This morning, I was reading a list of the best “indie” love songs. No dearest reader, don’t fret, I am not going to try to define what the hell indie even means these days. But I will take a stab in the dark: having a day job still? But look at that, I already kind of lied, but since it was in a contextual lie, it doesn’t really count. Anyway that list was terrible, (The New Radicals “Someday We’ll Know” and Weezer “O Girlfriend” were on it. WHAT THE FUCK!??!) But the reactionary comments were much more entertaining, the songs people would’ve picked ranged from the terribly cliche (Neutral Milk Hotel, Bright Eyes) to the spot-on (The Weakerthans “My Favorite Chords”) to the expected (Velvet Underground “I’ll Be Your Mirror”) to the ones that I hilariously agree with (The Stranglers – Golden Brown) because they are love songs dammit, and it shouldn’t up to anyone to judge you if you are writing love songs to heroin. If you love heroin, that’s just great. If you love your forty cats, like that Sun Kil Moon dude, then that’s great, keep writing songs about heroin/cats. It’s better than nihilism. And it’s a hell of a lot better than what that illiterate fucktard Ben Gibbard, who gets married, has kids (assumedly, unless he is gay which could also be interpreted as assumed by some) and still write yearning adolescent love songs. Grow the fuck up and get your drummer from The Photo Album back. You sound like Jay Cutler or that cross eyed fuck from The Bachelor. A little bitch.
Basically I find the comment section on any remotely controversial article far more rewarding of a read than the article itself.
I LOVE TWO WOMEN, WOE IS ME!
Really, I could go on for hours about what makes good indie music, or what makes a good indie love song, or what makes for a productive sustainable career in indie rock, why indie rock is the only critically respected form of rock anymore, all without defining what indie is. I am that talented of a circular logician/writer. But fortunately, I am not going to undertake any of the previously described tasks. I am taking on a far gloomier and more interesting task. Writing the most depressed songs I can!
There are two moments that compelled me to write this feature.
1) The first is a series of moments. Now don’t close that window, give me a chance, you beautiful reader you. Sometimes when I have my music on, my girlfriend will tell me that she is going to slit her wrists, if I don’t changethe song or cd. At first this confused me. It also offended me for a minute. The good music that brought me so much solace and comfort in my life, was making someone I love suicidal. The cd’s and songs I listen to on a rainy day, that made me hum and smile, made her want to jump out the window. What a wacky situation! Maybe it’s because her skin isn’t as tough as mine, I thought, seeing that I grew up in the most depressing environment in the country, (Seattle – where the sun never shines!) and the local art community hear is pretty gloomy to match. The “best” artists from the pacific northwest are all marginally crazy isolationists, used to be crazies that auspicously stopped acting crazy once they got monies (Issac Brock) or dead (Kurt Cobain.) And if not, then little bitches or sell-outs (Colin Meloy, Ben Gibbard. Though Meloy’s Northwesterniness is debatable, Portland transplants from Montana are still from Montana.) But this isn’t a PNW music exclusive thing. That it really could be though is an entirely seperate matter.
There are some self-imposed guidelines to this excursion. There can’t be one single upbeat quality in the song and the only extractable overall feeling should be sadness and loss. These have to be absolutely devastating songs. And I mean this in both execution and content. The good ol’ Tom Waits inversion theory: that you can write upbeat music with sad lyrics like “I Don’t Wanna Grow Up” or write a downtempo song with happy lyrics isn’t going to work here. It has to be downtempo AND have gloomy lyrics. Even a crescendo towards the end or a slight hint of irony in the lyrics should disqualify. This is only done to confirm we are talking about some fucked up songs, for the good of someone, lord knows who could actually benefit from this. Maybe someones ego.
None of these songs can I tolerate listening to when I’m not feeling blue. I have to keep a distance from them in order for their cathartic function to remain intact. That and I generally like to avoid depressing thoughts, on principle. Now that this horribly long introduction is over let’s get to the MUSIC. Most of these songs are contemporary songs. There probably are sadder, older songs out there, but I didn’t have to heart to delve into that wide of a scope for such a downer of a topic. These are songs I know to be depressing and I’m writing about why. I’m not making claim that these are the saddest songs out there. Otherwise Nick Drake would be mentioned.
The first song on the list, is also the second moment that compelled me to write this.
