entertainment.news.com.au[/url]]
Uneasy listening
HAVE you heard a song that really made you sad? Tom Reynolds,
author of I Hate Myself and Want To Die, has offered his list of the most
depressing songs of all time.
15. Maggie's Dream ... Don Williams (1984) Over a soporific music
track, Williams sings about Maggie, a waitress who has spent 30 years
working at a diner and never had anyone to go home to. It doesn't help
that Maggie is the size of a whale. We're never told this but, hey, waitress,
truck stop, platters of fried food? You work it out.
14. Comfortably Numb ... Pink Floyd (1979) Bassist/grump Roger
Waters plays the unctuous doctor who medicates tortured rock star Pink
voiced by guitarist/better singer David Gilmour. Disturbing references to
pricking needles and hallucinatory ships.
13. Brick ... Ben Folds Five (1997) Many listeners, including me,
first assumed Brick was about a relationship ending. We discovered later
that it's about a couple getting an abortion.
12. Ruby, Don't Take Your Love to Town ... Kenny Rogers and the First
Edition (1969) Upbeat music does nothing to obscure its creepiness.
11. One ... Metallica (1988) A frenzied metal jam underpins the
screaming interior monologue of a blind, deaf and dismembered war
veteran.
10. People Who Died ... The Jim Carroll Band (1980) While most
punk music sounds like screaming winos crammed inside a runaway
shopping cart, this violent death anthem goes way beyond the usual
mohawk bellowings.
9. Sister Morphine ... Marianne Faithfull (1979) Marianne Faithfull
croaks about lying in a hospital bed while waiting for Sister Morphine to
appear, recalling ambulance sirens, faceless doctors and red sheets.
8. Hurt ... Nine Inch Nails (1994) This six-minute number is a woe-
is-me addiction song overloaded with excessive details.
7. Strange Fruit ... Billie Holiday (1939) Musically tedious and
outfitted with grotesque lyrics that exploit the horrors of lynching more
than they condemn it.
6. DOA ... Bloodrock (1971) An ode to the ephemeral joy that
comes from being a corpse who perished in a plane crash. It describes the
searing pain in the victim's body, his blood oozing out while his mangled
girlfriend lies nearby.
5. Seasons in the Sun ... Terry Jacks (1974) About a dying man
bidding farewell to a close friend, his father and some girl by the name of
Michelle.
4. Total Eclipse of the Heart ... Bonnie Tyler (1984) Tyler rasps her
way through a million permutations of the phrase, "Every now and then, I
get a little bit [insert neurosis here]", before losing it during the song's
demented chorus.
3. Honey ... Bobby Goldsboro (1968) The world's wordiest dead-
wife song, this is jammed full of blooming flowers, puffy clouds, singing
robins, planted trees and a puppy, all of which just make you want to
swallow a hand grenade.
2. The Shortest Story ... Harry Chapin (1976) The most misguided
song ever written, it features the late songwriter/activist Harry Chapin
adopting the persona of an African baby which dies of malnutrition.
1. The Christmas Shoes ... Newsong (2000) This serotonin-draining
yuletide song tells of a disgruntled holiday shopper who encounters a lone
dishevelled little boy trying to buy a pair of shoes for his dying mother.
* The rest of the top 25: 25. Sam Stone - John Prine; 24. My Immortal -
Evanescence; You Don't Bring Me Flowers - Neil Diamond and Barbra
Streisand; The River - Bruce Springsteen; 21. Tell Laura I Love Her - Ray
Petersen; 20. All By Myself - Celine Dion; 19. Woman's Prison - Loretta
Lynn; 18. Prayers for Rain - The Cure; 17. The Freshmen - The Verve
Pipe; 16. The Rose - Bette Midler.
Sad ... Metallica's One makes the list at No.11 / Adam Ward
- From The Daily Telegraph, list published in The Guardian
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