The saddest sound in the world.

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Inspired by hearing George Jones's "The Door": What is the saddest sound in the world? What sound do you most associate with sadness, or what sound do you associate with the most sadness?

― Amateurist (amateurist), Thursday, 13 February 2003 01:45 (twenty-two years ago)

sobbing

― electric sound of jim (electricsound), Thursday, 13 February 2003 01:45 (twenty-two years ago)

I agree with sobbing. And some of MBV's crying guitar sounds. And the sound of a door closing on someone you know you'll never see again...

― Trayce (trayce), Thursday, 13 February 2003 01:50 (twenty-two years ago)

absolute silence

― electric sound of jim (electricsound), Thursday, 13 February 2003 01:52 (twenty-two years ago)

when a train goes by... < /someone>

― RJG (RJG), Thursday, 13 February 2003 01:52 (twenty-two years ago)

http://193.62.14.190/boogie.mp3

That

― Lynskey (Lynskey), Thursday, 13 February 2003 02:09 (twenty-two years ago)

My live-in SO muffling his sobs, huddling on the floor next to his closet, because he thinks I am going to leave him. Still makes my heart ache to think of that night.

― I'm Passing Open Windows (Ms Laura), Thursday, 13 February 2003 02:20 (twenty-two years ago)

The sound of unhappiness that one has caused oneself.

― felicity (felicity), Thursday, 13 February 2003 02:22 (twenty-two years ago)

doh, I mean unhappiness that one has caused another.

― felicity (felicity), Thursday, 13 February 2003 02:23 (twenty-two years ago)

alright, i can't read this thread anymore otherwise i'm going to be a wreck

― electric sound of jim (electricsound), Thursday, 13 February 2003 02:26 (twenty-two years ago)

The sound of a person sleeping in a large bed as they flip over on their stomach and the matress creaks.

― David R. (popshots75`), Thursday, 13 February 2003 02:28 (twenty-two years ago)

http://www.achewood.com/i/11052001.gif

― Millar (Millar), Thursday, 13 February 2003 02:30 (twenty-two years ago)

God, Millar - that's horrible! And now I am completely depressed. Thank you.

― I'm Passing Open Windows (Ms Laura), Thursday, 13 February 2003 02:32 (twenty-two years ago)

the sound of a good friend in tears. sleater-kinney's hot rock.

― di smith (lucylurex), Thursday, 13 February 2003 02:33 (twenty-two years ago)

alright, i can't read this thread anymore otherwise i'm going to be a wreck

:-( *hugs Jim*

― Trayce (trayce), Thursday, 13 February 2003 02:38 (twenty-two years ago)

i hate the internet.

― di smith (lucylurex), Thursday, 13 February 2003 02:39 (twenty-two years ago)

The sadness or the hugging?

― N. (nickdastoor), Thursday, 13 February 2003 02:40 (twenty-two years ago)

All of it.

― Millar (Millar), Thursday, 13 February 2003 02:42 (twenty-two years ago)

Fireworks.

― Eyeball Kicks (Eyeball Kicks), Thursday, 13 February 2003 02:44 (twenty-two years ago)

There's happy songs on the Hot Rock! Dialtone, sometimes.

― Andrew Thames (Andrew Thames), Thursday, 13 February 2003 04:32 (twenty-two years ago)

The sound of a person sleeping in a large bed as they flip over on their stomach and the matress creaks.

i hear this every night just as I go to sleep and it is v comforting.

― isadora (isadora), Thursday, 13 February 2003 04:34 (twenty-two years ago)

Robin Gibb's voice on the Bee Gee's "I Started a Joke"

― A Nairn (moretap), Thursday, 13 February 2003 04:37 (twenty-two years ago)

John Cale's "Damn Life", Big Star "Holocaust". As well.

― Andrew Thames (Andrew Thames), Thursday, 13 February 2003 04:40 (twenty-two years ago)

If I gave my truthful answer to this thread it would probably be too upsetting.

― Mr. Diamond (diamond), Thursday, 13 February 2003 04:48 (twenty-two years ago)

someone yr crushed on flirting with somebody else.

― Aaron A., Thursday, 13 February 2003 04:49 (twenty-two years ago)

pedal steel

― That Girl (thatgirl), Thursday, 13 February 2003 04:56 (twenty-two years ago)

Jascha Horenstein, shortly before his death, said that "One of the saddest things about leaving this world is not hearing Das Lied von der Erde ever again."

Every so often (thankfully not too often) when I am listening to music that I love, I am struck with the horrible realization that I am in presence of something sublime, something eternal which I will only be able to enjoy for a short while.

I find that this thought arises more often -- not when I'm listening to something as ambitious, as audacious, as insistent as Mahler's Das Lied von der Erde, -- but when I'm listening to something with the opposite qualities. Something modest, patient, uninsistent. Something that seems to presume that it has all the time in the world, that it couldn't be bothered to persuade you of its greatness. One of the more memorably bleak moments from one of my deeper depressions was while listening to Dusty Springfield's "___." I burst into tears upon the realization that I did not have forever to sit and listen to it.

