Saddest opening lyrics?

most evocative opening lyric i can think of right now would be "sometimes a wind blows", from "mysteries of love". means nothing, says everything.

So this is permanence, love's shattered pride.
What once was innocence, turned on its side.
A cloud hangs over me, marks every move,
Deep in the memory, of what once was love.

Shouldn't there be a what's the greatest Joy Division lyric thread?

Richard & Linda Thompson, "The End of the Rainbow"

"Southern trees bear strange fruit,
Blood on the leaves and blood at the root,"

- Stina Nordenstam

"I lost a tooth
A warning sign
I never existed
and my life is a lie
I got a broken mouth
Swollen gums"

"Tonight I'm staring out the window
I got Brian Eno on the stereo
And tonight you're gonna be my widow
The only way to get you back
Is to get you dressed in black"

Blur, "No Distance Left To Run"

It just sounds so mournful, hurt and final, especially coming from someone who otherwise usually sounds so insincere.

"I'm crawling, don't know where to or from
The centre of things from where everything stems
Is not where I belong"

Tne Modern Lovers - Hospital

it just sounds so crushed, conflicted and hopeless

"No I don't really want to die,
I only wanna die in your eyes."

"I wish I lived in the power and light,
I wish it wasn't Saturday night
'cause I can't raise hell, no I
can't raise hell for two."

Tom Waits:
"Charlie I'm pregnant,
and livin' on 9th street.
Above a dirty bookstore,
off Euclid Avenue."

Leadbelly:
"Last Saturday night, I got married,
Me and my wife settled down
Now me and my wife are parted,
I'm gonna take another stroll downtown"

'What if this one small voice, doesn't count in the world...'
REM - Shaking Through

can't understand a word he says after the first line tho. geisha girls?

God, could you give me a hand
I've been slippin' down here,
and this world i once fancied is now making me ill.
Would you show me the road?
I can't take it much longer."

-Winfred E. Eye
from "The Day I Lost My Sea Legs"

absolutely crushing first song on their first record.

Blur, "No Distance Left To Run"

Agree.

I wish I could please you tonight
But my medicine just won't come right
I'm walking on a wire, I'm walking on a wire
And I'm falling

-Linda Thompson, "Walking on a Wire"

or

just because i don't say anything
doesn't mean i don't like you
i open my mouth and i try and i try
but no words came out
without 40 oz of social skills
i'm just an ass in the crack of humanity
i'm just a huge manatee, a huge manatee
and besides you're probably holding hands
with some skinny pretty girl who likes to talk about bands
and all i want to do is ride bikes with you
and stay up late and watch cartoons

or the classic:

turn around
every now and then i get a little bit lonely
and you never come around
turn around
every now and hten i get a little bit tired
of listening to the sound of my tears
turn around
every now and hten i get a little bit nervous
that the best of all my years have gone by

"He said, 'I'll love you, until I die.'"

I changed my name in search of fame/to find the Midas Touch
Oh I wish I never wanted then/what I want now, twice as much

Mommy, Mommy, Mommy
Look at your son
You used to love me
But now I 've got a gun

V - "1926" (as covered by Thalia Zedek)

I saw you're older
You looked like death
Had been at your face

Fugazi - "Shut the Door"

I break the surface so I can breathe
I close my eyes so I can see
I tie my hands to be free
Do you ever feel free?

-elliott smith; the song 'clementine'

or, better yet..

"i wanna die
i wanna die
down south loosiana
and the gray evenin sky

i wanna die
i don't care how i'm gettin out
down south loosiana
and the lonesome highway sound.."

-jolie holland; the song 'i wanna die'

Remember that one, everybody? Yeah, probably not a revelation to almost anyone, but it fits the bill, though, doesn't it?

We were in a small cafe
You could hear the guitars play
It was very nice
Oh honey it was...paradise.

Lover
there will be another one
who'll hover
over you beneath the sun
Tomorrow
see the things that never come
today

"I was waiting in the bar, where you you?"

"Rex's Blues" Townes van Zandt

--The Kids (Lou Reed, "Berlin")

Bl00dbin 'Shame About The Husband'

1. Queen - Too much love will kill you
2. Evanescence - My immortal

1:
I'm just the pieces of the man I used to be
Too many bitter tears are raining down on me
I'm far away from home
And I've been facing this alone
For much too long
I feel like no-one ever told the truth to me
About growing up and what a struggle it would be
...
I'm just the shadow of the man I used to be
And it seems like there's no way out of this for me
I used to bring you sunshine
Now all I ever do is bring you down
How would it be if you were standing in my shoes
Can't you see that it's impossible to choose
No there's no making sense of it
Every way I go I'm bound to lose
Too much love will kill you
Just as sure as none at all
...

2:
I'm so tired of being here
Suppressed by all my childish fears
And if you have to leave
I wish that you would just leave
'Cause your presence still lingers here
And it won't leave me alone
These wounds won't seem to heal
This pain is just too real
There's just too much that time cannot erase
...

"I wrote a poem on a dog biscuit
And your dog refused to look at it
So I got drunk and looked at the Empire State Building
It was no bigger than a nickel

And if it don't improve, then I have to move
I never thought that I would end up here
Maybe I should just change my style"

- Galaxie 500, Fourth of July

i love that song.

came here to post "i may not always love you", from god only knows. i've heard that song 1,000,000 times but that line still gives me chills.