1(2) Damien Jurado -Medication
This is the granddaddy, wrist-slitting, life-isn’t-bearable song. This song is so brutal, so gut wrenching, so painful to listen to, so earnest, that on the first listen you think “This dude must have a brother in a psych-ward.” Then after a couple listens it turns into : “Holy shit, this guy is an incredible writer. Why does he tell these kind of stories?” I tell every one who gives a shit about art with half-a-brain about this guy. Most people, who I consider in touch with good music, have never heard of him. It’s a shame. He is a goddamn genius and the most underrated songwriter on the indie circuit. Period. The only knock I hear on him is that most of his songs are sad, which isn’t entirely true, though the ones that are sad are particularly sad, but is just indicative of the press’s unfamiliarity with his catalogue and the incredible skill this dude puts into his craft. His new album, Caught in the Trees is relatively upbeat and is a collection of the some of the catchiest, wittiest, most incisive songs and ultimately the best album released in 2008. But yes, Medication is dreadfully sad song, the saddest one I can think of even. Take a listen.
I went to a show of his in Seattle in January, and when he played the song I didn’t even recognize it halfway through. Why was this? I had heard it hundreds of times. I came to the conclusion that I have subconciously blocked out the majority of this song from my memory, for the benefit of my own psychic abilities. And I;m a guy who enjoys a sad song, and if I actually blocked it out, it is a testament to the power of this song. It fucking haunts me. When I tell people about Jurado, I never mention anything about “Medication” or even the album it is from, Ghost of David, which in it’s entirety is almost as depressing as this song which is the opener of all songs. Lines like
“Brother called this morning in a terrible panic/ Spies in the closet, bugs in the attic/ He screams bloody murder saying,/We`re all gonna die/
are just a happy precursor for the closer:
Lord, do me a favor/It`s wrong but I ask you/Take my brother`s life
You’ll see what I mean. But, don’t start there if you are interested in him. Get Rehearsals for Departure. The two super-depressing albums, Ghost and …And Now I’m in your Shadow, will scare you away from him for life. I’m lucky this is the first song I heard from him:
But enough of my hetero-boner for Jurado. The other one’s won’t be like that. I rep Jurado every chance I can get.
One final thing: the other reason I wrote this came from the comments on the YouTube video for “Medication.” It is filled with remarks about the intensity and depressive qualities of the song, and immediately followed by endorsements of emotional attachment (i.e. “I love this song.”) Why do people attach themselves more strongly to songs of a depressing nature than a happy nature? More on this concept towards the end.
2. Elliott Smith – Pitseleh
Having an Elliott song is obligatory. Not because he is the King of Sadness, but because he just does the sad song so well. He’s reference an amount of times that most of his lyrics are about his dreams.In general, dude was a jovial, gregarious person, who wrote really fucking sad songs and made a lot of teenagers feel sadder/happier depending on the inclinations of their dopamine receptors. He just must have had really messed up dreams. And from what I’ve gathered, when he didn’t like someone or an idea, he didn’t outlet his anger with his accusatory and condemnatory writing, which is well crafted, dude won’t stop until there aren’t any well placed daggers to use. He won’t let shit go. Or at least doesn’t know how to. This is why he picked fights in bars with guys he perceived as assholes. Don’t y’all give Elliott an intervention, or he’ll write one mean fucking song about you (Everybody Cares, Everybody Understands) and who knows, even if he does get tired of getting wasted and smoking crack in the back of taxicabs and passing out, and decides to clean up he might freak out and stab himself in the heart once he is stable and sober. Now who knows what’s best for a dude, especially one who wasn’t even psychotic, was inward, cared a lot about the people in his life and majored in Feminist Studies?
ANYWAY let’s talk about his music. It took me a long to pick an Elliott song for this. My initial thought was “King’s Crossing” which if we’re talking lyrical imagery, definitely takes the cake. Some of the gloomiest of the gloom, I-am-on-death’s-door-and-really-going-to-do-it, kind of shit in this one. For example:
The judge is on vinyl, decisions are final/And nobody gets a reprieve/And every wave is tidal – if you hang around/You’re going to get wet/I can’t prepare for death any more than I already have/All you can do now is watch the shells/The game looks easy, that’s why it sells.
