Bleakest lyrics regularly heard on classic rock radio

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