Even more than Dusty, it's the Delmore Brothers who best embody those values of modesty, patience, uninsistence that are wont to getting me thinking like Mr. Horenstein. The Delmores were an actual brother act who recorded hundreds of songs, mostly in the 1930s and 1940s. They helped to carry bluesy vocal harmonies and guitar runs into an era where country music was becoming increasingly bleached of such influences. But their music has little of the strong personality and bragadoccio we associate with the blues. The vocals sound pensive, muted, almost detached. Their solos are simple rephrasings of the main melodies of their folk-influenced songs; they avoided the showy displays of virtuosity favored by contemporaries like the Monroe Brothers or Roy Acuff (on the mandolin) or Roy Acuff (on the dobro). For all that originality they never sounded like they are uncomfortable with the constrictions of their chosen genre. The music is hillbilly, but not defiantly as Monroe and Acuff's would become. In sum they made some of the most unprepossessing incredible music I know.

For some reason this quality makes every word the Delmores sing and every note they play count that much more--burrow that much deeper. When they quote the traditional gospel line "when the judgement you will weep..." in the course of "Rainin' on the Mountain," it becomes something more than a cliché to go in one ear and out the other in the manner of so much country gospel. There is no attempt made to preach (indeed, the song is not about anything at all; it's a famous spider's web for floating folk verses), each line is presented with a quietude and confidence that suggests it is just a fact which can be heeded as easily as it can be ignored.

It is this type of music (if the Delmores can be said to represent any type of music) that makes me feel sad. This glimpse of a world where no one feels a need to rush, or to insist, or to decide. This terrible, wonderful indifference to the terrible fact of death. To me this is the saddest sound in the world. Also the most beautiful.

― Amateurist (amateurist), Thursday, 13 February 2003 05:06 (twenty-two years ago)

(That should be "...Dusty Springfield's 'I Only Want to Be with You.'" I had momentarily forgotten the title. Also, I hope I didn't impose by posting such a long message.)

― Amateurist (amateurist), Thursday, 13 February 2003 05:08 (twenty-two years ago)

(And "the Monroe Brothers or Roy Acuff (on the mandolin) or Roy Acuff (on the dobro)" should read "the Monroe Brothers (on the mandolin) or Roy Acuff (on the dobro)." Note that Acuff did not actually play the dobro himself--his axe was the fiddle--but it was the most prominent solo instrument on his earlier sides. I've forgotten the name of his dobroist at the moment.)

― Amateurist (amateurist), Thursday, 13 February 2003 05:10 (twenty-two years ago)

no, you made me choke up. ::dredging memory for acuff's dobroist::

― That Girl (thatgirl), Thursday, 13 February 2003 05:11 (twenty-two years ago)

most terrible/most wonderful
saddest/most beautiful

I am a cliché!

― Amateurist (amateurist), Thursday, 13 February 2003 05:20 (twenty-two years ago)

khm!... i kno' my thought's sorta impure, but i kno' that i kno' of one truly sad sound --
that of two skeletons fuckin' onna hot tin roof

― t\'\'t (t\'\'t), Thursday, 13 February 2003 06:28 (twenty-two years ago)

This is now the thread where we pretend that I didn't just post the most embarrasingly overearnest and maudlin and cliché essay, and stay the course of describing the saddest sound in the world and hopelessly depressing the other ILXers.

Or we can talk about dobros.

― Amateurist (amateurist), Thursday, 13 February 2003 06:30 (twenty-two years ago)

That was an incredible post, Amateurist - made me weep, and that is not always easy to do. Thank you. I needed to let some of that emotion loose.

Hmmm...and talking about Dobros, what is Jerry Douglas doing these days?

― I'm Passing Open Windows (Ms Laura), Thursday, 13 February 2003 06:48 (twenty-two years ago)

The sound of a glass bowl, a gift from a dead friend, breaking.

― Colin Meeder (Mert), Thursday, 13 February 2003 09:38 (twenty-two years ago)

the saddest sound in the world is when dolphins cry, yo.

― g-kit (g-kit), Thursday, 13 February 2003 10:35 (twenty-two years ago)

No, doves

― Andrew Thames (Andrew Thames), Thursday, 13 February 2003 10:39 (twenty-two years ago)

i meant doves, i spelt it wrong.

― g-kit (g-kit), Thursday, 13 February 2003 10:41 (twenty-two years ago)

I like the Louvin Brothers, they're pretty affecting, should I look for some Delmores? Dolphins crying is probably pretty sad too.

― Andrew Thames (Andrew Thames), Thursday, 13 February 2003 10:42 (twenty-two years ago)

shall i go punch one and find out?

― g-kit (g-kit), Thursday, 13 February 2003 10:44 (twenty-two years ago)

When a train goes by it's such a sad sound.

― Lara (Lara), Thursday, 13 February 2003 12:36 (twenty-two years ago)

check out the fourth answer, lar. I wish I could make a sound right now and it would be sad.

― RJG (RJG), Thursday, 13 February 2003 12:38 (twenty-two years ago)

Always last to the banquet, as I said. You ok? Is it the usual combination of sleep deprivation and green vegetables? Or something more sinister?

