini's Tosca..when Maria Callas sings it..Who know's where the Time Goes-when Nina Simone sing's it...Everything i Own-Bread...WildFire-Michael Murphey...Stand Tall-Burton Cumming's..Shannon...oh gosh...70's thing happening here?? theme from Ice Castles....i have to stop...i'm starting to get sad here..thank god there's a Marx Brothers marathon on...cheers

----------


## lmartnla

Has anybody mentioned 'Play Me a Waltz' by Hazel Dickens?

You walk in the door / You see them sitting there
The old people in shawls / And silver wheel chairs
The blind and the lame / Herded into a room
Where there’s no one to love and nothing to do

Now go play for some folks in a nursing home!

----------


## JeffD

> Doesn't it involve Mama, prison, a train and a pickup truck?





Real sad. Especially after 3:30 minute mark.

----------


## B. T. Walker

Oh, yes.  Thank you for that, Jeff.

----------


## Jean Fugal

Marie          Townes Van Zandt

I stood in line and left my name
took about six hours or so
Well, the man just grinned like it was all a game
said they'd let me know
I put in my time till the Pocono line
shut down two years ago
I was staying at the mission till I met Marie
now I can't stay there no more

Fella 'cross town said he's lookin' for a man
to move some old cars around
maybe me and Marie could find a burned-out
van and do a little settlin' down
Aw, but I'm just dreamin', I ain't got no ride
and the junkyard's a pretty good ways
that job's about a half week old besides
it'd be gone now anyway

Unemployment said I got no more checks
and they showed me to the hall
my brother died in Georgia some time ago
I got no one left to call
Summer wasn't bad below the bridge
a little short on food that's all
Now I gotta get Marie some kind of coat
we're headed down into fall

I used to play the mouth harp pretty good
hustled up a little dough
but I got drunk and I woke up rolled
a couple of months ago
they got my harp and they got my dollar
them low life so and so's
harps cost money and I ain't got it
it's my own fault I suppose

The Pocono's down but the Chesapeak's runnin'
two freights everyday
if it was just me I'd be headed south
but Marie can't catch no train
She's got some pain and she thinks it's a baby,
says we gotta wait and see
in my heart I know it's a little boy
hope he don't end up like me

Well, the man's still grinnin' says he lost my file
I gotta stand in line again
I want to kill him but I just say no
I had enough of that line my friend
I head back to the bridge, its getting kinda cold
I'm feelin' too low down to lie
I guess I'll just tell Marie the truth
hope she don't break down and cry

Marie she didn't wake up this morning
she didn't even try
she just rolled over and went to heaven
my little boy safe inside
I laid them in the sun where somebody'd find them
caught a Chesapeak on the fly
Marie will know I'm headed south
so's to meet me by and by

Marie will know I'm headed south
so to meet me by and by

----------


## Alex Orr

> Desolation Row-Bob Dylan


To me, this song is saddest because by the time the darn thing is finally over, you've spent a significant chunk of your life listening to Dylan go on and on and on and on...  I'll admit, the images can be cool sometimes, but to me, this is THE classic example of Dylan crossing the line between solid songwriting and poetic sounding nonsense that for all intents and purposes could continue indefinitely.  Honestly, does it have a natural end at all?  Couldn't it just as easily be a three minute song, or a seven hour song?

----------


## Mike Bunting

Has anybody mentioned You Don't Know Me by Ray Charles?

----------


## foldedpath

I don't think anyone mentioned this yet, my favorite tear-jerker and existentialist song: "For Real" by Bob Franke. 

I've heard other version with more slick production values, but here's Bob Franke himself singing it:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_xqTWDSGe9U

(lyrics below)

-----

Death took the husband of a neighbor of mine,
on a highway, with a drunk at the wheel.
She told me "Keep your clean hands off the laundry he left,
and don't tell me you know how I feel."
She had a tape that he'd sent her from a Holiday Inn,
and she never played it much in the day,
But when I heard him say he loved her through the window at night,
I just stayed the hell away.

There's a hole in the middle of the prettiest life,
so the lawyers and the prophets say.
Not your father nor your mother nor your lover's
gonna ever make it go away,
And there's too much darkness in an endless night
to be afraid of the way we feel;
Let's be kind to each other, not forever, but for real.

My father never put his parachute on in the Pacific
back in World War Two;
He said he'd rather go down in familiar flames
than get lost in that endless blue,
And some of that blue got into my eyes,
and we never stopped fighting that war,
Until I first understood about endlessness,
and I loved him like never before.

chorus

It's lucky that my daughter got her mother's nose,
and just a little of her father's eyes,
And we've got just enough love that when the longing takes me,
well, it takes me by surprise,
And I remember that longing from my highway days,
though I never could give it a name;
It's lucky I discovered in the nick of time
that the woman and the child aren't to blame

For the hole in the middle of a pretty good life,
I only face it 'cause it's here to stay:
Not my father, nor my mother, nor my daughter, nor my lover,
nor the highway made it go away,
And there's too much darkness in an endless night
to be ashamed of the way I feel.
I'll be kind to my loved ones, not forever, but for real.

