Heres a few for you

Joy Division - The Eternal
Biffy Clyro - Pause It And Turn It Up
The Cure - The Same Deep Water As You
Jeff Buckley - Lover, You Should Have Come Over
Jeff Buckley - Forget Her
Radiohead - No Surprises

Joel Plaskett - Light of the moon
Vashti Bunyan - Train song
Leonard Cohen - Chelsea Hotel No. 2
Black Heart Procession - Light so dim
Daniel Johnson - True love will find you in the end
Elliott Smith - Between the bars/Twilight
Nirvana - Do Re Mi (chilling - mainly because it was the last song he recorded and it reads like an epitaph)
Joy Division - Atmosphere
Gary Jules - Mad World (Tears For Fears cover)
The Mars Volta - Asilos Magdalena
Julie London - Cry me a river
Leonard Cohen - Stranger Song
Smashing Pumpkins - Thirty-three
Eric's Trip - Stove
The Beatles - Blackbird
The Velvet Underground - Perfect Day

You guys kept mentioning sad Radiohead songs and not Creep, I'm wondering why is that?

Because the tone of the version on Pablo Honey just sounds like typical 90's rock with self loathing lyrics, but the acoustic version is actually pretty beautiful.

If it was so typical for its time, why was British radio hesitant to play it because of how damn depressing it was? It was one of the first of it's kind, and it strikes chords with a lot of people, including me. It takes music AND lyrics to get me sad, and Creep achieves that.

Because the British radio were use to Britpop songs like "Wonderwall" by Oasis. But in the states its sounded like everything else that was happening with the grunge scene.

A lot of grunge is sad too :P

I think that was his point.

Yes, but my point was that just because it was part of a grunge "sad song" movement doesn't make it any less potent.

I have to agree that "Creep" doesn't strike me as a sad song....especially the album version....the chorus is too resounding to really draw you in....it's more of a "loser" anthem than a sad song imo.

Its more cynical than sad.

I don't find it depressing at all.

Oh, c'mon. The verses are in the low register of Thom's voice, and quiet, as if he was mumbling to himself phrases of desire and jealousy that can never be fulfilled. Then the vocal solo comes on, and Thom, or his character anyway, is crying at the top of his lungs because "she's running out the door" on him, because she can't accept him. There is no happy ending for this creep who doesn't belong, and that's what gets me sad over it.

That's just a bit of vague empathy and sympathy that you're feeling...I think Thom cares less about being a creep than you think he does.

The point is that the sentiment in Creep is laid on too thick for anyone to really take seriously. Song's about self-pity can be depressing...depending on who they're coming from and how it's presented...but I'd rarely call them "sad" songs...more "pitiful" than anything.

Are you saying Thom Yorke only started taking song-writing seriously after Pablo Honey? I think he takes Creep more seriously than YOU think he does. And it's not laid on too thick for me... it perfectly captures the emotions someone feels when they think they're inadequate in a woman's (and the world's) eyes, it doesn't make anything up.

I think the lyrics to Creep are some of the most depressing Radiohead lyrics mostly just because their so easy to relate to. I just find the tone of the song and the way it is put together makes it much less sad and more of just some typical 90's stuff like sweetnothing was saying.

This one comes to mind...



^I want that guitar

hmm. for me:

Peter Gabriel - I Grieve (it's hopeful as well, but still is pretty sad)
DeVotchKa - This Place is Haunted, How it Ends
B. Fleischmann - Static Grate, Gain, Phones and Machines, and Aldebaran Waltz. he makes electronic music but his stuff always sounds sad in some way
Pete Yorn - Lose You
David Gray - This Years Love
The Life of David Gale - Almost Martyrs
The Verve Pipe - The Freshman
Joshua Radin - Closer
Lamb - Gabriel
Sigur Rós - Biùm Biùm Bambalò

How do you know if that's actually sad or not?

It isn't really "sad" per se, a lot of their songs are really gentle and soft, but that song has a sad feel. If you mean the lyrics, here is the translation :

My little friend I lull to rest
But outside, a face looms at the window
When the mighty mountains
Fill your chest with burning desire,
I will play the langspil
and soothe your mind
My little friend I lull to rest
But outside, a face looms at the window
When the cruel storms rage
and the dark blizzard crouches above,
I shall light five candles
and drive away the winter shadows

the first 2 lines haven't been translated but those are most of the lyrics. I know it's also used in Iceland as a sort of lullaby

Two songs that I listened to over and over again, but when I actually paid attention to the lyrics, it made me sick.

"The Invisible Man" by Lush

Press hard
Then you strike
And I think that I'll die
'Cause I can't breathe, can't breathe
Please let me start screaming


"Hold Her Down" by Toad The Wet Sprocket

Take her arms and hold her down...
Until she stops screaming
Take her arms and hold her down...
Until she stops breathing

try Down In A Hole by Alice In Chains
or Mad World by Gary Jules

The Last Day of Our Aquaintance by SINEAD O' CONNOR

Speaking of David Gray :

Nightblindness - i remember hearing this song on White Ladder when i was 14 and it sounded like the saddest thing ever.
Also his 'Lost Songs 95-98' collection features some really depressing stuff.

Kate Bush's "This Woman's Work" is rather sad without perhaps becoming too depressing. Check the wonderful video to see what I mean.

Coldplay the scientist. This song makes my chest feel funny.

the brianjonestownmassacre - the devil may care..................or maybe elliot smith - needle in the hay......both songs are bleak creative moving masterpieces

Defintely elliot smith, his albums are full of sad songs, especially new moon. The acoustic guitar makes it sound even more down.

Dolorean's "Holding On" is the kind of song you listen to in a warm bath with a razor blade.

I'm not much of an Alice in Chains fan but "Rotten Apple" is also a great, depressing-as-hell song.

the album leaf- streamside
death cab for cutie- brothers on a hotel bed
the weepies- the world spins madly on
the microphones- i want wind to blow
ingrid michaelson- keep breathing
margot and the nuclear so and so's- light on a hill

and anything by glen hansard :]

One of the most depressing songs I've heard is "A Rose For Emily"

The opening lyrics are:

It gets sadder from there.

He's a sad bastard alright.

Def, i recently came upon this list. I'm of no opinion on it but I thought it fit the thread.

For the lonely: 150 songs for sobbing on Valentine's Day | Pop & Hiss | Los Angeles Times

located here

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Saddest song I have ever heard...

"For My Fallen Bride", by, ironically, a band called "My Dying Bride"...

But its the most heart wrenching description I've heard of holding the one you love while they slip away from this world... I'm no big crying guy, but man, this song gets me all choked up every time...

Here Comes the Flood by Peter Gabriel has the same effect on me when I hear the version of it with just him and a piano... stunning, beautifulo, incredibly depressing... :-)

This song is based on a short story by William Faulkner that goes by the same name.....Really good/sad/shocking story...if you haven't read it already, you should.

Eric Clapton's Tears in Heaven while very sad doesn't quite evoke the same kind of sadness of some of the saddest songs I know, but the story behind it is pretty awful. The song is about his son who fell out of a 53rd story window at the age of four .. The song is not all gloom because it has a of hopeful part to it that makes it feel even more real, I think.

Eric stopped playing it after he came over the loss. Awful tragedy and an amazing song ..

Any song off of Beck's "Sea Change"! Just a sad album overall!!!

The saddest thing I ever did see
Was a woodpecker peckin' at a plasitc tree.
He looks at me, and "Friend," says he,
"Things ain't sweet as they used to be."

-Shel Silverstein