More about: Radiohead
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Summer may be just around the corner, but we've noticed that many of you out there can't help but feel still in the grips of winter, sadness and bad news. In light of this, we present to you - the 50 most depressing songs of all time, as decided by us here in the Gigwise office. Come wallow with us.
From the greats such as David Bowie, Prince, Prince, Tom Waits, Tracy Chapman and Joni Mitchell through to the more modern masters of misery such as Frightened Rabbit, Lykke Li, The Twilight Sad and more, we've curated for you the perfect soundtrack to sadness - and the devastating lyrics that make them so heartbreaking.
David Bowie - 'Lazarus': "Look up here, I'm in heaven. I've got scars that can't be seen. I've got drama, can't be stolen - everybody knows me now."
LCD Soundsystem - 'Someone Great': "I wish that we could talk about it, But there, that's the problem. With someone new I couldn't start it, Too late, for beginnings...and it keeps coming 'til the day...it stops - when someone great is gone."
Beck - 'Everybody's Got To Learn Sometime' (The Korgis cover): "Change your heart, look around you. Change your heart - it will astound you. I need your lovin', like the sunshine - everybody's gotta learn sometime."
Jeff Buckley - 'Lover, You Should Have Come Over': "Sometimes a man gets carried away, when he feels like he should be having his fun. And much too blind to see the damage he's done, sometimes a man must awake to find that really, he has no-one."
Eric Clapton - 'Tears In Heaven': "Would you know my name If I saw you in heaven? Would it be the same if I saw you in heaven? I must be strong and carry on, 'Cause I know I don't belong Here in heaven."
Perfume Genius - 'Mr Petersen': "He made me a tape of Joy Division, he told there was a part of him missing. When I was sixteen, he jumped off a building."
Sia - 'Breathe Me': "Help, I have done it again. I have been here many times before. Hurt myself again today, and the worst part is there's no one else to blame."
Skeeter Davis - 'End Of The World': "Why does the sun go on shining? Why does the sea rush to shore? Don't they know it's the end of the world, 'cause you don't love me any more?"
Daughter - 'Smother': "I’m sorry if I smothered you - I sometimes wish I’d stayed inside my mother, Never to come out."
Prince - 'Nothing Compares 2 U': "It's been so lonely without you here Like a bird without a song Nothing can stop these lonely tears from falling Tell me where did I go wrong."
Why? - 'Good Friday': "If I'm sinking in, laughing at something sunken in, I am."
Kate Bush - 'This Woman's Work': "Of all the things I've should've said that I never said. All the things we should've done that we never did. All the things I should've given but I didn't. Oh darling make it go, make it go away."
Sufjan Stevens - 'John Wayne Gacy Jr': "His father was a drinker, and his mother cried in bed, folding John Wayne's t-shirts, when the swingset hit his head."
Elliot Smith - 'Between The Bars': "People you've been before, that you don't want around anymore, that push and shove and won't bend to your will, I'll keep them still."
Nirvana - 'Something In The Way': "Underneath the bridge, the tarp has sprung a leak and the animals I've trapped have all become my pets. And I'm living off of grass and the drippings from the ceiling - But it's OK to eat fish because they don't have any feelings. Something in the way."
Joy Division - 'Heart And Soul': "Existence well what does it matter? I exist on the best terms I can. The past is now part of my future, the present is well out of hand."
Queens Of The Stone Age - '...Like Clockwork': "Holding on too long is just a fear of what's to show, because not everything that goes around comes back around, you know. One thing that is clear - it's all down hill from here"
The xx - 'Infinity': "After all the time, after you. Had you seen me with someone new, hanging so high for your return, but the stillness is a burn. Had I seen it in your eyes, there'd have been no try after try, your leaving had no goodbye, had I just seen one in your eyes."
Frank Ocean - 'Swim Good': "I'm going off, don't try stopping me. I'm going off, don't try saving me. No flares, no vest, no fear. Waves are washing me. I'm about to drive in the ocean. I'ma try to swim from something bigger than me. Kick off my shoes and swim good and swim good. Take off this suit and swim good and swim good, good."
Annie Lennox - 'Why': "How many times do I have to try to tell you that I'm sorry for the things I've done? But when I start to try to tell you, that's when you have to tell me 'Hey... this kind of trouble's only just begun'. That's why it hurts so bad to hear the words that keep on falling from your mouth. Tell me why..."
