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Depressing sounding songs

Daryl Lynn L.A. said:
We had a long discussion thread, about 300 posts, about "Honey", and other songs. The thread eventually was locked because it became too contentious.......... :rolleyes:
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To be fair, the lockdown was due to the usual suspects' carping about how "Honey" was No. 1 for X number of weeks in Billboard in 1968, so why didn't oldies stations play it in the 2000s? Same tired argument that "You Light Up My Life" inevitably summons up. To all of our credit, no one in this thread has tried to make a similar case for any of the depressing titles mentioned here.
 
kevtronics said:
Vince Gill wrote "Tryin' to Get Over You" because he lamented that there weren't enough Country songs about death since that one. It became a #1 Country hit in 1994.

The one thing it succeeded in killing was his career, because it was his last #1 hit.
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Country music was heading in a more uptempo, line dance-friendly direction in the mid-'90s anyway. Slow ballads regardless of subject matter had a tougher time getting on the radio as the decade went on. Anyway, it was Gill's style that became passe', not sad songs.
 
boombox4 said:
The 1940 Artie Shaw release Gloomy Sunday, sung by Pauline Byrne, was said to have been banned from some stations or networks because it was said to be a suicide song. I think it was at least a minor hit.

Billie Holiday's 1941 version was banned by the BBC until 2002.
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It's not just "said to" be about suicide. It's right there on the label!

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Torgo Johnson said:
Seasons in The Sun - Terry Jacks
Run Joey Run - David Geddes
The Freshmen - Verve Pipe
Brick - Ben Folds Five
Slide - The Goo Goo Dolls

The last three are all from the late 90's and deal with the same subject matter (Slide is a little bit more upbeat than the other two, which are just downright depressing).
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The interesting thing about “Seasons in the Sun” by Terry Jacks is while the song’s lyrics are indeed sad, the melody is pure pop. Certainly not the only song that took this approach, but it hit number one for three weeks in ‘74.
 
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seatownmedia said:
The interesting thing about “Seasons in the Sun” by Terry Jacks is while the song’s lyrics are indeed sad, the melody is pure pop.
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I never considered it to be a depressing song. It's about nostalgia -- "we had joy, we had fun, we had seasons in the sun". People don't remember the verses; they remember the chorus.
 
I've been listening to the Dolly Parton's America podcast, which came out in 2019. The first episode is called "Sad Ass Songs", which is what Dolly wrote early in her career. From the show notes she wrote "remarkably prescient words of female pain, slut-shaming, domestic violence, and women being locked away in asylums by cheating husbands." These have Appalachian roots, "flipping the script" on "murder ballads".
www.wnycstudios.org

Sad Ass Songs | Dolly Parton's America | WNYC Studios

We enter the Dollyverse.
www.wnycstudios.org www.wnycstudios.org
 
gr8oldies said:
I've been listening to the Dolly Parton's America podcast, which came out in 2019. The first episode is called "Sad Ass Songs", which is what Dolly wrote early in her career. From the show notes she wrote "remarkably prescient words of female pain, slut-shaming, domestic violence, and women being locked away in asylums by cheating husbands." These have Appalachian roots, "flipping the script" on "murder ballads".
www.wnycstudios.org

Sad Ass Songs | Dolly Parton's America | WNYC Studios

We enter the Dollyverse.
www.wnycstudios.org www.wnycstudios.org
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The country women have been turning the tables of late. In Martina McBride's '90s hit "Independence Day," the female protagonist sets fire to her house, killing her alcoholic husband. In the current hit "Wait In The Truck," by Hardy and Lainey Wilson, a battered woman's abusive partner is shot dead by a man who has picked her up hitchhiking.
 
Wait a sec, do people really like hearing "up" songs 24/7 on the radio? Every station I know mixes in at least some sadder songs.
 
tall_guy1 said:
Every station I know mixes in at least some sadder songs.
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I'm not sure the programmer's emphasis are on finding and inserting "sadder songs" into the mix as much as they program tunes that have tested well and are relatable to listeners and their experiences with love, relationships, and "life".
w00t said:
Well, sometimes you need an appropriate record to lead into a death dedication. We can’t always come out of these damn uptempo records you know.
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Far too little profanity in your post if you're alluding to the Kasem rant. And now....Back to the countdown.
 
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