Some say that God is a lover; some say it's an endless void;
Some say both, and some say She's angry, and some say just annoyed,
But if God felt a hammer in the palm of His hand,
then God knows the way we feel;
And love lasts forever, forever and for real.
Love lasts forever.

-----

----------


## Mandoviol

_Sailor's Rest_ by Stan Rogers is kind of sad, in my opinion...

----------


## Steven Scott

Has anyone mentioned "What'll I Do" by Irving Berlin? I have a hard time playing it without getting teary.

----------


## Patrick Market

How about Bobby Goldsboro's "Honey"?  Just awful.

I once heard that at a wedding reception.  Not sure *what* those kids were thinking...

----------


## 300win

"White Dove" by the Stanley Brothers. Of course being where I live, southern Appalachains, involved in the Primitive Baptist church as a youngin', and having my mother and dad passed on to the other side, that has to be the saddest song ever. Runner-up is,  "Rank Strangers".

----------


## M.Marmot

Someone mentioned The Band Played Waltzing Mathilda, and thats a fine fine sad/angry song, i especially like June Tabor's version of it

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=swviw...eature=related

----------


## JeffD

> How about Bobby Goldsboro's "Honey"?  Just awful.
> 
> ..



Oh yea. If you are ever feeling a little too good, a little too happy, just play that tune. Brings you right down.

----------


## JonZ

"Seasons in the Sun" always chokes me up.

----------


## Rockville847

Old Shep and Carmalita.

----------


## Lee

Have we had a vote yet for "Banks of the Nile" as sung by Sandy Denny with Fairport Convention.  Her four CD anthology set has some great music on it.

----------


## billkilpatrick

... top this:

----------


## red7flag

One I would add is "The Train that Brought Jimmy Rodgers Home" by Nashville Bluegrass Band and "Lincoln's Funeral Train" by Norman Blake.  Not sure why funeral trains get me, but they do.  Add to that "Send in the Clowns" by Judy Collins.

----------


## cerrogordo

I basically want to cry every time I hear this -- Sing me Back Home:


\

----------

Mandobart

----------


## mculliton123

"Goodbye" by Steve Earle



mc

----------


## mandomansuetude

> I haven't listened to this stuff for 30 years, but I'd say things off the Sloppy Seconds album by Dr. Hook & the Medicine Show like "Last Morning" or "Carry Me Carrie".


Oh Boy ...memory lane...your right about that album Mick...even "Silvia's Mother" which was written as a send up...could evoke strong emotions ..it was done with such passion and raw desperation.
    Thanks for flipping me back in time....tokin' time...much obliged..Wm

----------


## mandolirius

It doesn't affect me that way. On the contrary, I feel nothing but revulsion at such an shamless attempt at emotional manipulation. It's as pure a piece of pap as you're likely to find, imho.

For a truly heart-wrenching song try "The Jeannie C" by Stan Rogers. It's a fine example of craftsmanship, as soulful as it gets.

----------

Mandobart

----------


## Pen

Sam Stone - John Prine

I remember the first time I heard it - wow.

----------


## Various

You'll Never Leave Harlan Alive  - done by Patty Loveless, among others

_". . . you spend your life digging coal from the bottom of your grave"_

----------


## Eddie Sheehy

Hello in There - John Prine
The Band Played Waltzing Matilda - Eric Bogle
My Youngest Son Came Home Today - Eric Bogle


My youngest son came home today
His friends marched with him all the way
The fife and drum beat out the time
While in his box of polished pine
Like dead meat on a butcher's tray
My youngest son same home today

My youngest son was a fine young man
With a wife, a daughter and two sons
And a man he would have lived and died
Till by a bullet sanctified
Now he's a saint or so they say
They brought their young saint home today

An irish sky looks down and weeps
Upon the narrow belfast streets
At children's blood in gutters spilled
In dreams of glory unfulfilled
As part of freedom's price to pay
My youngest son came home today

My youngest son came home today
His friends marched with him all the way
The pipe and drum beat out the time
While in his box of polished pine
Like dead meat on a butcher's tray
My youngest son came home today
And this time he's here to stay

----------


## smsuryan

Georgia Lee

----------


## JeffD

> It doesn't affect me that way. On the contrary, I feel nothing but revulsion at such an shamless attempt at emotional manipulation. .


Isn't all music emotional manipulation to some extent. Perhaps some is more subtle or more shameless or more or less effective, but isn't it all emotional manipulation?

----------


## mandolirius

> Isn't all music emotional manipulation to some extent. Perhaps some is more subtle or more shameless or more or less effective, but isn't it all emotional manipulation?


All music acts on the emotions but not all music is deliberately manipulative.

----------


## Rob Parnell

reminds me of Paul Kelly's "Making Gravy"

----------


## Delaware

Teddy Bear by Red Sovine.    ...damn

----------

Timbofood

----------


## goose 2

Lee and Paige by King Wilkie

----------


## jaycat

Try this one on for size:

----------


## Chuck Leyda

Lyrically and musically this song IS depression.  Nothing really happens in it, which makes it even sadder.