Tom Waits - 'Blue Valentines': "She sends me blue valentines, though I try to remain at large, they’re insisting that our love must have a culogy. Why do I save all of this madness in the nightstand drawer there to haunt upon my shoulders? Baby I know I’d be luckier to walk around everywhere I go with a blind and broken heart that sleeps beneath my lapel."
Leonard Cohen - 'Seems So Long Ago Nancy': "In the House of Honesty, her father was on trial. In the House of Mystery, there was no one at all, there was no one at all. It seems so long ago, none of us were strong."
iLiKETRAiNS - 'No Military Parade': "Yours is the end I was hoping for. A nation mourns your tragic downfall. There will be no military parade."
Portishead - 'Roads': "Oh, can't anybody see we've got a war to fight. Never found our way, regardless of what they say. How can it feel, this wrong? From this moment, how can it feel, this wrong?"
David Sylvian - 'Blemish': "I fall outside of her, she doesn't notice...And mine is an empty bed, I think she's forgotten...All is bloated and far from truth, let's secure that reputation. Place the dummy upon the roof, stitch him a tongue, give him proof."
Johnny Cash - 'Hurt' (Nine Inch Nails cover): "What have I become, my sweetest friend? Everyone I know goes away in the end. You could have it all, my empire of dirt. I will let you down, I will make you hurt."
The National - 'Think You Can Wait': "I was drifting, crying - I was looking for an island. I was slipping under, I'll pull the devil down with me one way or another. I'm out of my mind; think you can wait?"
Public Image Ltd - 'Death Disco': "Never no more hope away, final in a fade. Watch her slowly die. Saw it in her eyes. Choking on a bed. Flowers rotting dead, seen it in her eyes. Ending in a day. Silence was a way."
Elbow - 'Fugitive Motel': "'I'm tired', I said - 'You always look tired', she said. 'I'm admired', I said - 'You always looks tired', she said."
The Antlers - 'I Don't Want Love': "We wake up with pounding heads, bruised down below. I should have built better walls, or slept in my clothes. So if I see you again, desperate and stoned, keep your prison locked up, and I will leave my gun at home. I don't want love."
The Twilight Sad - 'The Room': "And your face is turning hard through the winter. There's nails in our feet. Hide her, don't break her, and we'll hide her, and we'll leave...Did you fall because you said you'd failed to care?"
The Cure - 'One Hundred Years': "It doesn't matter if we all die. Ambition in the back of a black car. In a high building there is so much to do. Going home time, a story on the radio. Something small falls out of your mouth, and we laugh. A prayer for something better, A prayer for something better."
Peter Gabriel - 'Mercy Street' : "There in the midst of it, so alive and alone. Words support like bone. Dreaming of Mercy Street, wear your inside out, dreaming of Mercy Street, in your daddy's arms again."
The Beatles - 'Blackbird': Blackbird singing in the dead of night, take these sunken eyes and learn to see. All your life, you were only waiting for this moment to be free."
REM - 'Sweetness Follows': "Readying to bury your father and your mother, what did you think when you lost another? I used to wonder why did you bother, distanced from one, blind to the other? Listen here, my sister and my brother - what would you care if you lost the other? I always wonder why did we bother, distanced from one, deaf to the other."
Mazzy Star - 'Into Dust': "Still falling, breathless and on again. Inside today, inside me today. Around broken in two, 'til your eyes share into dust. Like two strangers turning into dust."
Queen - 'Who Wants To Live Forever': "There's no time for us, there's no place for us. What is this thing that builds our dreams, yet slips away from us? Who wants to live forever? There's no chance for us. It's all decided for us. This world has only one sweet moment set aside for us."
