Songs In Need Of Prozac

Hank · 01 Dec 2004

Crowded House's "She Goes On" is light and airy song about a dead lover.

Charles Abercrombie · **Joined:** 28 Sep 2006 **Posts:** 5535

Most of the lyrics of Springsteen's Born in the USA album are depressing--but most of the music isn't.

Holt! · **Joined:** 02 Jan 2007 **Posts:** 9051

Pink Floyd's "The Wall"

Holt! · **Joined:** 02 Jan 2007 **Posts:** 9051

Blackstar wrote:

You don't hear the lyrics to the M*A*S*H* theme too often. I understand it was a belated #1 hit in the UK in 1980. Here's the lyrics:

Quote:

Through early morning fog I see
visions of the things to be
the pains that are withheld for me
I realize and I can see...

[Refrain]:
That suicide is painless
It brings on many changes
and I can take or leave it if I please.

[Refrain]

The game of life is hard to play
I'm gonna lose it anyway
The losing card I'll someday lay
so this is all I have to say.

[Refrain]

The sword of time will pierce our skins
It doesn't hurt when it begins
But as it works its way on in
The pain grows stronger, watch it grin, but...

[Refrain]

A brave man once requested me
to answer questions that are key
"is it to be or not to be"
and I replied "oh why ask me?"

'Cause suicide is painless
it brings on many changes
and I can take or leave it if I please.
...and you can do the same thing if you please.

I didn't realize it had lyrics. Man, that is depressing. I was singing it along to the theme.

Glenn S. · 30 Oct 2006

A lot of alternative music would fit this category. For instance "Blasphemous Rumours" by Depeche Mode, and pretty much the entire works of Joy Division.

Ron Rogers · **Joined:** 16 Jan 2007 **Posts:** 263

"I Don't Like Monday's" by the Boomtown Rats

Blackstar · 01 Jan 2007

Is Pearl Jam's "JEREMY" about a kid who kills others in a classroom or kills himself in the classroom?

Although there is no death in Tennessee Ernie Ford's "SIXTEEN TONS" it does address the futility and hardship of blue-collar workers.

Holt! · **Joined:** 02 Jan 2007 **Posts:** 9051

Himself.

Charles Abercrombie · **Joined:** 28 Sep 2006 **Posts:** 5535

"Dust in the Wind" by Kansas

Blackstar · 01 Jan 2007

"RAIN ON THE SCARECROW" John Mellencamp

I've been debating about protest songs like CSNY's "OHIO". Although a bleak summation of Kent State shootings by the National Guard, it's not a roll over and die type of song.

Charles Abercrombie · **Joined:** 28 Sep 2006 **Posts:** 5535

Blackstar wrote:

I've been debating about protest songs like CSNY's "OHIO". Although a bleak summation of Kent State shootings by the National Guard, it's not a roll over and die type of song.

I've been thinking all day of posting that one, but I agree the defiance trumps the depression.

"You Don't Know Me" by Ray Charles

Blackstar · 01 Jan 2007

"IN THE YEAR 2525" by Zager & Evans

Lyrics wrote:

In the year 2525
If man is still alive
If woman can survive
They may find........

In the year 3535
Ain't gonna need to tell the truth, tell no lies
Everything you think, do, or say
Is in the pill you took today

In the year 4545
Ain't gonna need your teeth, won't need your eyes
You won't find a thing to chew
Nobody's gonna look at you

In the year 5555
Your arms are hanging limp at your sides
Your legs got nothing to do
Some machine, doing that for you

In the year 6565
Ain't gonna need no husband, won't need no wife
You'll pick your son, pick your daughter too
From the bottom of a long glass tube

In the year 7510
If God's a comin' he ought to make it by then
Maybe he'll look around himself and say
``Guess it's time for the Judgement day''

In the year 8510
God's gonna shake his mighty head
He'll either say ``I'm pleased where man has been''
Or tear it down and start again

In the year 9595
I'm kinda wondering if man's gonna be alive
He's taken everything this old earth can give
And he ain't put back nothing...

Now it's been 10,000 years
Man has cried a billion tears
For what he never knew
Now man's reign is through
But through the eternal night
The twinkling of starlight
So very far away
Maybe it's only yesterday...

In the year 2525
If man is still alive
If woman can survive
They may find.......

Blackstar · 01 Jan 2007

Kid Bailey wrote:

"Yesterday"-one of the most popular tunes by someone usually classified as the cheery optimist, the left behind singer is now half the man he used to be with a shadow hanging over him, longing for yesterday.

If I had to choose only one downbeat song from The Beatles it would be "ELEANOR RIGBY". :ohyes:

Hank · 01 Dec 2004

Blackstar wrote:

Kid Bailey wrote:

"Yesterday"-one of the most popular tunes by someone usually classified as the cheery optimist, the left behind singer is now half the man he used to be with a shadow hanging over him, longing for yesterday.