I could just copy and paste the whole song, but that’d miss the point. The song strikes me more of a dream song, especially with the nurses and the soldiers bit, and the streaking thrashy instrumentation. It’s one hell of a nightmare of a song, the one typically pointed to in his foreshadowing of his own demise. And Basement is also littered with these little I want to die jabs, (for example “The Last Hour”; “Don’t keep me around/ Make it over), and actually his entire catalogue explores the darker corners of life examining loneliness and despair (“Needle in the Hay”, “Everything Means Nothing to Me.”)
“Everything” was actually a close second in this choice, that battering repetition of the title over and over and over again in the last two thirds of the song is devastating. But after a little while it becomes hopeful, the instrumentation gets lighter, and he raises the voice an octave (or half-octave) as he goes. The whole thing turns into an uplifting, redemptive beautiful thing. But that’s not what I’m looking for here, though it is a considerable artistic achievement, creating a positive feeling out of such an awful chorus.
Pitseleh is his darkest, most painful of songs. I don’t even need to listen to it, and I choose not to because I’m in a particularly good mood, and I can tell you all about it. I have heard the song maybe between 15 and 20 times, never truly aware of it, even it’s title. But one day it struck me particularly hard- as I was going through a particularly hard time myself- so I finally looked up the name of the track and the lyrics. The most devastating of songs end well, they know when to quit, instead of at their brightest, or highest moment, but at their darkest. Sort of like George on Seinfeld leaving work when he tells the good joke. He’s aware of the impression he can leave, and knows it’s at his best. The failling of most artists is that they add too much, one more stroke of a painting, an extra verse or two in a song, because they are so in rapture by the moment that they are producing something good that they lose track of the audience’s patience/perception.The airy, drowsy tone of “Pitseleh”, makes this remorseful dread, accentuated by the focus on pianol. It’s the usual sad song of love lost. But for some reason this song is exceptional. And it’s why I have trouble listening to it.
Give up the thing you love
It then goes into a weepy shrill piano solo that carries the song away until the final verse.
the first time I saw you I knew it would never last/ I’m not half what I wish I was/ I’m so angry, I don’t think it’ll ever pass/ and I was bad news for you just because /I never meant to hurt you
It sounds like it was taken from a break-up letter Smith found on the street. But he makes these words – which look somewhat awkward and whiny on paper, into a heartbreaking melody, concluding that it’s best to just give up what you love instead of holding onto it, even though “I was bad news for you.” It’s not the breakingup that’s hard, it’s getting over the break up that’s hard. Isn’t life fun? Thanks for the reminder of the fragile, fleeting nature of emotions Elliott!
Also for an extra bonus catch the suicide reference in the first verse;
A silent kid is looking down the barrel/To make the noise that I kept so quiet
The King of Sadness!
And on a serious note: R.I.P. Elliott. You were a dude. Now that I’ve talked incessantly about the two heavyweights, these furhter ones will be a bit shorter. Now more about the utilization of pianos for a depressing effect!
Cat Power – Color and the Kids
This downer, from the…interesting Chan Marshall, has a lingering piano that allows her voice to become the focus of the song. You can hear her thump the piano keys harder as she gets closer to the emotional climax. The song is a meditation on the past, and she does a more than adequate job romanticizing it.
She analyzes a series of important people in her life, the one she built a house on the beach with, a teenage friend who knows everyone in the city, and her own loss she must be experiencing. Becase:
It must be the colors and the kids/that keep me alive/ on this January night
Life must seem empty, she’s made poor choices and looking back on her life, something common to do in winter. The lyrics are peppered with lines insighting the best parts ofthe relationships, the little things of intimacy, you can just see her with her boyfriend at the time going to the beach and;
we can roll up our jeans so the tide won’t get us below the knees/ yellow hair, you are a funny bear/yellow hair, such a funny bear/slender fingers would hold me/slender limbs would hold me
The piano line will get stuck in your head. Her emphasis on the word such does so much for the song, it’s this tiny moment that brings a geuineness to the song, a knowledge of the depth of someone. And the loss of having that knowledge nearby, as well as familiar is what makes it so damn sad. And for the comment about the yellow bear, it fips between adorable and pitiful everytime I listen to it. So whenever I smile at thatsong I take it off the list I guess.
Next up is who I surmise is the first person in this song is describing.