Ryan Adams - 'When The Stars Go Blue': "Dancin' out on 7th street. Dancin' through the underground. Dancin' little marionette. Are you happy now? Where do you go when you're lonely? Where do you go when you're blue? Where do you go when you're lonely ? I'll follow yo... When the stars go blue "
Billie Holiday - 'Strange Fruit': "Blood on the leaves and blood at the root, Black bodies swinging in the southern breeze"
Manic Street Preachers - 'This Is Yesterday': "Someone somewhere soon will take care of you, I repent, I'm sorry, everything is falling apart. I stare at the sky, and it leaves me blind, and this is yesterday"
Tracy Chapman - 'Fast Car': " See my old man's got a problem. He live with the bottle that's the way it is. He says his body's too old for working. His body's too young to look like his fast car"
Radiohead - 'Videotape': "When I'm at the pearly gates, this will be on my video tape...this is one for the good old days, and I have it all here in red, blue, green. You are my centre when I spin away, out of control on videotape. This is my way of saying goodbye, and i can't do it face to face. "
Nick Cave - 'Your Funeral, My Trial': "I am a crooked man, and I've walked a crooked mile. Night, the shameless widow, doffed her weeds in a pile. The stars all winked at me, they shamed a child. Your funeral, my trial."
Bright Eyes - 'If Winter Ends': "And you get six months to adapt, then you get two more to leave town. And in the event that you do adapt , we still might not want you around. But I fell for the promise of a life with a purpose, but I know that that's impossible now. And so I drink to stay warm and to kill selected memories, 'cause I just can't think anymore about that or about her tonight."
Lykke Li - 'Never Gonna Love Again': ""Every time the rain falls, think of me. On a lonely highway, how can we? Turn around the heartache? Oh I, I'm alone tonight babe and I'm never gonna love again"
Bon Iver - 'Calgary': "Joy, it's all founded - pincher with the skin inside. You pinned me with your black sphere eyes. You know that all the rope's untied. I was only for to die beside."
Frightened Rabbit - 'Poke': "Poke at my iris, why can't I cry about this?...If someone took a picture of us now they'd need to be told, that we had ever clung and tied a navy knot with arms at night. I'd say she was his sister but she doesn't have his nose, and now we're unrelated and rid of all the shit we hated - but I hate when I feel like this and I never hated you."
Bat For Lashes - 'Sad Eyes': "And when you smile those sad eyes, look sadder and sadder still. Trying to hold it together, keep my love as light as a feather. Sad eyes baby, it's been such a long time - keep my heart breaking in the dark, come and spend the night."
The Smiths - 'This Night Has Opened My Eyes': "In a river the colour of lead, immerse a baby's head, wrap her up in the News Of The World - dump her on a doorstep, girl this night has opened my eyes and I will never sleep again."
Joni Mitchell - 'River': "I'm so hard to handle I'm selfish and I'm sad, now I've gone and lost the best baby that I ever had. I wish I had a river I could skate away on. Oh, I wish I had a river so long I would teach my feet to fly. I wish I had a river I could skate away on. I made my baby say goodbye."
The xx: Tender tales of love and yearning told over a sparse and chilling soundtrack. Most depressing tracks: 'Fiction', 'Angels', 'Infinity'
Joy Division: Plagued by frontman's Ian Curtis' illness and mental anguish, the tortured sounds of the Godfathers of post-punk would go on to inspire generation after generation of misery-mongerer. Most depressing tracks: 'Atmosphere', 'Heart And Soul', 'Atrocity Exhibition'
The Twilight Sad: True Scottish spirit comes loaded with an epic wall of sound that takes shoe-gaze and twists into something brutally beautiful. Most depressing tracks: 'That Summer At Home I Had Become The Invisible Boy', 'The Room', 'And She Would Darken The Memory'
Manic Street Preachers: Piercing Welsh political rock from the band that once refused to ever write a love song. Instead, their sound has ranged from glam rock and snotty punk, to acoustic beauty, stadium anthems and the haunting tales of torture and horror on The Holy Bible - often cited as one of the darkest albums in history. Most depressing tracks: 'The Intense Humming Of Human Evil', 'Of Walking Abortion', 'This Is Yesterday'
The Weeknd: Representing the darker side of R&B, Abel Tesfaye takes the sexy and sultry elements of the genre and uses them to paint morose pictures of bad hangovers, bad trips and good girls gone very, very bad. Most depressing tracks: 'Belong To The World', 'Coming Down', 'Wicked Games'