Ditto. Spine freezes hearing that line, every goddamn time.

For me it's the part where he sings 'the world would show nothing to me/so what good would living do me?' - Likewise I've heard it more times than I can say but it still tears me to shreds

With the money from her accident
She bought herself a mobile home
So at least she could get some enjoyment
Out of being alone
No one could say that she was left up on the shelf
It's you and me against the world kid she mumbled to herself

Levi Stubb's Tears by Billy Bragg

This one gets me:

"I saw your picture, hanging on the back of my door." - Crystal Castles Not in Love

It's simple but in the context of a sad song it says so much.

"Lua" by Bright Eyes remains the saddest song in my awareness, and while "I know that it is freezing but I think we have to walk" is far from the saddest thing about it, it a) is still pretty damn sad, and b) establishes the tone for what's to come.

"It's four in the morning the end of December/ I'm calling you now just to see if you're better"

I agree about Lua btw. Sad song and im glad bright eyes isnt a punchline anymore. For me no song is as sad as the nmh song that starts like this:

"Daddy please here this song that I sing/ in your heart theres a spark that just screams for a lover to bring/ a child to your chest that could lay as you sleep / and love all you have left like your boy used to be."

Casimir Pulanski Day by Sufjan Stevens is too sad for me to listen to. I don't even remember how it opens.

xp: yes to famous blue raincoat. I was just coming here to post that. but it's "writing", not "calling". he wasn't calling anyone at 4 in the morning.

Good catch

Maybe the lateness of the hour
Makes me feel bluer than I am
...

Bill Withers - Hope She'll Be Happier

Ahem.

Gotta go with Springsteen at his most pop:

Got a wife and kids in Baltimore, Jack. I went out for a ride and I never went back.

Abandoning your family never sounded catchier or more fun.

I have a mandolin
I play it all night long
It makes me want to kill myself

100,000 fireflies is probably my favorite song btw. i think i've made that claim about other songs on ilx but i'm pretty sure this is the real answer.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lvSY4NYkySM

also saddest closing-ish lyrics:

you won't be happy with me
but give me one more chance
you won't be happy anyway

Ride the blue wind high and free
She'll lead you down through misery
Leave you low, come time to go
Alone and low as low can be

-TVZ

My love is dead and buried yonder
Beneath the weeping willow tree
What wrecks my life and makes me wonder
Is because he died for me

-Carter Family

also saddest closing-ish lyrics:

you won't be happy with me
but give me one more chance
you won't be happy anyway

― fervently nice (Treeship), Monday, July 29, 2013 4:49 AM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

knowing he is capable of writing songs like this -- and about 1/2 of his songs on the 90s albums, through 69 love songs are near this level -- it's disappointing to me that his recent material is mostly kitschy, conceptual bullshit

the saddest stephin merritt lyric is, i think, from "as you turn to go": "I know I'm not supposed to say I'm sorry / I know you've had more loves than Mata Hari / But you know you're the star of my life story / And I'm so sorry."

Also Momus's voice is lovely in melancholic mode. I wish he wrote more songs in that vein.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dW6YQYlftCE

Cause I lost my job two weeks before Christmas
And I talked to Jesus at the sewer
And the Pope said it was none of his God-damned business

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=oKFkc19T3Dk

xp- It's kind of hard to pinpoint the saddest Merritt lyric because it also depends on the context of the music. That line from "As You Turn To Go" is wonderfully sad but on top of my head i can think of at least 3 or 4 worthy contenders.

also OTM that Momus's best songs are the sad ones.

Many rivers to cross,
but I just can't seem to find
my way over.
Wandering, I am lost,
as I travel along
the white cliffs of Dover.

Many rivers to cross,
and it's only my will
that keeps me alive.
Well, I've been licked,
washed up for years,
and I merely survived
because of my pride.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wgzWqfZo8fY

"Good times for a change"

HER
PLACENTA
FALLS
TO
THE
FLOOR

I am saddened to hear "The bugger in the short sleeves fucked my wife," the first line of Guts by John Cale.

"It was only one hour ago. It was all so different then."

With a growing sense of dread
And a hammer in my head
Fully clothed upon the bed
I wake up to the world that I've been living in

I got a call
I got a phone call from my mother
Your dad is changing
He is becoming something other

"I see myself on TV, I'm a faker, a paper clown.
It's clear to all my friends that I habitually lie; I just bring them down."

-- the Who, "However Much I Booze"

"I should have forgotten you long ago, but you're in every song I know"

Busby Berkeley Dreams by Magnetic Fields

"The last horizons I can see are filled with bars and factories / and in them all we fight to stay awake" - Last Horizons, Gin Blossoms

I can hardly bear the sight of lipstick
On the cigarettes there in the ashtray
Lyin' cold the way you left them
At least your lips caressed them while you packed
And a lip print on a half-filled cup of coffee
That you poured and didn't drink
But at least you thought you wanted it
That's so much more than I can say for me

George Jones - A Good Year For The Roses

I was raised by snakes
I lie all the time