Bleakest lyrics regularly heard on classic rock radio

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IhNPeiy-MeU

great song. not a staple of classic rock radio in the US though

oh wait, this song is in dialogue with classic rock lyrics. i never noticed that.

great first post!

The Billy Joel one fucks me up though. Maybe we can contact Doug Martsch and have him squeeze that one in somewhere.

billy joel can go deeper and darker than any scandinavian black metal band

i think it's just because he's so crass and pedestrian. he doesn't aestheticize depression, he just writes about it in all its sordidness, with a minimum of apparent self-awareness

Was Alan Parsons Project's 'Time' ever a classic rock staple? Because those might be the most depressing lyrics of any charting song ever.

'Dust In The Wind' fer sure, as well.

"Jack and Diane" was playing on the office radio earlier today.

Also, both in the sense of playing on the office radio earlier today and having bleak lyrics, Bryan Adams' "Summer Of '69".

Also 'Boys Of Summer', 'Glory Days', really any song about nostalgia for (probably imagined) faded glory.

what about "the river"

then i got mary pregnant / and that was all she wrote / and for my nineteenth birthday / i got a union card and a wedding coat

(Total aside, but a friend of mine coined the usage of 'faded glory' to describe a long in back & bald on top hairstyle, which I've always thought was brilliant.)

springsteen happens to be a good lyricist -- he lends some depth and dignity to the experiences he writes about imo. for me at least, that offsets the "shoot yourself" quality of a "jack and diane" or "captain jack"

Lots of Springsteen fits this bill, surely.

And, yes, Springsteen is often very good with the lyrics.

"Meeting Across The River" might be Springsteen's bleakest non-nostalgic song, basically because you as the listener know that the whole meeting is going to go badly wrong.

"Is a dream a lie if it don't come true/ Or is it something worse"

"So you run and you run to catch up with the sun but it's sinking
Racing around to come up behind you again.
The sun is the same in a relative way but you're older,
Shorter of breath and one day closer to death."

This is kind of turning into my high school classmates' yearbook quotes.

verse 2 of "American Girl" gets me in my feelings every time

And for one desperate moment
There he crept back in her memory
God it's so painful when something that's so close
Is still so far out of reach

Anyway, this one is theoretically pretty bleak if you take it literally:

I woke up this morning and the sun was gone

instead there were two moons

I heard this afresh the other day:

Caught up in a landslide
No escape from reality

It's the terror of knowing
What this world is about
Watching some good friends
Screaming, "Let me out!"

good ones

never caught the suicidal implications of the bowie one before

and on that note:

"billy rapped all night about his suicide/ how he'd kick it in the head when he hit twenty five / speed jive, don't wannna be alive/ when you're twenty five"

Really this is kind of shooting fish in a barrel:

Mirror, mirror on the wall
The face you've shown me scares me so
I thought that I could call your bluff
But now the lines are clear enough

Classic rock was pretty bleak, in general.

Have you any dreams you'd like to sell?
Dreams of loneliness

-Fleetwood Mac, Dreams

- Bob Marley

- Abraham Lincoln

I could be wrong, but I think that dreams of classic rock era (70s) for the people who weren't going to be able to buy a castle in England were to land a steady job while somehow maintaining illusions of 1960s rebellion, so the contrast between theory and reality was inevitably pretty bleak.

When masturbation's lost its fun
You're fucking lonely
- Green Day "Long View"

what do you guys think about "gimme shelter"? it's a dark song, apocalyptic, but is it bleak?

No one knows what happened that day
How his car overturned in flames
But as they pulled him from the twisted wreck
With his dying breath, they heard him say
Tell Laura I love her.

It's a sad song all around... guy wants to get married to the girl he loves, has no money, enters a car race to win money and dies. I think it was even banned at the time for being too bleak for the radio.

In a similar note Last Kiss, which was also a hit for Pearl Jam.

"And if I could move I'd get my gun and put her in the ground."

Actually a country staple (a depressing genre on its own with many examples) but I hear it on classic rock radio all the time.