The Antlers: Their brilliant third album Hospice tells the story of a nurse and a female patient suffering from terminal bone cancer, while the follow-up Burst Apart was equally as devastating. Most depressing tracks: 'Sylvia', 'I Don't Want Love', 'Kettering'
Bjork: Aside from her latter day bat-shit crazy experiments with beats and nature, Iceland's finest export tends to deal pretty exclusively in the darker side of things, with a knack of worming her way deep under your skin. Just go and watch the movie Dancer In The Dark - we challenge you to last to the end without adopting the foetal position and weeping uncontrollably. Most depressing tracks: 'I've Seen It All', 'Unravel', 'In The Musicals'
Bon Iver: FACT - It's impossible to sit through a Bon Iver gig without demanding to be held as you blubber like a lost child. Most depressing tracks: 'Perth', 'Holocene', 'Calgary'
Elbow: Before they became the go-to band to soundtrack every moment of victory, Guy Garvey and co's sound was packed with a lot more Mancunian misery. Check out their first two albums to hear the band in their darkest hours. Most depressing tracks: 'Bitten By The Tailfly', 'Scattered Black And Whites', 'Fugitive Motel'
Interpol: These dapper New York kings deal pretty much exclusively in tension, darkness and sinister sounds. Most depressing tracks: 'Untitled', 'Hands Away', 'The Lighthouse'
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds: Sinisterly leering over the world as a towering godhead of powerful poetry and dark dynamics - ladies and gentlemen, Nick bloody Cave. Most depressing tracks: 'Your Funeral, My Trial', 'Push The Sky Away', 'People Ain't No Good'
Death Cab For Cutie: Post-adolescent wallowing at its best. Most depressing tracks: 'I Will Follow You Into The Dark', 'Some Day You Will Be Loved', 'A Lack Of Colour'
Bright Eyes: He's basically the emo poet laureate. Most depressing tracks: 'We Are Nowhere And It's Now', 'Winter Ends', 'I've Been Eating (For You)'
The National: Layer upon layer of rumbling textured guitars below Berninger's baritone laments on love, loss and life crumbling everywhere make for The National being one of the most compelling (if a little morose) bands of their generation. Most depressing tracks: 'Think You Can Wait', 'Vanderlyle Crybaby Geeks', 'Mistaken For Strangers'
Public Image Ltd: Have you ever listened to Metal Box? If not, go do so - but brace yourself. This is not the snotty snarling larger than life Lydon you know from the Sex Pistols: this is a man on the edge. Most depressing tracks: 'Death Disco', 'Albatross', 'Careering'
Portishead: Well, trip-hop was never supposed to be cheery. Most depressing tracks: 'Roads', 'The Rip', 'Glory Box'
Radiohead: An obvious one, but one can't ignore the dour anthemics of Thom Yorke and co. Most depressing tracks: 'Nude', 'Fog', 'Like Spinning Plates'
The Smiths: Of course, we can't ignore these boys either. Morrissey's pained and gloomy vocals were always entirely at odds with Marr's flowerly and cinematic guitarwork - but combined it made for some of the most monolithic miserabilist anthems ever. Most depressing tracks: 'I Know It's Over', 'Death Of A Disco Dancer', 'Never Had No One Ever'
David Sylvian: In the writing of this gallery, we had Blemish on repeat. Excuse us for a moment while we call our loved ones to bawl down the phone. Most depressing tracks: 'Blemish', 'Brilliant Trees', 'Plight'
Sigur Ros: Well, they're as triumphant as they are depressing, but Sigur Ros are at their most powerful when delivering haunting waves of chilling melodrama. Most depressing songs: 'Vaka', 'Ara Batur', 'Ny Batteri'
Nine Inch Nails: Trent Reznor will never write a party anthem - and for that, we love him. Most depressing songs: 'Hurt', 'The Downward Spiral', 'Something I Can Never Have'
Smashing Pumpkins: For a bloke with such a massive ego, Billy Corgan sure does know his way around a bloody good self-loathing anthem. Most depressing tracks: 'Try, Try, Try', 'To Sheila', 'Zero'
The Cure: Despite brief and baffling moments of gleeful exuberance, Robert Smith and co were one of the first mainstream acts to really turn dark and dramatic goth-pop into an artform. Speaking of their intentions behind their masterpiece Pornography, Smith said: "I wanted to make it virtually unbearable." Most depressing tracks: 'One Hundred Years', 'Cold', 'Lovesong'
More about: Radiohead
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