Power Ballads about suicide: S/D

Message Bookmarked

Bookmark Removed

For one reason or another, I just found myself listening to "Don't Close Your Eyes" from Kix's 1988 album Blow My Fuse. I remember thinking at the time of its release, it was just another in the barrage of anti-suicide power ballads that were flooding the market.

Now, however, I don't seem to remember any others.

(p.s. - No, this is NOT a cry for help, and I'm not on the verge of killing myself.)

― Johnny Fever (johnny fever), Friday, 5 December 2003 16:44 (twenty-one years ago)

"Everybody Hurts".

― nickalicious (nickalicious), Friday, 5 December 2003 16:46 (twenty-one years ago)

Not exactly putting the power in power ballad, mind ye, but still...

― nickalicious (nickalicious), Friday, 5 December 2003 16:47 (twenty-one years ago)

Stereophonics, "Local Boy in the Photograph"

― Jeremy (Jeremy), Friday, 5 December 2003 16:53 (twenty-one years ago)

Replacements - "The Ledge". More power than ballad though.

"Suicide is Painless"? Who sang that originally?

― NickB (NickB), Friday, 5 December 2003 16:56 (twenty-one years ago)

Okay, maybe limiting the category to hairspray metal acts was a bad idea, since no others seem to be coming up.

Jamie Mandel did "Suicide Is Painless," by the way. I don't remember all the lyrics (mostly because the version used in the tv show is instrumental), but it's got a pro-suicide bent doesn't it?

― Johnny Fever (johnny fever), Friday, 5 December 2003 17:00 (twenty-one years ago)

Is that a bad thing then?

― NickB (NickB), Friday, 5 December 2003 17:10 (twenty-one years ago)

"Don't Worry, Be Happy" was in '88

― BrianB, Friday, 5 December 2003 17:15 (twenty-one years ago)

...another in the barrage of anti-suicide power ballads...
...I don't seem to remember any others.

Yeah, but maybe this thread is too convoluted anyhow.

― Johnny Fever (johnny fever), Friday, 5 December 2003 17:15 (twenty-one years ago)

Too Far Down - Husker Du

― may pang (maypang), Friday, 5 December 2003 17:15 (twenty-one years ago)

Hrm.. then again.

― may pang (maypang), Friday, 5 December 2003 17:23 (twenty-one years ago)

"Don't Fear the Reaper" by BOC owns you all.

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Friday, 5 December 2003 19:31 (twenty-one years ago)

"Hung Again" by Cop Shoot Cop (not so much a 'power ballad' as a bleak swing tune).

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Friday, 5 December 2003 19:32 (twenty-one years ago)

I think listening to a 1988 Kix album more than once would send me straight to the Golden Gate Bridge.

― andy, Friday, 5 December 2003 19:56 (twenty-one years ago)

Hahahahaha

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Friday, 5 December 2003 19:57 (twenty-one years ago)

April Wine, "Rock Myself to Sleep". OK it's not a ballad and it still doesn't have any 'power' and it's not really 'about' suicide but when you drink as much instant coffee as I do the word 'sleep' assumes mystical and inneffable powers!

― dave q, Friday, 5 December 2003 19:59 (twenty-one years ago)

(then again with a title like that maybe it's a response to Gary Numan's "Every Day I Die")

― dave q, Friday, 5 December 2003 20:00 (twenty-one years ago)

whatever songs you decide on, make a mixtape and send them to this guy

(There's a guy outside my window who's been threatening to jump all night!)

― JaXoN (JasonD), Friday, 5 December 2003 20:02 (twenty-one years ago)

Ozzy Osbourne & Lita Ford - Close My Eyes Forever

― Siegbran (eofor), Friday, 5 December 2003 20:12 (twenty-one years ago)

Ooh. good one. Well, not that it's a good song, mind you, but that it's the quintessence of suicide-based power balladry.

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Friday, 5 December 2003 20:13 (twenty-one years ago)

Big Fun, "Teenage Suicide (Don't Do It!)"

― Colin Meeder (Mert), Friday, 5 December 2003 23:54 (twenty-one years ago)

(V|etallic|-\!!! Fade to Black!!!!!!!!!2

― Leee Trevino (Leee), Friday, 5 December 2003 23:57 (twenty-one years ago)

"Heart-Shaped Box"
"24 Hours"

― dave q, Friday, 5 December 2003 23:58 (twenty-one years ago)

This thread was created just so someone would mention "Fade to Black", I just know it.

― latebloomer (latebloomer), Saturday, 6 December 2003 01:38 (twenty-one years ago)

Today...?

― ModJ (ModJ), Saturday, 6 December 2003 04:42 (twenty-one years ago)

i just need to go back to the person who said that "the ledge" DETRACTS from "pleased to meet me" and suggest that person is completely cracked out.

― notfazed (notfazed), Saturday, 6 December 2003 05:31 (twenty-one years ago)

six months pass...

well i was a teenager at that time and the one that sticks out most to me is ballad of jayne by l.a.guns , there was a lot of night i listened to that alone in my room and also the black crowes had one...she talks to angels.......just my contribution

― kelly janney, Wednesday, 9 June 2004 15:27 (twenty-one years ago)

"Oh Candy" from the first Cheap Trick album is the true and rightful owner, since "Don't Fear the Reaper" is not a power ballad.