Smog – I Break Horses
Bill Callahan is one cold-blooded, monotone-singing, Elvis Presley-if-he-grew-up-like-The-Kid-in-Blood Meridian, talented motherfucker. Check him out.
Maybe you don’t think he’s so badass, I mean dude looks bored and there’s some other persons shadow in the picture. You know who that is? Joanna Newsom. He is (was) hitting that. I don’t think Andy Samberg is going to stop him. Bill would just stare at Andy and he’d turn to dust. Bill would sweep him up, row out to sea and throw his ashes into a whirlpool and say to himself, “Who’s on a boat now, motherfucker?” promptly row back home and write a song about horses and how bad-ass he is. Seriously. He’s changed his musical moniker twice, and doesn’t care. That’s kick-ass.
Anyway, the song about horses. “I Break Horses” is all about being a stubborn alpha male, who uses women. The couplet that gets repeated in the chorus is a real downer.
I break horses/I do not tend to them/They seem to come to me/Asking to be broken/They seem to run to me/I break horses/Doesn’t take me long/Just a few well-placed words/And their wandering hearts are gone
The arrangement is sparse, letting Bill’s baritone enigma of a voice do the work. And obviously, horses is an interpretation for women. He’’s the one who makes the wild girls scared. He’s the guy who dates your wife before she decides she’s ready to meet the right guy and settle down. That or he kills them, but only after he rides them to the ocean, so he can go to his “favorite island.” Check the murder imagery out:
At first her warmth felt good between my legs/Living breathing heart-beating flesh/But soon that warmth turned to an itch/Turned to a scratch/Turned to a gash
So with the baritone, minimalist guitar, murder imagery, and the “ooh” and “aah” around the chorus that gives me fucking shivers, I tend to stay away from this song. But I love it. I only listen to it on youtube, and keep it off my iTunes/cd collection. I’m not even sure what album it’s from. But it’s a song that is one of Callahan’s best, and indicative of the trick in his darkest lyrics: Subtle brutality.
Now you can enjoy singing along to the song, which will be played when I dance at my wedding, to the horror of all.
That or the incredible song “Your Wedding” about getting wasted an at a newly become ex’s future hypothetical wedding. It’s a gut-clencher, for the same arguably good reasons as this song.
Immortal Technique – Dance With The Devil
Don’t think I forgot the hip-hop masterpiece about a guy raping his own Mom. I don’t want to talk about it. Real fun stuff there.
Casiotone for the Painfully Alone – Don’t They Have Payphones Wherever You Were Last Night
This pathetic song, comes from one of the self-deprecating, I’m poor white and lonely genres. The dude is like the Mountain Goats album Get Lonely except with a Casiotone keyboard, synth and not just one album but all the time. I saw him live a couple years ago and he was wearing a backbrace. He said he learned how important it is to lift with his legs. This song actually makes me want to die. Thankfully he didn’t play it at that show. Check “Tonight, Was A Disaster” if you want to hear the close second from this guy. I’m posting a link to a happier song though, to prove he doesn’t always make the thought of my own death appealing. Here he is playing the song “Calloused Fingers” in a phone booth in Seattle. I’d like to hear Bill Callahan’s version of this song.
Conclusion:
The fondness and attachment for these songs is what makes them “great.” They are propelled to an exclusive stratosphere because only a sad song can make an impact on you in an emotionally cathartic way. Happy, upbeat, pop songs that are considered great are usually only considered great because of technical prowess – an incredible singing performance, a catchy hook, a defining sound- and may impact your emotions however, but those emotions tend to be ephemeral.
And obviously, a sad song that makes you feel good is probably associated with sad times. Hearing the song can you remind you of a time when you used to be sad- like listening to Either/Or reminds of of high school, and what a fucking weirdo I was then, which thankfully I am not anymore. Lessons have been learned, happiness, or the presence of non-sadness at least, has been found, and I’ve moved on. These sad songs wouldn’t be loved so much if we were still sad.
That and liking sad songs makes you “deep,” and if you’re deep you are probably sensitive and intelligent and wouldn’t find Whitney Houston great in the way you find Elliott Smith great. Everyone loves being interpreted as intelligent and unique, and liking hard to like, or hard to bear music and/or art definetley is a step in that direction. But that is also because people identify themselves with what they like, and use that as a way to convey their personality, without having to actually present anything vulnerable or actually personal.
But I promise I’m not one of those people. You probably are though.
