What’s the most depressing song in the world? Surely it’s subjective, for as Tolstoy said, happy families are happy only in one kind of way, but unhappy families are each unhappy in their own unique way. In the most extreme interpretation of that logic, unhappy songs should be uniquely unhappy too, and we should be dancing around to the songs that others weep to. However, in practice, certain tunes seem to exact a universal ‘misery price’ from the most objective listener.
The other day I was considering roundly cursing Tori Amos on a certain social networking site that shall remain unnamed. I had just revisited some old Tori songs in a fit of nostalgia for the teenage years, when I realized I was sincerely annoyed and depressed after listening to them. It wasn’t just that they brought back a wave of unfettered feeling, but rather that they had consistently acted as an irritant ever since I’d known them; upon listening, the life narrative would take a break from its plodding acceptance of the human lot, sniff the air, and wail that it wanted to be re-branded as a self-help title: ‘How being a woman ruined my life and other stories’ (or something just as self-pitying and nonsensical).
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1. Swans - “Failure”
Now, as far as I’m concerned, straightforwardly sad music is exempt from the charge of being depressing. It’s too romantic. The most depressing song on this list, Swans’ “Failure” (1991), is completely devoid of any attempt to prettify the human condition; in fact, it’s borderline hilarious how horrible humanity looks through its dirge-like lens. I can’t fully explain why, but the rock-bottom sentiment of the lyric “When I get my hands on some money/ I’ll kiss its green skin/ And I’ll ask its dirty face ‘Where the hell have you been’” delivered in the metallic grunge drone of Michael Gira is so nhilistic, so self-consciously worldly, that I can’t help but discern a note of absurdity in it. The lyric about the “mechanical moan of the dying man” is more affecting, but likewise, after listening, you shake your head, perhaps utter the name of Christ, and then you either jump off a bridge or you take a moment to piss yourself laughing.
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2. Arab Strap - “Fucking Little Bastards”
Number two, Arap Strap’s “Fucking Little Bastards” (2003), is a charming ditty about the effect of female gossip on the male psyche. The line: “They’ve seen me in the shower with shit down my legs” never fails to make me feel extremely uncomfortable, though lately I’ve learned to treasure it as a freakishly ugly artifact of melancholia (the bric-à-brac of the depressive state, if you will). If anyone ever asks me why Arab Strap deserve the journo-invented epithet ‘Scottish miserabalists’ (which rarely happens by the way), I point them in the direction of this song.
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3. PJ Harvey - “To Talk To You”
PJ Harvey’s White Chalk (2007) is, without a doubt, one of the most depressing albums ever made. Although it was a breakthrough album for Harvey — paving the way for a new sound — it is the musical equivalent of an infestation of poltergeists. It is not a gritty prospect like the above; it is a creepy one. Take, for instance, the song “Oh Grandmother.” The singing is dire, and the piano is diabolical, making obscure and meaningless gestures at a safe distance from the congregation of droning sounds that accompany it. The lyrics are weak petitions to the corpse of an old woman: “If I lay on the earth/ Would you hear me.” It is not a bad song; it is an extremely effective one, a feat of musical passive aggression in fact, if such a thing were desirable.
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4. Slint - “Don, Aman”
With rumors still circulating that band members spent time in mental institutions, Slint make it their business to terrorize young people starting out on the ‘way of post rock.’ Indeed, before being admitted to the inner circle of this po-faced rock ‘n’ roll religion, the initiate must spend one night in the haunted house that is Slint’s Spiderland (1991), listening to such torch songs as “Good Morning Captain” and “Don Aman.” The latter is the more psychologically strained of the two, unfolding through the not-so-splendid isolation of a youngfella whose twisted perspective makes his friends appear to have eyes “like the heads of nails.” Cue emergency parent teacher meeting to discuss the worrying behavior of the creative, but quite obviously troubled author of the following words: “Don woke up/ And looked at the night before/ He knew what he had to do/ He was responsible/ In the mirror/ He saw his friend.”
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5. The Book of Knots - “Traineater”
The Book of Knots is a supergroup oddly comprising individuals no one has heard of: Matthias Bossi, Joel Hamilton, Tony Maimone, and Carla Kihlstedt, who in 2003 co-embarked upon a musical project to explore aspects of decay in smalltown America. “Traineater” is the title track of the album that’s a tribute to America’s rust belt. The depressing thing about this academic tribute is that the quartet of extremely accomplished musicians responsible for it end up playing the roles of a chorus of mourners who announce that all the characters in a tragedy are dead. It’s not clear whether the intention was to elegize or lament dead industrial towns, but either way, the sense that something lifeless is being commemorated in an atmosphere of museum-like hush is pretty depressing.
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There are many ways then that music can bring a body down. Different ways, as Tolstoy suggested, but all with equally unhappy effects. And therein lies the flaw in the extreme interpretation of Tolstoy’s logic, which to be honest, was exploited for the purposes of this writing without regard for the consequences. It demands an acceptance that music is a completely subjective, not a shared experience, despite evidence suggesting that only in a universe quite unlike our own, where there is no common appreciation of the pleasant or unpleasant qualities of music, could that purely subjective experience exist. We can usually, at the very least, appreciate the quality of moods in music, even if we cannot agree on what we like. That is why a list appealing to the lowest common denominator — mood (and the lowest common mood in fact) — is the best excuse to assemble a bunch of stuff that just plain appeals to you. Nevertheless, the universal health warning still stands: these songs should be approached with caution and consumed only after consulting your parents.
