saddest songs in the world?

[Scooter]

Oh oh same here Milo! Johnny Cash's version of "Hurt" has tugged on my hear strings a few times.

"You only tell me you love me when you're drunk" by the Promise Ring.
_________________
I was down South I walked into this restaurant and this white waitress came up to me and said, "We don't serve colored people here." I said, "That's all right. I don't eat colored people."

[tigrrrl]

If you can stand country, George Jones' "He Stopped Loving Her Today" is crushingly sad. I think it was #6 on the Spinner list linked above.

Elliott Smith - "Fond Farewell to a Friend"
Ben Folds - "Late" (about Elliott Smith)
Drive-by Truckers - "Goddamn Lonely Love"

Concrete Blonde's "Joey" can make me sob in public.

[wannabekate]

Jeff Buckley singing "hallelujah" gets me everytime. Btw, today is the 10th anniversary of his death.

Also- while not sad at first listen, "While you were sleeping" by Elvis Perkins makes me bawl.

[Sofagirl]

Anything by country singer Gary Allen (sp?) like Life ain't always beautiful

How soon is now..the Smiths

That Dan Folgerberg song..Met my old lover in a grocery store. I bawl like a baby when I hear it but it may be cause I'm old... lol

Fast Car Tracy Chapman

Jen
_________________
"you will step on the soil of many countries"
from my favorite fortune cookie

[cake]

[Shade]

John Lennon - Jealous Guy
Beth Nielsen Chapman - Say Goodnight Not Goodbye (they played this one on the last episode of Dawson's Creek, I never even watched the show but it killed me!)
Andy Tubman - Quiet Inside
PJ Harvey - Who Will Love Me Now
Jann Arden - Insensitive
Diana Ross - If We Hold On Together (I cannot be the only one who breaks down when this plays at the end of the Land Before Time ....okay maybe I am)
Mariah Carey - Can't Let Go
Stabbing Westward - Waking Up Beside You
Franz Liszt - Grey Clouds (no lyrics, but the tone does it)
Better Than Ezra - Particle
Oasis - Champagne Supernova

[tofufairy]

oh, and Willie Nelson - He Was a Friend of Mine. it's on the brokeback mountain soundtrack. so tragic, especially in that context.

[neurochic]

Holocaust - Big Star.
Hasn't hit me yet - Blue Rodeo
Asleep - the Smiths
Last Night I Dreamt that Somebody Loved Me - the Smiths
Decades - Joy Division
Apart - the Cure

Sometimes I just like listening to stuff I know will make me cry.
_________________
If I were an enzyme, I'd be DNA helicase so I could unzip your genes.

grad school sucks

[sexy_secretary]

i agree on all the High Fidelity songs (although there are some rather uplifting one's on there).

here are some more:

I See a Darkness- original by Bonnie "Prince" Billy or Johnny Cash's cover.

The River- Bruce Springsteen original or Crooked Fingers cover

The cover of Last Kiss by Pearl Jam is so creepy and sad

While My Guitar Gently Weeps- The Beatles

Strange Fruit by Billie Holiday. If I even think of this one I cry. The fact that it's based on very true, very cruel events in the fight for Civil Rights in the US makes it even sadder.

Nobody's Fault But My Own- Beck

The Man in the Iron Mask- Billy Bragg

She Spreak Her Legs and Flew Away- Crooked Fingers

Toilet Tisha- Outkast

My Morphine- Gillian Welch

Give My Love to Rose (and about half his catalogue)- Johnny Cash

Every Bjork song from the Dancer in the Dark Soundtrack

I agree with whoever mentioned Patsy Cline. Pretty much her whole catalogue. I think the fact that she was an alcoholic and died so young also adds to the sadness.
sometimes songs are more sad because of the person singing as opposed to the subject matter.

or sometimes it's simply the tune that evokes tears rather than the words.