Was Alan Parsons Project's 'Time' ever a classic rock staple? Because those might be the most depressing lyrics of any charting song ever.

you mean Pink Floyd's "Time"? yes it is a staple

pink floyd rules

From SONGFACTS.. "Mel Tillis wrote this song. He based the song on a couple who lived near his family in Florida. In real life, the man was wounded in Germany in World War II and sent to recuperate in England. There he married a nurse who took care of him at the hospital. The two of them moved to Florida shortly afterward, but he had periodic return trips to the hospital as problems with his wounds kept flaring up. His wife saw another man as the veteran lay in the hospital. Tillis changed the war in the song to the Korean War, and left out the life ending: the man killed her in a murder-suicide. In the song, the man says he would kill her if he could move to get his gun."

"no one told you when to run / you missed the starting gun" is like, too real for me

"Time keeps on slippin' slippin' slippin' into the future" vs. "Don't fear the reaper"

don't fear the reaper is too Romantic to be bleak. in that song, death is the unknown, not the end.

Petty has a lot:

Two cars parked on the overpass,
Rocks hit the water like broken glass
I should have known right then it was too good to last
God, it's such a drag when you're livin' in the past

I've given up, I've given up
I've given up, you tangle my emotions

Somewhere, somehow, somebody must have kicked you around some
Who knows maybe you were kidnapped tied up,
Taken away and held for ransom
I've given up, honey please admit it is over

'Cause somewhere deep down inside
Someone is saying, "Love doesn't last that long"
I got this feelin' inside night and day
And now I can't take it no more

It was too cold to cry when I woke up alone
I hit my last number and walked to the road

Last dance with Mary Jane, one more time to kill the pain
I feel summer creepin' in and I'm tired of this town again

You better watch what you say
You better watch what you do to me

"born in the usa" prob the bleakest springsteen song you ever hear on the radio, even if he does end it with "i'm a cool-rockin' daddy in the usa!" for some reason

that song is mostly bleak because it sucks so much and it's a disgrace to the songwriter

River is bleaker imho

the irony is too overt for it to be an effective song, i think, even if it was too subtle for reagan and his campaign team to understand

in born in the usa that is

yes, last dance with mary jane

I've given up, I've given up
I've given up,

the definition of bleak

petty also gets at the fundamental problem with marijuana, you can easily fall into a nostalgia hole

Not sure if Depeche Mode gets played on classic rock radio, but they've got some cheery lyrics:

Girl of eighteen fell in love with everything
Found new life in Jesus Christ
Hit by a car ended up
On a life support machine

I almost never listen to classic rock radio, does "DOA" by Bloodrock still get played anywhere? Because I really can't believe that song was ever a hit (and I owned the 45 when I was 12.)

Wooden Ships by CSN is more bleak than the lovely harmonies would indicate.

haha i don't think bloodrock gets much play but i picked up Bloodrock 2 on a whim cuz it was cheap and woah that band is bonkers

(always wondered if Axl had heard it prior to writing "Coma")

xpost: On the River, the whole song is depressing, probably the bleakest of Springsteen.

"At night on them banks I'd lie awake
And pull her close just to feel each breath she'd take
Now those memories come back to haunt me
They haunt me like a curse
Is a dream a lie if it don't come true
Or is it something worse

That sends me down to the river
Though I know the river is dry
That sends me down to the river tonight "

The closing line is specially sad, previously in the song they set the river as the place they would go when things go bad and it would make it good at least for a little while. In the end the river has dried and it's heartbreaking, whatever metaphor you wish to attach to it.

"Aqualung" always fills me with despair...

Sitting on a park bench
eyeing little girls with bad intent.
Snot running down his nose
greasy fingers smearing shabby clothes.
Drying in the cold sun
Watching as the frilly panties run.
Feeling like a dead duck
spitting out pieces of his broken luck.

Sun streaking cold
an old man wandering lonely.
Taking time
the only way he knows.
Leg hurting bad,
as he bends to pick a dog-end
he goes down to the bog
and warms his feet.