----------


## JeffD

Good to see this old thread revived.

It is and has been, since the middle of 2014, the 100th anniversary of a whole lot of horror. One could probably wake up an any time day or night, during this time, and mark the exact 100th anniversary of some particular suffering related to those events.

I've been reviving some tunes I used to play. I offer these respectfully in memoriam. 
 Its not a competition obviously, but any list of the top ten or twenty saddest songs would have to include these:

The Green Fields of France
Flowers of the Forest
The Band Played Waltzing Matilda

----------


## T.D.Nydn

The streets of Laredo..

----------

Timbofood

----------


## billykatzz

Dark Hollow

Also, "Vincent" by Don McClean

----------

Timbofood

----------


## Al Trujillo

This thread should come with some sort of disclaimer -"If you are in crisis, or suffer from depression, call a crisis line but do not read all 15 pages of the Saddest Song Ever".   :Smile:

----------

indexless

----------


## CarlM

Cindy's Crying - Tom Paxton




He's Coming to Us Dead - Ron Thomasson -  Dry Branch Fire Squad - Some really good solo mandolin accompaniment on this one.  The first time I heard him play this he brought the whole room to silence for about a minute after he was done.

----------

Bill McCall

----------


## Lowlands Blue

This is a great thread! Love a good tear jerker.

Funkadelic's Maggot Brain is high on my list of most sad tunes. Eddie Hazel's 10 minute guitar solo inspired by the idea of finding out his mother passed is just a haunting tune. Fantastic guitarist who doesn't get enough credit IMO.

----------


## CES

At work, so no time to read through all 16 pages (on which I've probably posted before), so sorry if it's been mentioned before. No mandolin content, but Jason Isbell's "Elephant" is up there. Warning, an F bomb gets dropped, so listen with discretion, but listen. It's a darn fine song, and for those whose lives have been touched by cancer, is amazingly poignant, raw, and real.

----------


## Johnny60

I think it was Raul Malo from the Mavericks that said sad songs delivered a greater punch if they weren't too slow.  Not sure I agree 100% with that, but here are two songs that are really sad but aren't slow:

The Carolinian by Chatham County Line
This is me missing you by James House

How about this for a cracking final verse from the James House song...

If you've touched empty, reached in the darkness and don't find me,
Then you'll know just what I'm going through.
This is me missing you

----------


## Kenny A

In my opinion (as if that carries any weight), the country song by George Jones, _he stopped loving her today_, is no doubt the saddest damn song I ever heard.

----------

Charles E., 

Kevin Stueve, 

StuartE, 

Timbofood

----------


## FLATROCK HILL

I'm gonna start at page one and try to read all the songs mentioned so far. In the mean time, maybe someone out there can help me find the one I'm looking for. 

I think it was from the '60s...maybe early '70s; I'm not sure. A country song sung by a male singer. The main theme of the song was the lonely existence of the toys left behind after their little-boy owner grows into adulthood and forgets about them. Pretty dang sad as I recall. 
If anyone remembers that one, I'd appreciate any info. 

(and it ain't 'Puff the Magic Dragon')

----------


## Willie Poole

Without reading all of the pages:   "Mothers not dead, she`s only a sleeping",   "Bed by the window" also pretty sad

   All of them that I play sound sad....

    Willie

----------


## Charles E.

> In my opinion (as if that carries any weight), the country song by George Jones, _he stopped loving her today_, is no doubt the saddest damn song I ever heard.


Not only one of the saddest songs ever written but one of the best songs ever written. IMHO

----------


## brunello97

Crusher song.  I've been playing it on mandolin and accordion lately.  Not sure which one I prefer.  

Mick

----------


## V70416

Andy Statman's "Flatbush Waltz" has a very sad feel;but,in an uplifting way. Sorta.
I play it in Gm on mando. Dm would,obviously,just be too sad I reckon.

Some that were mentioned that jogged my memory:
"Sweet Old World"(I am most familiar with Emmylou's version).
"Time To Learn" Tim O'Brien
"Ghost In This House" A.Krouse nails that one.

Jessie Winchester's "Sham-A-Ling-Dong-Ding" gets me;and several others of his too like "Lullaby For The First Born".

I've only read 12 pages of this stuff. Am I too blue?

----------


## Milky2390

In the "sad mining songs" subsection I'll nominate Utah Phillips's "Miners Lullaby" to go along with Darrell Scott's "You'll Never Leave Harlan Alive", that was mentioned previously

----------

billhay4

----------


## WW52

Here are several I think are sad:

Chet Atkins -- I Still Can't Say Goodbye
Reba McEntire -- The Greatest Man I Never Knew
Ralph McTell -- Streets of London
David Bromberg -- Mister Blue
Don McLean -- Empty Chairs


And some orchestral music that plumbs the deepest regions of sadness:

- Soundtrack Music from Schindler's List 
- Samuel Barber, Adagio for Strings
- Henryk Gorecki, Symphony of Sorrowful Songs
- Tchaikovsky, Sixth Symphony, Adagio Lamentoso, Andante
- Elgar, Cello Concerto, 1st movement

----------


## ollaimh

mick maloney;s "killkelly ireland", a song about generations of exile, starvation and lost family.