Rolling Stones- Angie, Paint it Black, As Tears Go By

Townes Van Zandt- Dead Flowers and alot of his other stuff

Breathe Me- Sia

Most Leonard Cohen

Brown Eyes by Woody Guthrie

A good portion of Tom Waits' catalogue
_________________
There were doves everywhere, and they were crying their asses off.

[AmandaJ]

Oh man... I had thought of quite a few and every one of them has been mentioned here already! And is it weird that I want to go home and get copies of all these songs now? I have a sad sobby playlist too for times when I need it.

Oh! But no one mentioned Muse, and there are quite a few songs of theirs that qualify. For example "Bliss" and "Blackout". Most of their music tends to wrap itself around me and enhance whatever mood I am in.

There was a list on someone's LJ not too long ago of "songs to slit your wrists to"... I think we've covered a lot of that list already.
_________________
Flickr!

"And she's chosen where to be
Though she's lost her wedding ring
Somewhere near her misplaced jar of Bougainvillea seeds"

[dybbuk]

The only one I can think of off the top of my head is Saint James Infirmary by Louis Armstrong.

Oh, and Running to Stand Still by U2.
_________________
Therapy is expensive.
Popping bubble wrap is cheap.
You choose.

[agnes]

I love sad songs.

--Bob Dylan "Not Dark Yet"
--Elliot Smith "Everything Reminds Me of Her"
--Tori Amos "Frog on My Toe"
--Joni Mitchell "Willie".. she has a million but that one just gets me
--Cat Stevens "The Wind" and "If I Laugh".. they are the first two tracks on "Teaser and the Firecat," which I listened to over and over after my friend killed herself... "If I laugh just a little bit, maybe I can forget the chance that I didn't have to know you... If I laugh just a little bit, maybe I can recall the way that I used to be before you, and sleep at night, and dream..."
(and of course "I swam upon the devil's lake, but never never never, I'll never make the same mistake... no never never never.")
(she lived right by Devil's Lake WI)
_________________
Well, at least I wasn't the one who puked on the floor. --greenbean

[oohlala]

Will someone make me a sad, weepy, just-broke-up-w-boyfriend cd? Seriously.

PM me for my address. I'll be sure to swap something back.

[casiep]

The most hauntingly beautiful, sad music I've ever heard is by the Red House Painters - Another Song for a Blue Guitar, Blindfold, Down Through, Katy Song, Medicine Bottle, Michael, Strawberry HIll, and sooooo many others.

The lyrics for Drop -

so much that i can't say to you
my voice shakes from the hurt that i hide
ashamed of my existence
and of my petty often wounded pride
i'd like to come home to see you
and to catch your sickness by the bedside
but then you'd know how much i really need you

all the love in an instant
makes my life stop
but then my hate for you
makes my feelings altogether drop

if only i were blind to your selfish fling
and your desperate cause
and didn't press you for the details
that threaten my physical flaws

i'd like to come home to see you
and embrace your illness under soft light
but then you'd know how much i really need you

all the love in an instant
makes my life stop
but then my hate for you
makes my feelings altogether drop

so much that i can say to you
with affection that i burn inside
you're aching from the distance
avoiding strain that's running still alive
if only i could heal you in the sprinkling of the ocean side
but then you'd know how much i really love you

all the love in an instant
makes my life stop
but then my hate for you
makes my feelings altogether drop

http://www.lyricsplanet.com/index.php3?style=artist&searchstring=red_house_painters

[knitting_pretty]

I really like Smog for sad days.
Red Apple Falls in particular, this song in particular:

To Be of Use

Most of my fantasies are of
Making someone else come
Most of my fantasies are of
To be of use
To be of some hard
Simple
Undeniable use

Like a spindle
Like a candle
Like a horseshow
Like a corkscrew

To be of use
To be of use

Most of my fantasies are of
Making someone else come
On a horse
Over palms laid
On the threshold
On the coming day

Coming day
Coming day come