Feeling alone
the army's up the rode
salvation à la mode and
a cup of tea.
Aqualung my friend
don't start away uneasy
you poor old sod, you see, it's only me.
Do you still remember
December's foggy freeze
when the ice that
clings on to your beard is
screaming agony.
And you snatch your rattling last breaths
with deep-sea-diver sounds,
and the flowers bloom like
madness in the spring

I glanced back on my life
And thought about my wife
Cause they took the keys, and she'll think it's me

I'm not sure this counts as it's not really 'classic rock' but "Alone Again, Naturally" is lyrically the bleakest shit I've ever heard

When I was young, it seemed that life was so wonderful,
A miracle, oh it was beautiful, magical.
And all the birds in the trees, well they'd be singing so happily,
Joyfully, playfully watching me.
But then they sent me away to teach me how to be sensible,
Logical, responsible, practical.
And they showed me a world where I could be so dependable,
Clinical, intellectual, cynical.

i remember listening to "Dark Side of the Moon" for the first time when i was 16 or so and reading the lyrics to "Time" and thinking man, I kinda don't want to hear this stuff:

Ticking away the moments that make up a dull day
Fritter and waste the hours in an off-hand way

Every year is getting shorter, never seem to find the time
Plans that either come to naught or half a page of scribbled lines

"the time is gone, the song is over/thought i'd something more to say..."

I don't think I've ever heard "Aqualung" on classic rock radio

So you think you're a Romeo
playing a part in a picture-show
Take the long way home
Take the long way home

Cos you're the joke of the neighborhood
Why should you care if you're feeling good
Take the long way home
Take the long way home

Really, crüt? It was a staple when I was growing up.

Was Alan Parsons Project's 'Time' ever a classic rock staple? Because those might be the most depressing lyrics of any charting song ever.

you mean Pink Floyd's "Time"? yes it is a staple

pink floyd rules

― rockpalast '82 (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Wednesday, April 6, 2016 3:31 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Naw, man, I mean this song that reached #15 on the Billboard pop charts at a time when we were apparently in the throes of a collective depression:

Time, flowing like a river
Time, beckoning me
Who knows when we shall meet again
If ever
But time
Keeps flowing like a river
To the sea

Goodbye my love, Maybe for forever
Goodbye my love, The tide waits for me
Who knows when we shall meet again
If ever
But time
Keeps flowing like a river (on and on)
To the sea, to the sea

Till it's gone forever
Gone forever
Gone forevermore

Goodbye my friends, maybe forever
Goodbye my friends, the stars wait for me
Who knows where we shall meet again
If ever
But time
Keeps flowing like a river (on and on)
To the sea, to the sea

Till it's gone forever
Gone forever
Gone forevermore

And unlike some of the songs itt, the music does nothing to alleviage the heaviness.

Don't cry
Don't raise your eye
It's only teenage wasteland

Just take those old records off the shelf
I'll sit and listen to 'em by myself

The percentage you're paying is too high-priced
While you're living beyond all your means
And the man in the suit has just bought a new car
From the profit he's made on your dreams

Don't cry
Don't raise your eye
It's only teenage wasteland

See lyrics like this seem to aestheticized to be truly bleak, they're transfiguting despair into art. What's unbearable about jack and diane is the trite bouncy melody juxtaposed with the suicidal lyrics. For captain jack it's the overall sordidness of the experience described.

lol Crüt

The question made me think of Manic Street Preachers' La Tristesse Durera (Scream to a Sigh), which after 23 years must be approaching classic rock status, at least in Europe. The song's title and chorus paraphrase the last words of Vincent van Gogh, "La trisesse durera toujours." ("The sadness will go on forever.")

best thing about alan parsons' "time" (he must not have known pink floyd had a song by the same name...) is the way mr. bungle used to cover it back in the day. this footage here is just beautiful, man, beautiful.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r5DKXxMbrJE

"born in the usa" prob the bleakest springsteen song you ever hear on the radio, even if he does end it with "i'm a cool-rockin' daddy in the usa!" for some reason

― (The Other) J.D. (J.D.), Wednesday, April 6, 2016 3:39 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I always heard the last line as bitterly sarcastic. And I think it's a great line, because it gives the speaker a sense of humor and makes him more than just an archetypal human tragedy. And yeah, I don't think there's anything much bleaker than the images in that song on classic rock radio.