----------

John Flynn

----------


## Astro

I'm So Lonesome I could Cry.

Elvis said this Hank Williams song that was the saddest ever written. (Especially when I do it but for a different reason  :Redface: )

This recording was from several years ago. I do it one step higher now and have it down a little smoother and fragile ego alert--please dont judge. Anyway my apogee wont sync with my new lap top so I cant record anymore to redo it.

https://soundcloud.com/bill-seasharp...lonesome-edit3

----------

lflngpicker

----------


## Steve VandeWater

> mick maloney;s "killkelly ireland", a song about generations of exile, starvation and lost family.


I second this one, and everyone who mentioned Sam Stone and Hello In There by John Prine.  Also, if they haven't been mentioned yet...
Doc Watson's "Little Orphan Girl" where she freezes to death on the rich man's doorstep and Nickel Creek's version of "The Lighthouse's Tale"

----------


## Jess L.

CAUTION, if you're feeling mildly sad, you might not want to listen to these, it might make it worse. *But* if you're seriously depressed, sometimes this kind of stuff helps. To quote a blues guitarist I used to know, "Don't listen to the blues if you're happy, it'll bring you down. But if you're totally sad, it can cheer you up". 

1. "Sweet Sunny South", covered c. 1962 by New Lost City Ramblers, think it's Mike Seeger singing:  



_(or direct link)_

2. "Country Bumpkin", Cal Smith, 1974. I can't stand this song!!!  :Chicken:  *Too* sad!  :Crying:  

3. "You Win Again", Hank Williams Sr.

4. "You Take Me For Granted", Merle Haggard.  

5. "Cats in the Cradle", Harry Chapin (already mentioned by "jasona" a few pages back). I have never had cause to identify with it personally but it's still a powerful message. 

The next songs are sad *but* they have at least some signs of hope, in places, kinda-sorta: 

6. "Darling Nellie Gray", 1937 version, Maxine Sullivan. The main character gets to die at the end,  :Whistling:  I guess that's better than nothing, um...  :Confused: 

7. Cry the Clock Said (lyrics), Gary Numan, 1981. I eventually quit listening to him because his music started creeping me out, but that particular song was helpful at one time.

8. "Song For Athene" (video below), John Tavener, mixed choir version, this is the same melody that was played at Princess Diana's funeral: 



_(or direct link)_

9. "Just Another Day", Caitlin Crosby. No personal experience with the subject matter but it seems like a powerful song anyway. 

10. "Peace in the Valley", Elvis Presley, 1957. I guess it's supposed to be a happy-ending song but it makes me cry. (But then so do a number of other common church hymns.)

----------


## Caleb

> I'm So Lonesome I could Cry.
> 
> Elvis said this Hank Williams song that was the saddest ever written. (Especially when I do it but for a different reason )
> 
> This recording was from several years ago. I do it one step higher now and have it down a little smoother and fragile ego alert--please dont judge. Anyway my apogee wont sync with my new lap top so I cant record anymore to redo it.
> 
> https://soundcloud.com/bill-seasharp...lonesome-edit3


"The silence of a falling star lights up a purple sky ... And as I wonder where you are ... I'm so lonesome I could cry..."

I've long thought that this line was among the most beautiful ever penned, and certainly a mental image that always gives me pause and even chills. It's hard for me to fathom someone writing something so perfect.   It's like Shakespeare in a cowboy hat.

----------


## CES

Caleb, agree totally. If forced to name a "favorite song of all time," that would be my answer, morbid though it may be  :Wink: 

He Stopped Loving Her Today is spectacular as well, but the strings flourish in that one annoys me on occasion for some reason...still, an amazing song, though!

----------


## Polecat

Warren Zevon: Keep me in your heart


(I would probably nominate something different tomorrow)

----------


## JeffD

> "The silence of a falling star lights up a purple sky ... And as I wonder where you are ... I'm so lonesome I could cry..."
> 
> I've long thought that this line was among the most beautiful ever penned, and certainly a mental image that always gives me pause and even chills. It's hard for me to fathom someone writing something so perfect.   It's like Shakespeare in a cowboy hat.


OMG yes. Chilling:

Did you ever see a robin weep
 When leaves begin to die?
 Like me, he's lost the will to live
 I'm so lonesome I could cry

----------

Caleb

----------


## V70416

Many great melancholy tunes listed. I must enjoy being miserable. Been looking up the ones with which I am not familiar.

Polecat,regarding Warren Z.,of his last songs,"Don't Let Us Get Sick" ,I feel,is his most poignant. Maybe because I have been lucky enough to enjoy a heap of years/more behind me than ahead of me. It's not just a plea for himself but everyone. "Don't let us get stupid...alright?" A solemn prayer from a man who some might consider somewhat a hedonist. (and I just have to say that your avatar of the fat cat on a stick is really something!!! A great cat person once said,"There are no ordinary cats."