If I had to choose only one downbeat song from The Beatles it would be "ELEANOR RIGBY". :ohyes:

IAWTP.

Yesterday is a lamentation.

Eleanor Rigby is a Nihilist Manifesto.

Charles Abercrombie · **Joined:** 28 Sep 2006 **Posts:** 5535

"The Sounds of Silence" by Simon & Garfunkel

"Someday Never Comes" by Creedence Clearwater Revival

Rich Perez · 09 Nov 2007

The Beatles have had their share of songs that bordered on sadness. Just to name a few here:
Eleanor Rigby
Fool On The Hill
Golden Slumbers
The Long and Winding Road
She´s Leaving Home

Steve · 21 Oct 2004

"Fast Car" by Tracy Chapman is insanely depressing. It's a story about a couple that want to work hard, move to the city and make it. Except they FAIL!

Jamie McCrimmon · 28 Dec 2006

The one song that never fails to reduce me to floods of tears is Richard Thompson's 'Beeswing'. It's a gorgeous melody too, but the lyric is just heartbreaking. All about aging, and loss of innocence, and regrets about the path not taken...fairly common themes, but I've never heard a song address them quite as perfectly as this one. I dunno why it resonates so deeply with me, but it destroys me every single time.

I'm afraid I could only find this live version, which is very good indeed, but lacks the Northumbrian pipes which really make the original for me:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-K18xQgDS3U[/youtube]

Beeswing

I was nineteen when I came to town
They called in the Summer of Love
They were burning babies, burning flags
The Hawks against the Doves

I took a job in the Steamie
Down on Cauldrum Street
I fell in love with a laundry girl
Who was working next to me

She was a rare thing
Fine as a beeswing
So fine a breath of wind might blow her away
She was a lost child
She was running wild, she said
"As long as there's no price on love, I'll stay
And you wouldn't want me any other way"

Brown hair zig-zag round her face
And a look of half-surprise
Like a fox caught in the headlights
There was animal in her eyes

She said, "young man, O can't you see
I'm not the factory kind
If you don't take me out of here
I'll surely lose my mind"

She was a rare thing
Fine as a beeswing
So fine a breath of wind might blow her away
She was a lost child
She was running wild, she said
"As long as there's no price on love, I'll stay
And you wouldn't want me any other way"

We busked around the market towns
And picked fruit down in Kent
And we could tinker lamps and pots
And knives wherever we went

And I said that we might settle down
Get a few acres dug
Fire burning in the hearth
And babies on the rug

She said "O man, you foolish man
It surely sounds like hell
You might be lord of half the world
You'll not own me as well"

She was a rare thing
Fine as a beeswing
So fine a breath of wind might blow her away
She was a lost child
She was running wild, she said
"As long as there's no price on love, I'll stay
And you wouldn't want me any other way"

We was camping down the Gower one time
The work was pretty good
She thought we shouldn't wait for frost
And I thought maybe we should

We were drinking more in those days
And tempers reached a pitch
Like a fool I let her run
With the rambling itch

Last I hear she's sleeping rough
Back on the Derby beat
White Horse in her hip pocket
And a wolfhound at her feet

And they say she even married once
A man named Romany Brown
But even a Gypsy caravan
Was too much settling down

And they say her flower is faded now
Hard weather and hard booze
But maybe that's just the price you pay
For the chains you refuse

Oh, she was a rare thing
Fine as a beeswing
And I miss her more than ever words could say
If I could just taste
All of her wildness now
If I could hold her in my arms today
Then I wouldn't want her any other way

Invisible Pedestrian · **Joined:** 24 Sep 2006 **Posts:** 26169

The entire Bauhaus catalogue, and that's why I love them!

Rich Perez · 09 Nov 2007

David Bowie's "Space Oddity" and "Ashes To Ashes ". The saga of Major Tom.

Jimbo · 19 Jul 2006

Another Top 10 hit from the 70s that honestly gets to me is "Emma" by Hot Chocolate. The story of childhood sweethearts who marry, unfulfilled dreams, and, ultimately, suicide.

"It was a cold and dark December night
When I opened up the bedroom door
To find her lying still and cold
Upon the bed
A love letter lying on the bedroom floor
It read :
Darling I love you,
But I just can't keep on living on dreams no more.
I tried so very hard not to leave you alone.
I just can't keep on trying no more."

Steve · 21 Oct 2004

The oldies song "Last Kiss" covered by Pearl Jam is pretty sad. Also, gruesome. The movie "The Brain That Wouldn't Die" started exactly the same way.

Songs In Need Of Prozac

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