Oh Candy why did you do it
You should've called me on the telephone
I didn't expect for you call me
'Cause I didn't think that you were alone
So alone
Oh, Candy worked so hard
At doin' what he thought was right
It really really doesn't mean a thing
Oh, Candy worked so hard
At doin' what he thought was right
It really really doesn't mean a thing
Oh Candy why did you do it
You didn't stick a needle in your vein
You just got so damned depressed
We all liked you except yourself
Oh, Candy worked so hard
At doin' what he thought was right
It really really doesn't mean a thing
Oh, Candy worked so hard
At doin' what he thought was right
It really really doesn't mean a thing
You, you won't be comin' around no more
You, you won't be comin' around no more
Oh Candy why did you do it
I didn't think you heard a word that I said

― briania (briania), Wednesday, 9 June 2004 19:22 (twenty-one years ago)

Concrete Blonde (via Andy Prieboy), "Tomorrow Wendy"

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Wednesday, 9 June 2004 19:25 (twenty-one years ago)

two years pass...

"Tomorrow Wendy" is about Andy P's friend dying of AIDS, actually. Which really makes it that much more horribly depressing.

And since this is the first thread I clicked on when searching for the song, I just want to say this couplet is really really awesome:

I told the priest, "Don't plan on any second coming.
God got his ass kicked the first time he came down here slumming."

― Curt1s Stephens, Wednesday, 7 March 2007 00:45 (eighteen years ago)

Is 'Like Suicide' about suicide? It's one of he finest power-ballads ever written, hands-down.

― unfished business, Wednesday, 7 March 2007 00:49 (eighteen years ago)

Unrest - Teenage Suicide.

Probably one of the poppier and upbeat songs posted so far.

― mehlt, Wednesday, 7 March 2007 01:14 (eighteen years ago)

[ KIX Lyrics ]

"Don't close your eyes"

(center text)

what's you're doing out in the night time?
won't you call me on the phone?
your mama can't solve your problem
when's daddy ever get home?

so you think you're a little bit wild
IN the middle OF the suicide

don't close your eyes
don't close your eyes
don't sing your last lullaby

no one there to hold you
no one is your friend
you live life up and down now
nightmares on your brain

another lonely way of hanging round
don't you take it falling down no no

hold on hold on tight
i'll make everything all right
wake up don't go asleep
i'll pray the lord
your soul to keep

don't close your eyes
don't close your eyes
don't sing your last lullaby

don't close your eyes
don't close your eyes
don't sing your last lullaby

― xhuxk, Wednesday, 7 March 2007 02:15 (eighteen years ago)

oops, didn't notice that one started the thread! who cares; it's great (not to mention almost the only ballad kix ever did!)

― xhuxk, Wednesday, 7 March 2007 02:16 (eighteen years ago)

eleven years pass...

Here are thirty songs.

― morning wood truancy (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, 16 March 2018 02:14 (seven years ago)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2jTBy9CsPNU

― Heavy Messages (jed_), Friday, 16 March 2018 02:17 (seven years ago)

Not exactly a power ballad but from the same time period: Rush - "The Pass"

― No purposes. Sounds. (Sund4r), Friday, 16 March 2018 02:33 (seven years ago)

1-800-273-8255

― map, Friday, 16 March 2018 04:55 (seven years ago)

"suicidal thoughts" would be my #1 as well. "She don't even love me like she did when I was younger" is brutal.

"i know it's over" is an all-timer but i've always connected to "asleep" more. "It's so easy to laugh / It's so easy to hate / It takes guts to be gentle and kind" is absolutely iconic, i think, but it also represents a sort of a glimpse of a positive outlook that doesn't really resonate with me, not when one is in that state of mind. whereas

Don't feel bad for me / I want you to know / Deep in the cell of my heart / I really want to go
There is another world / There is a better world / Well, there must be

also presents a vision of something better, but it's somewhere else that unreachable from the world of the living, and that seems more real.

― Karl Malone, Friday, 16 March 2018 05:13 (seven years ago)

(responding to alfred's list, not the power ballad topic, obv)

― Karl Malone, Friday, 16 March 2018 05:17 (seven years ago)

Duran Duran, “So Long Suicide”
Franco Battiato, “Breve invito a rinviare il suicidio” (A brief invitation to put your suicide off)

― Max Florian, Friday, 16 March 2018 07:34 (seven years ago)

Metallica's "Fade to Black" I think would be a big tunes in this category.

― earlnash, Friday, 16 March 2018 12:24 (seven years ago)

I'm not sure it's about suicide per se (as opposed to just a premature death) but I'm fond of 'Fly High Michelle' by Enuff Z'Nuff.

― Another helping of mouthwatering cobbler? (Old Lunch), Friday, 16 March 2018 13:05 (seven years ago)

Twisted Sister - “The Price”!!!

― ... (Eazy), Friday, 16 March 2018 13:20 (seven years ago)