what vocal/musical characteristics sadden you when listening to music?
do you find music which reflects/depicts the unhappiness of the creator difficult to listen to?
do you enjoy such music more when you, yourself are feeling a bit depressed?
do you make a distiction between "the saddest-sounding records" and "the records which provoke the greatest sadness in you"?
― weasel diesel (K1l14n), Thursday, 15 September 2005 13:05 (twenty years ago)
1. Distant-sounding sombre notes, voices tinged with regret and wistfulness or the sense that they've given up, sounds that seem very isolated and lonely (like a sprinkle of glacial piano in minor key).
2. Not really. If anything it makes them seem more human.
3. I do.
4. A very minimal amount of distinction, if any.
― Ian Riese-Moraine: Let this bastard out, and you'll get whiplash! (Eastern Mantr, Thursday, 15 September 2005 13:32 (twenty years ago)
1. mariah carey and the ilk. basically anything that sounds human and entirely plastic at once (and has a tendency to show off, for no reason).
2. with the exception of swans (because its too much) and things like elliot smith (i.e. playing the sadsack), nope.
3. not neccessarily.
4. the records that provoke sadness are records that are awful. sad-sounding records can be powerful.
― bb (bbrz), Thursday, 15 September 2005 13:53 (twenty years ago)
I think the saddest moment in recorded music is probably Billie Holiday singing "You've Changed" on her "Lady in Satin" album. It's because it satisfies as both "art that sets out to be sad" and "art which makes a sad, symptomatic comment on the state of mind/body of its creator". It's not that it's already compelling as art and then additionally it happens to be an emotional / artistic car crash from which you can't look away- it's that the fact that it is a car crash winds up amplifying and extending what it was already doing as a work of art all along- sorry that came out tangled. The narrator of the song is addressing someone else who has changed, but as Billie's once gorgeous and now froggy, croaking voice breaks repeatedly as she tries to still sing, it's clear that she's the one who has changed, and that heroin and jail have ruined her instrument and that she as a human being has entered an irreversible decline. The most powerful part is that she sounds as if she knows all this, and knows that you know it too as you listen to her- so there's a weird dignity in the midst of just how nakedly excruciating it is to endure. It's high art and it's a stomach churning cry of pain too.
― Drew Daniel (Drew Daniel), Thursday, 15 September 2005 17:38 (twenty years ago)
In a little while from now,
If I'm not feeling any less sour
I promised myself to treat myself
And visit a nearby tower,
And climbing to the top,
Will throw myself off
In an effort to make it clear to who
Ever what it's like when your shattered
Left standing in the lurch, at a church
Where people 're saying,
"My God that's tough, she stood him up!
No point in us remaining.
May as well go home."
As I did on my own,
Alone again, naturally
To think that only yesterday,
I was cheerful, bright and gay,
Looking forward to, but who wouldn't do,
The role I was about to play
But as if to knock me down,
Reality came around
And without so much as a mere touch,
Cut me into little pieces
Leaving me to doubt,
All about God and His mercy
For if He really does exist
Why did He desert me
In my hour of need?
I truly am indeed,
Alone again, naturally
It seems to me that
There are more hearts
Broken in the world
That can't be mended
Left unattended
What do we do? What do we do?
(instrumental break)
Now looking back over the years,
And what ever else that appears
I remember I cried when my father died
Never wishing to have cried the tears
And at sixty-five years old,
My mother, God rest her soul,
Couldn't understand, why the only man
She had ever loved had been taken
Leaving her to start with a heart
So badly broken
Despite encouragement from me
No words were ever spoken
And when she passed away
I cried and cried all day
Alone again, naturally
Alone again, naturally
― Gilbert O'Sullivan, Thursday, 15 September 2005 18:17 (twenty years ago)
I think the saddest moment in recorded music is probably Billie Holiday singing "You've Changed" on her "Lady in Satin" album. It's because it satisfies as both "art that sets out to be sad" and "art which makes a sad, symptomatic comment on the state of mind/body of its creator". It's not that it's already compelling as art and then additionally it happens to be an emotional / artistic car crash from which you can't look away- it's that the fact that it is a car crash winds up amplifying and extending what it was already doing as a work of art all along- sorry that came out tangled. The narrator of the song is addressing someone else who has changed, but as Billie's once gorgeous and now froggy, croaking voice breaks repeatedly as she tries to still sing, it's clear that she's the one who has changed, and that heroin and jail have ruined her instrument and that she as a human being has entered an irreversible decline. The most powerful part is that she sounds as if she knows all this, and knows that you know it too as you listen to her- so there's a weird dignity in the midst of just how nakedly excruciating it is to endure. It's high art and it's a stomach churning cry of pain too.Absolutely OTM. If I had to pick one song that is truly sad, this is it. I first heard this my senior year of college in a jazz course. The class was filled with juvenile football and basketball players (I went to an unnammed Midwest, private jock college), and the professor (a band geek and great jazz pianist) played this song at the end of class one day. When it was over, there was a COMPLETE silence, and I swear I saw one of the 'roided-out lineman get misty-eyed.
Great, great song.
― PB, Thursday, 15 September 2005 21:05 (twenty years ago)