― Lara (Lara), Thursday, 13 February 2003 12:52 (twenty-two years ago)

In films, a code for one type of sadness is a quiet city with a dog howling in the distance. In music, the moment of shimmering violins in Al Green's 'How Can You Mend A Broken Heart?', or the latter part of Marianne Faithful's 'Ballad Of Lucy Jordan'.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Thursday, 13 February 2003 13:15 (twenty-two years ago)

the saddest sound is " Click, clickclick, roooolueemmmmnooo. Click - bointomont"

― Mike Hanle y (mike), Thursday, 13 February 2003 15:28 (twenty-two years ago)

I like the Louvin Brothers, they're pretty affecting, should I look for some Delmores?

Have you heard the Louvins' Delmore Brothers tribute record?

The Delmores > Louvins, although I like both. The Delmores have more folk-sounding melodies, the harmonies are less slick, the instrumental parts more bluesy.

― Amateurist (amateurist), Thursday, 13 February 2003 15:29 (twenty-two years ago)

Cat Power

― Sarah McLusky (coco), Thursday, 13 February 2003 15:30 (twenty-two years ago)

Answerphone message, repeatedly.

― Graham (graham), Thursday, 13 February 2003 15:36 (twenty-two years ago)

No Amateurist I haven't, but I'll look out for it and Delmores' records. Listened to the Louvins' 'Songs that Tell a Story' tonight, there are some beautifully sad/innocent (always tied in to sadness for me, lost childhood type crap mostly) songs on it... 'A Shut In at Christmas' especially.

― Andrew Thames (Andrew Thames), Thursday, 13 February 2003 15:37 (twenty-two years ago)

Uileann pipes played at a funeral would melt a stone.

― Tatyana, Thursday, 13 February 2003 15:44 (twenty-two years ago)

Andrew, the Delmores are less maudlin than the Louvins. Fewer songs about dying orphans and childhood crushes and so on.

― Amateurist (amateurist), Thursday, 13 February 2003 15:48 (twenty-two years ago)

The sound of an entire gym class laughing at the fat kid that's just been pants'd by the popular kids.

― nickalicious (nickalicious), Thursday, 13 February 2003 15:49 (twenty-two years ago)

Pants-d=shucked?

― Sarah McLusky (coco), Thursday, 13 February 2003 15:50 (twenty-two years ago)

the 'engaged' tone, maybe thats more of an annoying sound.

The sound of a train going by is sad if it's heard from a long way away, and at night-time.

― Fuzzy (Fuzzy), Thursday, 13 February 2003 15:52 (twenty-two years ago)

The sound of a train going by is sad if it's heard from a long way away, and at night-time.

I hear this every night, the commuter rail runs past my apartment about 1/2 block away.

― Amateurist (amateurist), Thursday, 13 February 2003 15:53 (twenty-two years ago)

A toilet flushing. All that effort gone to waste...

― Andrew Thames (Andrew Thames), Thursday, 13 February 2003 15:54 (twenty-two years ago)

Are you constantly depressed then, Amateurist?

― Sarah McLusky (coco), Thursday, 13 February 2003 15:54 (twenty-two years ago)

No, because I don't find it depressing.

― Amateurist (amateurist), Thursday, 13 February 2003 15:55 (twenty-two years ago)

I find it pretty. It's also pretty to step out on my back porch and see the train rush by in a whirrr; there are green lights at the base of the train and they illuminate the rails as it passes by.

― Amateurist (amateurist), Thursday, 13 February 2003 15:57 (twenty-two years ago)

Amateurist. I used to hear it as a child every night in bed too. My sister used to think that it was 'the night time coming'

― Fuzzy (Fuzzy), Thursday, 13 February 2003 16:00 (twenty-two years ago)

The sound of an entire gym class laughing at the fat kid that's just been pants'd by the popular kids.

i hear this every night just as I go to sleep and it is v comforting.

― mark p (Mark P), Thursday, 13 February 2003 16:00 (twenty-two years ago)

Yes, I have that Louvins album too. They are sad and funny, when they get onto morality.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Thursday, 13 February 2003 23:46 (twenty-two years ago)

I have lots of country music from the 20s-40s and the "orphan child looking for shelter from the snow" Victoriana is an entire subgenre. "Wreck on the Highway" being of the better *and* more ludricous examples. I find it really hard to take myself.

I always associate this stuff with what was happening in the south ca. 1880-1930. Lots of economic exploitation and many mountaineers, etc. left politically defenseless partly because of the emasculating Christian charity outfits etc. (settlement schools and the like, all very anti-union).

― Amateurist (amateurist), Thursday, 13 February 2003 23:51 (twenty-two years ago)

one year passes...

this thread revive was inspired by this thread title's similarity to the title of a guy maddin which furnished the title of another thread which was recently revived

― amateur!!st, Thursday, 18 November 2004 04:34 (twenty years ago)

Me playing the bagpipe chanter I just bought. Trust me on this.

― god made dirt and dirt bust ass (papa november), Thursday, 18 November 2004 04:38 (twenty years ago)

of a guy maddin Film

the trickiness of that sentence's construction defeated me

― amateur!!st, Thursday, 18 November 2004 04:41 (twenty years ago)

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