----------


## mtucker

The Beatle's wrote a few back in the day.

Yesterday

Long and Winding Road

----------


## Jeff Mando

There is a version of Danny Boy by Roy Orbison easily found on youtube that adds different intro verses and outro verses in addition to the commonly heard "Oh, Danny Boy" portion in the middle.  Of course, it is well-done and really great, but very sad, strange, and quite haunting.  I've never heard anyone else do this arrangement.

I also second, He Stopped Loving Her Today by George Jones -- really hard to beat. (if sadness is your thing!)

----------

lflngpicker

----------


## Bill McCall

How about Danny Paisley-Don't throw Mama's Flowers Away

----------


## michaelcj

One Part Love. Jeffery Foucault
Dean Moriarity. Eric Taylor
Late in the Day. Tim O'Brien
Songbird Jesse Winchester
Just about all of Mickey Newberry's catalog.. Really!!!!

I can go on and on and on  :Smile:

----------


## Mandobart

I'm sitting in a hotel room so I read the whole thread, which started a few years before I'd even heard of mandolincafe.  I'm a big fan of many of these submissions: Tom Waits, Steve Earle, TVZ, Warren Zevon, Bruce Springsteen and real real big fan of John Prine and Steve Goodman.  Here are a few that haven't been mentioned yet:

Wreck on the Highway - Bruce Springsteen's version
The Final Trawl - Archie Fisher 
Pay No Attention to Alice - Tom T. Hall. This one really gets me as a vet who saw a lot of this.

My Father's House - Bruce Springsteen
Christmas in Prison - John Prine
Time - Tom Waits

This last one I heard at a concert I took my daughter to five years ago.  Its worth checking out on youtube to hear her introduce it.  In a nutshell someone had setup cameras on the Golden Gate bridge to film birds and ended up capturing several successful and unsuccessful suicide attempts.  This was made into a documentary that strongly affected Ingrid Michaelson. She performs it live but hasn't recorded it.
San Francisco - Ingrid Michaelson

----------


## fifths

Gotta get "Casimir Pulaski Day" by Sufjan Stevens on the list. For a while after my Mom passed, this song was guaranteed waterworks for me



also honorary mention to Stephin Merritt whose Magnetic Fields song "1,000,000 Fireflies" begins 
"I have a mandolin
I play it all night long
It makes me want to kill myself.."
SAD

----------

jdchapman

----------


## fscotte

There's a difference between a sad song and a singer who pulls at your heartstrings. I don't find Eric Clapton's Tears in Heaven sad at all because of the sound of his voice.  Now if Keith Whitley sang it, that'd be an entirely different song.  Some singers were blessed or cursed, with that kindnof voice.  Keith definitely had it.

And a little tidbit, Go Rest High On That Mountain was written by Vince Gil in honor of Whitley, however it wasn't finished until after Vince's older brother died.

----------

Astro

----------


## Astro

OMG, Tears In Heaven, I forgot that one. I almost had to pull the car off the road the first time I heard that on the radio. I recognized his voice, new what had happened to his son, and almost lost it. Knowing the history and as a Clapton fan knowing his "happy voice, I respectfully disagree with only one detail of the above post. I think it saddest because its his voice. Not as sad when others do it.

----------


## Austin Bob

> OMG, Tears In Heaven, I forgot that one. I almost had to pull the car off the road the first time I heard that on the radio. I recognized his voice, new what had happened to his son, and almost lost it. Knowing the history and as a Clapton fan knowing his "happy voice, I respectfully disagree with only one detail of the above post. I think it saddest because its his voice. Not as sad when others do it.


I too can remember the exact moment I heard that song for the first time. I was a business, and it came in over the radio they were playing. I stood there transfixed and listened to the whole song. I also recognized his voice and knew the back story.

----------


## fscotte

Don't get me wrong, I think the story behind the song is sad, but I just can't feel it through Clapton's voice.  

With that said, if this isn't a nominee for saddest story behind a song, I don't know what is:

----------

Astro

----------


## pglasse

Lyrically speaking:

Merle Haggard's I Must Have Done Something Bad should be in the running.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OH6CkD0uYag

...and also The Band's It Makes No Difference.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rP7r12Rg490

----------


## brunello97

> ...and also The Band's It Makes No Difference.
> 
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rP7r12Rg490


That's what I know, Paul.  It's bound to make my top 10 sad songs year-in-year-out.

When I sing "stampeding cattle, they rattle the walls..." in the shower, I can't quite pull it off.  

But I agree with fscotte....Rick Danko's voice breaks in all the right places on the song.  Richard Manuel might have pulled it off.  Levon Helm, likely not. Amazing that one band (other than the Beatles) could have three vocalists of such different range, style and suitability.  And like Duke Ellington, Robbie Robertson knew just who to direct the vocal phrasing to.

"Time After Time" isn't quite "sad" but the simple power in the song is that it is emotionally provocative in the hands of performers as varied as Cindy Lauper and Miles Davis.

