so miserable

"you left me standing in the rain" by husker du. they always have - i can't bear it . gorgeous tune. too real

The Gothic Archies, "The Tiny Goat." Although actually, for tapping into my deepest personal fears, you can't beat Culturcide's "Run Away." "When I was little/Whenever I got angry/I listened to the Archies/Til the feeling went away./I had a record collection./I thought there was a connection./I expected too much./I wanted to be Alice Cooper./Lonely studio.../Lonely record collector.../Lonely record collector.../Wasted moments of time."

Verlaines "Slow Sad Love Song"... sad, but not exactly slow. Actually a pummelling climactic number that rivals Joy Division's potential intensity.

The Smiths "I know it's over"

I only ever listen to this anymore if I'm really masochistic.

Damn. Brian and Nicole chose two choices that have the potential to eviscerate me. Especially Nicole's right about now....

I couldn't listen to the Cure's "Trust" for about seven years.

When I was about 19, 20, it was The Dead Kennedys' "Your Emotions". I can listen to it now, though.

Today, it might be the song "Stifled Man Casino" by Robert Pollard and Tobin Sprout (AKA Airport 5 and on their recent collaboration album). The lyrics are the typical Pollard "interpret as you like (or if you like)" word collage so I have no idea what other people think about the song, but there are few uncomfortable personal coincidences in the lyrics that make me uneasy.

"the only thing you ever spent in your love was your breath", that's a great line.

definitely "lilac wine" by Jeff Buckley on the album Grace. Also "Hallelujah"...Leonard Cohen is a brilliant writer but his raspy voice just doesn't do this song justice. Buckley is such an amazing singer he really elevates the impact of the song.

Smiths is a good one too....although I usually listen to morrisey stuff when I am in a bad mood and need to tell myself "cheer up, you could be morrisey."

Hm, am trying to think of really GREAT song that gets me & perhaps the worst of it is, nothing in that category comes to mind. Thus unfortunately rather average songs tied to v. particular year or two are nearly unlistenable. In fact, the less I like the band now the more vivid the song, since no repeated listens since then have diluted the association.
Such as "Drown Me" by Soundgarden.
What is that song on Viva Last Blues though, "where are my friends/and where is my family?" That's rough going.

Mother by the Red House Painters is hard for me to pay attention to - Joy Division's Heart And Soul used to make me feel the same,but now I admire it because of how it makes a break-up really biblical-sounding ("an abyss that laughs at creation",indeed).

When routine bites hard, and ambitions are low And resentment rides high, but emotions won't grow And we're changing our ways, taking different roads Then love, love will tear us apart again --

Why is the bedroom so cold? You've turned away on your side Is my timing that flawed - our respect run so dry? Yet there's still this appeal that we've kept through our lives Love, love will tear us apart again --

You cry out in your sleep - all my failings expose There's a taste in my mouth, as desperation takes hold Just that something so good just can't function no more When love, love will tear us apart again --

i've got to say i always prefered the swans cover of that. and i can listen to any palace / dino jr / whatever soppy shit i was listening to when i got dumped / evicted / made redundant. not a lot of emotional depth going on for me. quite shallow. shitey question?

Pink Floyd, Time. Ow. (I don't know if that's miserable or just accusing though.)

"Here are the young men, a weight on their shoulders"... JD's "The Eternal/Decades" is just not worth suffering. I mean, nobody needs that, it's like being 16 years old and utterly desperate and it's cold outside and urgh, I can't bear it.

My very quiet emo fetish manifests itself here...

I can't be held accountable If you can't make up your mind Tonite as much as I would like to I can't put my hands all over you...

I can't tell if this song is good because it is will crafted, of if it's because it's the only way I feel these days.

I find my answer to be quite embarressing. I don't like Liz Phair's music so much, but there is this song with a line that goes 'I didn't think this would happen again ... ' It can bring me right right down, just to think about the music/words of that little bit of the song. And it seems peculiarly irresponsible to me, that she, whom I think tugs the heartstrings a little gratuitously at times, wrote something that really works on me like that, it's like she's firing all these shots and she really really got me with one of them, but it's not connected to the other ones, like it should be if she was my consistent servant.

but on the other hand it's good, because if I realise I'm being selfish and cruel towards someone, I can think of that line, it's like a pushbutton, and I'll have 'auto-empathy' with their suffering.

Am I the only one in a bad enough mood to be actually systematically downloading all the songs mentioned I don't have already?

try "failure" by the swans - as these things go it's KICKING. or "pea" by codeine / bitch magnet (is that the name of the song? you know the one "to be one mile high - then i would kill you all"). and then listen to herb alpert's tijuana brass "the brass are coming" and get out and do some leching

lately the aislers set - mary's song has been affecting. she rambles in an attempt to make the encounter last and when she finally breaks out and says "by the way can i come? i swear i won't be a burden" it's wonderfully melancholy. someone claims the lyrics later behind the hey hey heys are "geography/biology/just basically/don't reach for me", but i can't actually tell.

salo, the for carnation. calm misery.

Ramones-"What's Your Name".

"And all you ever want to be/Is like the other girls you see."

Oh yeah.

Keiji Haino had a line which ran: "Ahhh... your hurt - if you put it completely inside me, it will be insignificant." But his "My Only Friend" song has me crying and acting all emo-like. It really touches my soul.

Half of Dre's Chronic. Not for personal heartache misery, but for more general anguish, despair, impotence, and doom.

i love to listen to depressing/miserable music when I myself am down about something. when i'm generally happy, i find it mopey and less affecting. Usually the best miserable songs are breakup type stuff, let's face, it's usually about a girl (or boy depending upon your sex/orientation). Maybe I'll get some slagging for this, but Blur's "No Distance Left to Run" is a great feeling sorry for yourself track. forget about it being damon who you love to hate, it is a great miserable song.

Also, the entire first Trembling Blue Stars album "Her Handwriting" is great miserable stuff. Bob Wratten has got to be one of the best wallowing in self-pity songwriters. He hasn't been miserable enough the last few albums it seems. They haven't matched "Her Handwriting" or the Field Mice' "Coastal" (which was actually a collection). I saw TBS live last week, and they were good, playing mostly new stuff, but they did a couple Field Mice songs (So Said Kay and another one i am foprgetting). I might have enjoyed the show more if I was depressed or something currently, but it did seem pretty mopey lyrically.

g - you lucky lucky sod seeing the Tremblies doing some Field Mice songs. Lucky lucky LUCKY sod... when I saw them (it was only Bob then) he dragged Harvey up at the end to do "If you need someone" ... "Her handwriting" IS stalker-pop at its best, and possibly one of my favourite LPs of all time.

This is hard to admit, but the song (cycle) I REALLY can't listen to without breaking out into a sweat is side two of "Can't help falling in love" LP by Andy Williams. Yeah, you may all f***ing laugh, but go and listen to it. It desperately would like to be "Bookends", telling the story from youth to final death, but bloody hell it KILLS me to hear it, it literally churns me up thinking about it now. I don't know if it's something to do with the music itself (some scary chord changes and string arrangements) or the fact that it soundtracked a row my parents had when I was very young and it left me traumatised ever since.... (that last bit is a presumption but might explain my need to burst into tears whenever I hear it, which is very infrequently).

That Liz Phair song is "Fuck And Run" from the first album, by the way.