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Why do rockers write so many sad songs? Peter Gabriel noted in interviews that writing sad songs was much easier than writing happy songs. From the days of the blues, sad music can make you feel really good. Or does it just make you feel worse? And why do we want to hear sad songs when feeling pretty down? Isn’t rock and roll supposed to be all about making us feel great and happy and all that jazz? Here is a look at some of the saddest songs in rock music. Of course, there are thousands more, but we thought we would mention some of the saddest. What are yours?
# 10 – Tom Waits: Hell Broke Luce
Tom Waits puts his customary gravel-inside-a-silk-purse growl into a wail of despair as he takes on the voice of a crippled, drug-addicted veteran. It’s thought that the song was (sadly) inspired by a real Iraq veteran named Jeff Lucey. The song marches relentlessly through Luce’s problems, including being crippled, mother dying, watching a buddy die, and getting addicted to meth. “What is next?” he cries, and apparently, nothing is next because that’s where the song ends. It appears on Tom Waits’ 2011 album Bad as Me.
Read More: Tom Waits’ Best Song From Each Of His Studio Albums
# 9 – The Beatles: Eleanor Rigby
Nothing dramatic happens in this next look at the saddest songs in rock music, but that’s why this is so depressing. Eleanor Rigby and Father McKenzie are two ordinary people whose lives are inconsequential. It’s a stark reminder of our own mortality coming from The Beatles, then incredibly consequential and young. Often, a look at mortality only comes from older musicians. This first appeared in the Beatles’ 1966 album Revolver.
Read More: Beatles Albums In Order Of Original UK And US Studio Issues
# 8 – Warren Zevon: Excitable Boy
Although it does not deal with the usual sad song subject of lost love, Warren Zevon’s macabre classic looks at a wasted life of a murderer and rapist. If that’s not deserving of a spot in the saddest songs in rock music, we don’t know what is. It’s all set to an upbeat tune, with doo-wop backing vocals and a robust sax solo underscoring the stark lyrics. It first came out in the 1978 album Excitable Boy.
Read More: Complete List Of Warren Zevon Albums And Discography
# 7 – Pink Floyd: Don’t Leave Me Now
Even rock stars get the blues. Here, Roger Waters writes of a rock star hitting rock bottom. His wife has left, and he is totally blind as to how cruelly he treated her. Roger Waters’ wail is accompanied by an echoing piano, synths, organ, bass distorted guitar, and what sounds like a person hooked up to a ventilator. The song builds up to a crescendo of pleading. It was first released on the classic 1979 masterpiece, The Wall.
Read More: Ultimate Pink Floyd Page: Complete History, Songs, Albums & More
# 6 – Johnny Cash: Hurt
There are very few things sadder in life than a drug addict that’s hit bottom and realizes that he’s wasted his life and the lives of everyone who loved him. This might have been confined as an obscure song, even for Nine Inch Nails fans, had it not been for country superstar Johnny Cash recording a jaw-dropping version for his 2004 album Cash I: The Man Comes Around. Producer Rick Rubin brought the song to Cash’s attention and the rest is history. The song first appeared in the Nine Inch Nails’ 1994 album The Downward Spiral.
Read More: Complete List Of Johnny Cash Albums And Discography
# 5 – The Rolling Stones: Paint it Black
![Aftermath [US Version]](http://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51ySLtuhELL._SL500_.jpg)
Far back in European folk music is the ballad to the girl who died young. In 1968, this tradition was explored by The Rolling Stones. Flavored with the late-sixties standard of a sitar, guitars, and a pounding drumbeat, this is an intensely relentless look at a man mourning the loss of his young love. All of everyday life seems obscene, as if not recognizing the horror of the girl’s death. That’s why Mick Jagger insists on everything being painted black and “I want to see the sun blotted out from the sky.” It first appeared on the 1966 album Aftermath.
Read More: 10 Most Underrated Rolling Stones Songs
# 4 – Roy Orbison: Crying
For a sheer weep-fest, it’s hard to beat Roy Orbison’s heartfelt 1961 classic. Orbison explained in videos that this was based on a meeting he had with an ex. Although it’s often been covered, it’s hard to beat Orbison’s quavering soul-filled voice, revealing the agony of living while the one you love does not love you anymore. This three-minute masterpiece first appeared as a single and then in the album called, appropriately enough, Crying.
Read More: Top 10 Roy Orbison Songs
# 3 – Peter Gabriel: Home Sweet Home
Perhaps Peter Gabriel’s most underrated song can be hard to listen to because of the subject matter. A young mother kills herself and her child because of poverty. The husband suddenly wins a fortune and lives in a huge home alone. Gabriel wrote this after reading of just such a suicide. As a father, he thought of how the father felt coming home from work to discover his reason for working was dead. This first appeared in Gabriel’s second solo album, Peter Gabriel, in 1977.
Read More: Top 10 Peter Gabriel Songs
# 2 – The Magnetic Fields: From a Sinking Boat
Drowning is a horrible death. And yet, what would the last thoughts of a drowning person be? According to the Magnetic Fields, the last thoughts are of you. This song reads as if a last letter was discovered in the wreckage of a sunken ship. The vocals are low and dirge-like, multi-layered, as if the drowning crew is singing the same song. The backing instruments include an accordion, usually associated with sea shanties. This song first appeared on the 2010 album Realism and in the soundtracks of documentaries on sad subjects.
#1 – Lou Reed: The Kids
Even die-hard Lou Reed fans find “The Kids” hard to listen to because it is desperately sad. It’s a song about authorities taking children away from a single mother. It features recordings of two children screaming their hearts out. The good news is that the screaming kids were actors. The song’s producer asked one child to think of the saddest thing he could think of. When he started crying, the second child did, too. This is a more than worthy list topper for our look at the saddest songs in rock music.
Read More: Top 10 Lou Reed Songs
We break them down decade by decade….don’t miss these
10 Saddest Songs In Rock Music article published on Classic RockHistory.com© 2024
“Why?”
Lonnie Mack
Bonnie Raitt’s You don’t have to love me
What no “Cats in the Cradle”? You must be kidding me.
John Prine’s Hello in There.
Maybe she is not considered “rock,” but Bonnie Raitt’s “I Can’t Make You Love Me” belongs high on this list if she is.
James Taylor’s Fire & Rain his girlfriend committed suicide he was in rehab
Blue Joni Mitchell breaking up with Graham Nash after a year long relationship
Kinks Dead End Street & Waterloo Sunset
Dylan Lay lady Lay & Tangled up in Blue
John Lennon Mother
Neil Young Old Man Needle & The Damage Done
Many more
John Prihe Sam Stone
There’s a hole on daddy’s arm where all the money goes
The Nomads … The way She Touch My Hand.
Nothing sadder, with the saddest line in rock… She came and took my stereo away, she came and took my heart.
The best sad song (to me) is the most obscure one: Gene Clark on his LP ‘Two sides to every story’ the song ‘Give my love to Mary’ tels the story of an old coalminer dying. With the line: I love my children, six sons of mine. Pray that they never go down the mine.” Sad story about a time long gone. Are they?
Who wants to live forever by queen why wasn’t this on the list?