I used to think that Pink Floyd came up with the phrase "quiet desperation" themselves.

Boomer Suicide Anthems

Just destroys me
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nEH_ms8d1ws

I don't want to fade away
Give me one more day, please

hungry heart is the saddest bruce springsteen hit, imo

i can't even decide which verse is the saddest. or if the chorus is sadder.

i don't want to play
i just want to bang or get drunk all day

Born to Run is pretty sad to me.

I don't want to die
I sometimes wish I'd never been born at all

classic rock was often super-maudlin, more convincingly despondent than "punk"

I'm going to rent myself a house
In the shade of the freeway
I'm going to pack my lunch in the morning
And go to work each day
And when the evening rolls around
I'll go on home and lay my body down
And when the morning light comes streaming in
I'll get up and do it again
Amen
Say it again
Amen

I want to know what became of the changes
We waited for love to bring
Were they only the fitful dreams
Of some greater awakening
I've been aware of the time going by
They say in the end it's the wink of an eye
And when the morning light comes streaming in
You'll get up and do it again
Amen

Caught between the longing for love
And the struggle for the legal tender
Where the sirens sing and the church bells ring
And the junk man pounds his fender
Where the veterans dream of the fight
Fast asleep at the traffic light
And the children solemnly wait
For the ice cream vendor
Out into the cool of the evening
Strolls the Pretender
He knows that all his hopes and dreams
Begin and end there

Ah the laughter of the lovers
As they run through the night
Leaving nothing for the others
But to choose off and fight
And tear at the world with all their might
While the ships bearing their dreams
Sail out of sight

I'm going to find myself a girl
Who can show me what laughter means
And we'll fill in the missing colors
In each other's paint-by-number dreams
And then we'll put our dark glasses on
And we'll make love until our strength is gone
And when the morning light comes streaming in
We'll get up and do it again
Get it up again

I'm going to be a happy idiot
And struggle for the legal tender
Where the ads take aim and lay their claim
To the heart and the soul of the spender
And believe in whatever may lie
In those things that money can buy
Though true love could have been a contender
Are you there?
Say a prayer for the Pretender
Who started out so young and strong
Only to surrender

alan parsons' "time" (he must not have known pink floyd had a song by the same name...)

lolol

classic rock songwriters much more likely than punks to be in their 30s and wondering on some level wtf they're doing with their life. plus loss-of-innocence crap maybe. i just watched american graffiti and read ebert's review which stresses this whole "this is before kennedy got killed and everything changed" kinda thing. we could ridicule that all day but clearly if roger ebert felt feelings like that, maybe george lucas did too and also idk jackson browne.

they were also in danger of getting shot and killed. john lennon, say, and pete townshend came from roots way more working class than joe strummer or lou reed. their uppity-ness was more dangerous. pete wrote songs about getting molested as a child. that's pretty fucking bleak. likewise so is plastic ono band. "london calling" is a self-help anthem compared to "behind blue eyes"

Finished with my woman cuz she couldn't help me with my mind
People think I'm insane because I am frowning all the time

Can you help me
Thought you were my friend

"All day long I think of things but nothing seems to satisfy" is sort of brilliant imo,

Best line in that song, of course, is the bleakest one of all - "Make a joke and I will sigh and you will laugh and I will cry"

Floyd may have been the most consistent purveyors of classic rock bleakness

We're just two lost souls
Swimming in a fish bowl
Year after year
Running over the same old ground
What have we found?
The same old fears
Wish you were here

more petty:

I wanna glide down over Mulholland
I wanna write her name in the sky
I wanna free fall out into nothin
Gonna leave this world for awhile

more resigned than bleak i suppose

I don't feel you any more
You darken my door
Whatever you're looking for
Don't come around here no more

I think we've estabished that half of all classic rock songs have bleak lyrics.

"Jack and Diane" is a weird one for me. When I first heard the song as a kid, I think I thought that Diane must have gotten horribly injured in a car crash or something. Afaict, though, they lost the thrill of living because they grew up and had normal adulthoods.