Mick

BTW, I'd love to draw i miei amici from bowlback world into this interesting and enjoyable discussion:
Jim, Martin, Bro' Eug, David B Kos, Bill K, John M.  Y'all run a pretty nice and wide spectrum of musical interests and wear your happiness and sadness on your sleeves.  Which is why I love you guys.

<Removed by Moderator. Take it elsewhere.>

Mick

----------

pglasse

----------


## FLATROCK HILL

> <Removed by Moderator. Take it elsewhere.>


<Removed by Moderator.>

----------


## brunello97

> <Removed by Moderator>


<Removed by Moderator>
Mick

----------

FLATROCK HILL

----------


## UsuallyPickin

Sam Stone by John Prine 
 There's a hole in Daddy's arm where all the money goes . . . . . . .

----------


## Bertram Henze

> But I guess they're not sad.


It's in the power of the singer to make any song at least pathetic, if not sad.

----------

FLATROCK HILL

----------


## MikeEdgerton

Every now and then it's a good idea to simply re-read the Posting Guidelines. These guidelines are what keeps the Cafe the friendly site that it is. Take a minute to simply read through them again.

http://www.mandolincafe.com/forum/faq.php

This thread has been alive since May-29-2007 without any real problems. Discuss the music here. Discuss your personal feelings at any of the other thousands of sites on the Internet. Carry on.

----------

FLATROCK HILL

----------


## Mandolin Cafe

There is no room for dog whistle political comments. Make them at your own risk. Members that engage in this, we will not hesitate to boot you from this space. There really are a lot of places on the internet that welcome this type of crap. We don't need it here and we are not going to tolerate it. 

You've been warned.

----------

FLATROCK HILL, 

michaelcj

----------


## Bertram Henze

> To quote a blues guitarist I used to know, "Don't listen to the blues if you're happy, it'll bring you down. But if you're totally sad, it can cheer you up".


This had me thinking for a long time. I am very much into Irish/Scottish songs, and people have said to me "why are these songs all so sad? why would anybody want to listen to that?"

My explanation is that these songs are in fact medication. Just like you shouldn't take medication if you don't need it, these songs are not for everyone. However, many people who need medication refuse to acknowledge the fact and prefer singing in the rain, as if the problem would go away by ignoring it. Sad songs show you where you are (in the lyrics) but also that there is a better, more beautiful world you should walk towards (in the music). And if they make you cry, that's good news because crying is relief; blocking such relief can make you ill (my wife often says that cancer are uncried tears).

I found the song has to belong to the right genre to work for me, i.e. the beauty/music part must connect. So Blues does not work for me, nor does Jazz* 

(*) cool and elegant, but superficial and cold to the touch for me. As an example, this song has an intriguing musical perfection but fails to touch my heart. If it weren't for the expressive face of the singer at the end of the video, I'd not even identify the song as a sad one.

----------

Jess L.

----------


## The Past and The Curious

Another vote for Sam Stone........but the song that never fails to bring tears to my eyes is "All Things Must Pass."

----------


## Bonniej

I think "Knockin' on Heaven's Door" by Bob Dillon.   It was played at my best friend's funeral in December.  When they first started playing it I thought "oh no here I go again with big sobs" but somehow it had a very calming and comforting effect on me although still a very sad song.  I actually looked up the music for it after I got home and played it on my Mando.  I had to quit playing it eventually because it gave me the Blues all over again.

----------


## MikeEdgerton

Everybody has one I guess.

----------

Mandobart

----------


## Petrus

I haven't read every post so apologies if these have been mentioned already.

Almost anything by Townes Van Zandt ... especially his later stuff.




Almost anything by Nick Drake.




It always helps to be clinically depressive when it comes to writin' those sad songs you know ... personal experience and all that.

----------

jdchapman

----------


## lflngpicker

"I started a Joke" -- Barry, Robin and Maurice Gibb

----------


## Al Trujillo

Watch her eyes during the song....if you're not tore up by the end then you're just not living.  Jennifer Nettle's (Sugarland) singing 'Stay'.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zPG1n1B0Ydw

----------


## FLATROCK HILL

> "I started a Joke" -- Barry, Robin and Maurice Gibb


That's a good one that I hadn't thought of and I don't believe has been mentioned.
 Not sure if the written words would carry the same weight, but those guys could really put some feeling into their songs. 
And how exactly can you mend a broken heart?

----------


## Jack Roberts

I don't know about the saddest song ever, but the saddest one I play and sing is "Flow Gently Sweet Afton".  I looked carefully at the lyrics and realize that on their face, they aren't sad, but I checked it out with an English Major, and she confirms that, yes, it has been a hanky-soaker since the days of Robert Burns.  

It is the anniversary of Robert Burns' birthday on Wednesday, the 25th.

I don't do "Sweet Afton" as well as this:

----------


## Jim

Elephant, by Jason Isbell
https://video.search.yahoo.com/yhs/s...2487e41&action

----------


## JeffD

If this hasn't been mentioned, it should be. Limerick's Lamentation. 

My favorite version is by Liam O'Flynn.

----------


## David Kennedy

"The Dutchman" sung by Liam Clancy. I can't remember who wrote it.

