by Andrew Trendell | Photos by WENN / Splash / Press / Gigwise
The 36 most depressing songs of all time
As an air of misery stalks the land, wallow in your sadness with these tracks
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 - 'God's Away On Business': "I'd sell your heart to the junkman baby for a buck, for a buck. If you're looking for someone to pull you out of that ditch, you're out of luck, you're out of luck. Who are the ones that we kept in charge? Killers, thieves, and lawyers. God's away on Business."
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."
Nine Inch Nails - 'Hurt': "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 - 'Amy': "When you laid me down into your beautiful garden, flowers in the love of my arms - It's God shining through to me I guess. I love you Amy, do you still love me? I go to the places where we used to. I am out here looking for you."
The Weeknd - 'Belong To The World': I'm not a fool, I just love that you're dead inside . I'm not a fool, I'm just lifeless too."
Manic Street Preachers - 'The Intense Humming Of Human Evil': "6 Million screaming souls. Maybe misery - maybe nothing at all. Lives that wouldn't have changed a thing, never counted - never mattered - never be."
Lou Reed - 'The Kids': "They're taking her children away, because they said she was not a good mother. They're taking her children away, because of the things she did in the streets. In the alleys and bars, no she couldn't be beat, that miserable rotten slut couldn't turn anyone away."
Radiohead - 'Nude': "Don't get an big ideas, they're not going to happen. You'll paint yourself and fill up with noise, but there'll be something missing. Now that you've found it, it's gone. Now that you feel it, you don't. You've gone off the rails."
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 - 'Sadness Is A Blessing': "I ranted, I pleaded, I beg him not to go - for sorrow, the only lover I've ever known. Sadness is a blessing, sadness is a pearl, sadness is my boyfriend, oh sadness, I'm your girl."
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."
A fog of misery stalks the land across the UK today as an 'unpredictable' election brought a most depressing result (for many). Nothing will change. Sigh. Well, to help lift the mood, here are the 36 most depressing songs of all time.
From classic tear-jerkers to more modern misery, these are the songs to really help you wallow in misery. Every base is covered - from heartache, loss and longing to genocide, suicide and homicide. Some of these tracks are beautiful, and others just plain brutal.
Here's to five more years of cuts and austerity, come and wallow with us and appreciate these brilliant but bleak tracks, with the 36 most depressing songs ever.