Hm, that's probably unfair because I don't want to imply that someone can't have a thrilling life after injury and disability.

Shoulda had a noms thread first.

"Paradise By the Dashboard Light" is actually about sex with Meatloaf

more petty:

I wanna glide down over Mulholland
I wanna write her name in the sky
I wanna free fall out into nothin
Gonna leave this world for awhile

― Keks + Nuss (contenderizer), Friday, April 8, 2016 1:16 PM (19 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i saw something once speculating that "Freefallin'" was about heroin? like the "vampires" are addicts

more petty:

I wanna glide down over Mulholland
I wanna write her name in the sky
I wanna free fall out into nothin
Gonna leave this world for awhile

― Keks + Nuss (contenderizer), Friday, April 8, 2016 1:16 PM (20 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Second verse:

I wanna stand with you on a mountain
I wanna bathe with you in the sea
I wanna lay like this forever
Until the sky falls down on me

third verse:

I wanna run through the halls of my high school
I wanna scream at the top of my lungs
I just found out there's no such thing as the real world
Just a lie you've got to rise above

It will now forever be impossible for me to refrain from mentally admixing these lyrics and songs.

no such thing does give me a strangely bleak feeling

like all that stuff Werner Herzog says about what he sees in the faces of bears is sort of what I imagine about the souls of John Mayer fans

I wanna run through the halls of my high school
I wanna scream at the top of my lungs
I just found out there's no such thing as the real world
Just a lie you've got to rise above

i gotta make a mash up where right after it's just a lie you *cut* RISE ABOVE WE'RE GONNA RISE ABOVE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tH2w6Oxx0kQ

All we do crumbles to the ground, though we refuse to see

i see old lunch called it earlier.

I know people love this song, but I try to avoid it because for various reasons it bums me out beyond belief

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uTIB10eQnA0

be someone
be someone

;_;

Seriously, it's a plunge into hopefulness/hopelessness and you can sense that it's a cycle that will never stop repeating until the narrator dies (or worse, somehow doesn't die)

This city desert makes you feel so cold
It's got so many people but it's got no soul
And it's taken you so long to find out you were wrong
When you thought it held everything

You used to think that it was so easy
You used to say that it was so easy
But you're tryin', you're tryin' now
Another year and then you'd be happy
Just one more year and then you'd be happy
But you're cryin', you're cryin' now

Way down the street there's a light in his place
He opens the door, he's got that look on his face
And he asks you where you've been, you tell him who you've seen
And you talk about anything

He's got this dream about buyin' some land
He's gonna give up the booze and the one night stands
And then he'll settle down, it's a quiet little town
And forget about everything

But you know he'll always keep movin'
You know he's never gonna stop movin'
'Cause he's rollin', he's the rollin' stone
And when you wake up it's a new mornin'
The sun is shinin', it's a new mornin'
But you're going, you're going home

then we were drivin', drivin' in your car...

Was wondering if Suzanne Vega might fit here. Don't really know what counts as classic rock just thinking about songs I heard on daytime radio

who's gonna tell you when
it's too late
who's gonna tell you things
aren't so great
you can't go on
thinking nothing's wrong
who's gonna drive you home tonight

who's gonna pick you up
when you fall

xpost
who's gonna hang it up
when you call
who's gonna pay attention
to your dreams
who's gonna plug their ears
when you scream

you can't go on
thinking nothing's wrong
who's gonna drive you home tonight

who's gonna hold you down
when you shake
who's gonna come around
when you break

Just take those old records off the shelf
I'll sit and listen to 'em by myself

― ejemplo (crüt), Thursday, April 7, 2016 6:46 AM (4 days ago)

I love this, also out of context it is my life

Any Harry Chapin song fits this. What's more depressing than "Cat's In The Cradle"? And "Taxi", in addition to be pretty bleak, is maybe the most absurdly dramatic and pretentious thing ever recorded (hard to top a Sylvia Plath poem sung in falsetto)...tbh it always makes me laugh when I hear it and sometimes I watch this live version to cheer myself up.