----------


## AlpineDave

> This had me thinking for a long time. I am very much into Irish/Scottish songs, and people have said to me "why are these songs all so sad? why would anybody want to listen to that?"
> 
> My explanation is that these songs are in fact medication. Just like you shouldn't take medication if you don't need it, these songs are not for everyone. However, many people who need medication refuse to acknowledge the fact and prefer singing in the rain, as if the problem would go away by ignoring it. Sad songs show you where you are (in the lyrics) but also that there is a better, more beautiful world you should walk towards (in the music). And if they make you cry, that's good news because crying is relief; blocking such relief can make you ill (my wife often says that cancer are uncried tears).
> 
> I found the song has to belong to the right genre to work for me, i.e. the beauty/music part must connect. So Blues does not work for me, nor does Jazz* 
> 
> (*) cool and elegant, but superficial and cold to the touch for me. As an example, this song has an intriguing musical perfection but fails to touch my heart. If it weren't for the expressive face of the singer at the end of the video, I'd not even identify the song as a sad one.


Try this great jazz classic, Billie Holiday's Don't Explain, sung by Nina Simone :https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_xBBpOPDm8s . I've played solos on this, on tenor sax on stage, and have almost ruined my performance with my tears.

----------

jdchapman

----------


## MikeEdgerton

> "The Dutchman" sung by Liam Clancy. I can't remember who wrote it.


Michael Smith, made popular by the Late Steve Goodman.

----------


## maudlin mandolin

This one gets my vote. Tragic subject, sad lyrics and a mournful tune.

----------


## maudlin mandolin

duplicate

----------


## Bertram Henze

> Try this great jazz classic, Billie Holiday's Don't Explain, sung by Nina Simone :https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_xBBpOPDm8s . I've played solos on this, on tenor sax on stage, and have almost ruined my performance with my tears.


It's brilliant, but it offers me no escape, no hope and therefore does not fulfill the medication function I was referring to. It reminds me of this other one - no silver lining on these clouds. The world ends, and there will be no follow-up. This is not just sadness, it's final damnation.

----------


## jdchapman

Lots of ideas here.  Billy Holiday should be in here more.

But since we seem to be zooming in on the special flavor of regretful, wistful gut-pain John Prine makes so often:

"Mexican Home"

Not the sweet Arif Mardin produced should version with the Sweet Inspirations going to town in the background, but the slow fingerpicked live version which is about nothing but dead parents.

----------


## AlpineDave

> It's brilliant, but it offers me no escape, no hope and therefore does not fulfill the medication function I was referring to. It reminds me of this other one - no silver lining on these clouds. The world ends, and there will be no follow-up. This is not just sadness, it's final damnation.


If you think those two songs hurt, listen to Henryk Gorecki's Symphoney #3 (here's the famous second movement https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g5fg8-VWNo0), but be sure someone reliable is with you for about 24 hours after.

As others have pointed out, the medication in this kind of almost unbearably sad music is that, by its emotional experience, the listener can work through these terrible feelings and, at least for a time, purge them. I don't think this type of music is good for people experiencing actual tragedy in their lives--they have all they can handle with present reality. But it certainly speaks to the overwhelming power of music--the most direct art form human beings have created.

----------


## Bertram Henze

> If you think those two songs hurt, listen to Henryk Gorecki's Symphoney #3 (here's the famous second movement https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g5fg8-VWNo0), but be sure someone reliable is with you for about 24 hours after.


That's not so bad - it's a requiem at heart, and as such it has a warm, comforting element with the promise of resurrection. Here is one in the same league for you.

----------

Al Trujillo

----------


## Pasha Alden

Very sad, though beautiful. Sometimes one hopes the beauty can medicate, though sometimes beauty offers no escape and is part of the sadness. Wonderful to see Billy Holiday mentioned here.

----------


## Jeff Mando

I guess we all drown our sorrows in different ways.  That it (a sad song) has some strange attraction or appeal shows me that misery loves company, so maybe the implied comradery is a sign of hope -- that you are not alone.  I respect the "artistry" of a musician being able to deliver that feeling on demand night after night.  But, mostly I enjoy happy music, if I want to be sad I can watch the evening news.....

Speaking of drowning -- my uncle was a Navy man and a line he repeated over and over in my youth was something to the effect of, "you know the good thing about the Navy is if the ship goes down, 500 other guys are going down with you...."  I never understood that logic and certainly got no comfort from that statement, but obviously the comradery appealed to him.  I think the Navy is wise to not use his statement as part of their recruiting campaign......

----------


## StuartE

Has there ever been a sadder Christmas song than Merle Haggard's "If We Can Make It Through December"?

And, it was a hit.

----------


## AlpineDave

> That's not so bad - it's a requiem at heart, and as such it has a warm, comforting element with the promise of resurrection. Here is one in the same league for you.


How gorgeous!

----------


## Al Trujillo

> That's not so bad - it's a requiem at heart, and as such it has a warm, comforting element with the promise of resurrection. Here is one in the same league for you.


Yup, thats a good one.  Don't need to understand it to feel it in your bones.