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

did you guys know if you are depressed and you hear a song at work or in the grocery store, it is a bleak song of dusty nothingness that speaks to the emptiness of mankind, even if ja rule made that song

Harry Chapin doesn't actually get CR airplay anywhere, does he? (Nor Suzanne Vega.)

I heard Taxi a few times on classic rock radio in St. Louis in '08 or '09, but I think that was because that station had No Repeat Weeks. Growing up in Nebraska, every station played "Cat's In The Cradle". That might be a regional thing though.

Oh, cool.

cats in the cradle is a brutal tearjerker. kid was neglected by his busy father, who is now a lonely, elderly man, neglected by his son. the song pretends to be about the cycle of life but it's just about a cycle of neglect.

or maybe it's not pretending anything. the dad realizes the son grew up "just like him," too preoccupied with work to make time for his family.

the socialist in me wonders whose really to blame here: the dad for losing sight of priorities, or the insane working hours americans are expected to keep

fast car is pretty much the saddest song i have ever heard. i didn't even know it until raymond posted it and i listened again. jesus christ.

like all that stuff Werner Herzog says about what he sees in the faces of bears is sort of what I imagine about the souls of John Mayer fans

this is cracking me up.

Burma Shave by Tom Waits has a similar theme to fast car but is way more depressing.

disagree, there's a theatrical nature to waits thing that sort of keeps you at arm's length

be someone
be someone
;_;

Angel of darkness is upon you
Stuck a needle in your arm
So take another toke, have a blow for your nose
One more drink fool, will drown you
Ooooh that smell
Can't you smell that smell
Ooooh that smell
The smell of death surrounds you

which reminds me of:

I hit the city and I lost my band
I watched the needle take another man
Gone, gone, the damage done

out of the blue and into the black
they give you this but you paid for that
but once they're gone you can never go back
when you're out of the blue and into the black

'Fast Car' is bleak, but even bleaker, albeit for a different reason, is the Jonas Blue cover version:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GjnadPBMJGs

Most depressing Waits lyric I've ever heard is from "A Little Rain," on Bone Machine:

She was fifteen years old
And she'd never seen the ocean
She climbed into a van with a vagabond
And the last thing she said
Was "I love you Mom"

jesus

For bleakest Waits, I'm partial to "A Soldier's Things"

Davenports and kettle drums and swallowtail coats
Tablecloths and patent-leather shoes
Bathing suits and bowling balls and clarinets and rings
And all this radio really needs is a fuse

A tinker, a tailor
A soldier's things
His rifle, his boots full of rocks
Oh, and this one is for bravery
And this one is for me
And everything's a dollar in this box

Cufflinks and hubcaps, trophies and paperbacks
It's good transportation but the brakes aren't so hot
Neckties and boxing gloves, this jackknife is rusted
You can pound that dent out on the hood

A tinker, a tailor
A soldier's things
His rifle, his boots full of rocks
Oh, and this one is for bravery
Oh, and this one is for me
And everything's a dollar in this box

Please tell me which classic rock radio station plays Tom Waits songs that aren't sung by Rod Stewart

Yeah, they don't even play the Eagles "Ol' 55."

the classic rock station I made up in my head where I go to escape this cruel world

"Fire and Rain." (At least it used to get occasional play on the classic rock station here--they're making the transition towards Simple Minds right now.)

Somewhere out there on that horizon
Out beyond the neon lights
I know there must be somethin' better
but there's nowhere else in sight
It's survival in the city
When you live from day to day
City streets don't have much pity
When you're down, that's where you'll stay
In the city, oh, oh.
In the city

I was born here in the city
With my back against the wall
Nothing grows, and life ain't very pretty
No one's there to catch you when you fall
Somewhere out on that horizon
Faraway from the neon sky
I know there must be somethin' better
And I can't stay another night
In the city, oh, oh.
In the city

then he started into dealing with slaves
and something inside of him died
she had to sell everything she owned
and froze up inside

So you decide to take a holiday
You got your tape deck and your brand new Chevrolet
Ahhh, there ain't no place to go anyway
What for?

So you got everything, aw, but nothing's cool
They just found your father in the swimming pool
And you guess you won't be going back to school,
anymore.

But Captain Jack can get you high tonight
And take you to your special island
Aw Captain Jack will get you by tonight
Just a little push and you'll be smilin'

yeah that song is like a face tattoo exclaiming "life is meaningless"

good call on "in the city"

They cry in the dark
So you can't see their tears
They hide in the light
So you can't see their fears
Forgive and forget
All the while
Love and pain become one and the same
In the eyes of a wounded child

Everybody's got a secret son,
Something that they just can't face
Some folks spend their whole lives trying to keep it
They carry it with them every step that they take

Till one day they just cut it loose
Cut it loose or let it drag 'em down
Where no one asks any questions
Looks too long in your face
In the darkness on the edge of town
In the darkness on the edge of town

And I know a father who had a son
He longed to tell him all the reasons for the things he'd done
He came a long way just to explain
He kissed his boy as he lay sleeping
Then he turned around and he headed home again

Twelve o'clock, I gotta rock
There's a truck ahead, lights starin' at my eyes
Oh my God, no time to turn
I got to laugh 'cause I know I'm gonna die

If it feels alright, maybe you can stay all night
Shall I leave you my key?
But you've got to give me a sign, come on girl, some kind of sign
Tell me, are you hot mama? you sure look that way to me

Are you old enough? will you be ready when I call you bluff?
Is my timing right? did you save your love for me tonight?

That Jonas Blue cover of fast car is wretched because it's hopeless -- the original version has always sounded to me like the narrator's saying "fuck this, I'm done with it" finally.

tom jones - not unusual

it's not unusual to see me cry/I WANNA DIE

i sometimes wish i'd never been born at all

. . .

nothing really matters, anyone can see
nothing really matters
nothing really matters to me
. . . anyway the wind blows. . . .

Not the bleakest, but this couplet always bring me down:

So many people, have come and gone
Their faces fade as the years go by

You don't hear "Eleanor Rigby" on classic rock stations too often (except maybe during a Beatles 6-pack or rock block), but those lyrics never fail to block out the sun.

i always saw belle and sebastian's early work as like a response to the beatles' question of where lonely people in the uk come from/belong. it turned out they were predictably sad and lonely but also had rich inner lives, filled with transgressive sex and deep spiritual convictions. that made me feel better.

and if i smile, tell me some bad news
before i laugh, and act like a fool

Well, I've been afraid of changing
'Cause I've built my life around you
But time made you bolder
Even children get older
And I'm getting older too

I am never not haunted - even after hearing the song a zillion times in non-bleak contexts - by the backing vocals in Chris Isaak's "Wicked Game," distantly chanting "this world is only going to break your heart" over and over again

i always saw belle and sebastian's early work as like a response to the beatles' question of where lonely people in the uk come from/belong. it turned out they were predictably sad and lonely but also had rich inner lives, filled with transgressive sex and deep spiritual convictions. that made me feel better.

― Treeship, Wednesday, April 13, 2016 4:47 PM (1 week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Does "Johnny and Mary" by Robert Palmer count, because that's as bleak as bleak

yeah, that's a great post, Treeship.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

Another year and then you'd be happy
Just one more year and then you'd be happy
But you're cryin, you're cryin now

OP didn't even choose the bleakest line of Jack & Diane, which is:

"Suckin' on a chili dog outside the Tastee-Freez"

I remember when rock was young
Me and Suzie had so much fun
Holding hands and skimmin' stones
Had an old gold Chevy and a place of my own
But the biggest kick I ever got
Was doing a thing called the crocodile rock
While the other kids were rockin' round the clock
We were hoppin' and boppin' to the crocodile rock

But the years went by and the rock just died
Suzie went and left us for some foreign guy
Long nights crying by the record machine
Dreaming of my hevy and my old blue jeans
But they'll never kill the thrills we've got
Burnin' up to the crocodile rock
Learnin' fast as the weeks went past
We really thought the crocodile rock would last

Crocodile-rockin' is something shockin'
When your feet just can't keep still
I never knew me a better time and I guess I never will