----------


## JeffD

There is a connection between great sorrow and great beauty. This connection has inspired many many books and movies, going back to ancient times.

----------


## Martin Veit

For me, a very sad song is "The valley of kilbride" by The Once.

----------


## allenhopkins

_I'd be like a flower unwanted in spring,
Alone and neglected, transplanted in vain,
To a garden of sadness where its petals would fall
In the shadows of undying pain_

-- Louvin Brothers, _When I Stop Dreaming_

Some other candidates: _Mary Of the Wild Moor, Father's a Drunkard and Mother Is Dead, Step It Out Mary, Greenwood Side-E-O, No School Bus In Heaven, Come All You Tender Hearted_ -- can't go on, too painful.

----------


## michaelcj

> Has there ever been a sadder Christmas song than Merle Haggard's "If We Can Make It Through December"?
> 
> And, it was a hit.


Stan Rogers   "First Christmas" [away from home].

----------


## Sandy Beckler

"The Killing of Georgie" Rod Stewart

----------


## Jess L.

> ... Sad songs show you *where you are* (in the lyrics) but also that there is a *better, more beautiful world* you should walk towards (in the music). ...


Yes, that makes sense, that's an excellent explanation.  :Smile:  

Even in instrumental pieces, there can be those two opposite feelings. 

I don't usually create this kind of music (video below) but... 

I recorded the first track after I saw one of our kindly extremely-elderly neighbors get carted out of his house on a stretcher and put in an ambulance and hauled away to the hospital. Not usual for him, he'd always been so healthy and spry despite his age. Things were looking bad, they figured heart attack, and he probably wasn't going to make it through very well if at all. That was bad enough, but the look of despair on his disabled wife's face as she watched them haul him away, that was what really got to me. 

Later, after the dust settled, in frustration and sadness back at home I picked up my guitar and just started playing random notes strung together into a tune of sorts. After a while, even in my sadness I thought the tune was kind of pretty in its own sad way,  :Whistling:  so I turned on the recorder. 

THEN, the next day, the neighbor was brought home from the hospital with a much better outlook! My mood did a 180! 

I thought of the tune I'd recorded the day before, I thought that it should no longer be a sad song, or at least that the inevitable sadness had been postponed for maybe a few months or a few years, so I recorded a 2nd (happier) backing track to go with the melody track.  

You can still hear the original doom-and-gloom sadness, but now with the 2nd track as a backing track, IMO the music has hope that things are going to be ok after all. Although it still has a bit of an unnerving edge to it, as with any such tune I suppose. 



_(or direct link)_

So when I made that video back in 2015, I re-used a background from one of my other videos with the archetypal theme of moving from shadows to light, which I suppose is also kind of an overused stereotype or something,  :Whistling:  but I thought it seemed to fit the music. (Video "animation" created in Adobe AE using a modified stock-photography sun & clouds scene and a custom-made 'sailboat' created from scratch in Adobe Photoshop.)

Of course this kind of stuff is always going to be personal and, while I hear it as an emotional piece, to someone else it might just sound like a bunch of noodling...  :Whistling:  which I guess it is, also.  :Smile:

----------

Lowlands Blue

----------


## Bertram Henze

> ...I thought of the tune I'd recorded the day before, I thought that it should no longer be a sad song, or at least that the inevitable sadness had been postponed for maybe a few months or a few years, so I recorded a 2nd (happier) backing track to go with the melody track.  
> 
> You can still hear the original doom-and-gloom sadness, but now with the 2nd track as a backing track, IMO the music has hope that things are going to be ok after all. Although it still has a bit of an unnerving edge to it, as with any such tune I suppose.


It has that ambivalent Pink Floyd vibe  :Cool:

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Jess L.

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## Lowlands Blue

White Dove is another nice sad song.

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## allenhopkins

> Has there ever been a sadder Christmas song than Merle Haggard's "If We Can Make It Through December"?...


As I mentioned in an early post, I think this one by Dick Staber is the saddest Christmas song I've ever heard, outdoing Haggard, Stan Rogers, and all others that come to mind:

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## NursingDaBlues

> There is a connection between great sorrow and great beauty. This connection has inspired many many books and movies, going back to ancient times.


“Death is the mother of beauty…”
_Sunday Morning_  by Wallace Stevens 

Regarding this line from his poem, Mr. Stephens said: “Only the perishable can be beautiful, which is why we are unmoved by artificial flowers.”

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## drkix

You're Not Coming Back by Lynn Myles.

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## ktheerm

just listened to Echo Mountain... and that one gets my vote.

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## Mandobart

> Has there ever been a sadder Christmas song than Merle Haggard's "If We Can Make It Through December"?
> 
> And, it was a hit.


John Prine's "Christmas in Prison".  But of course the all time saddest Christmas song is The Coventry Carol.

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## Mark Gunter

Some seem saddest when I try to sing them without choking up.

Ones like this:



or this:

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## Robert Mitchell

HE stopped loving her today,,G.Jones
Bringing Mary home  Mac Wiseman
I agree with most on this interesting thread.

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