Tag: sad songs

Day 218: Sad Songs #SaySoMuch, Day VII / “The Letting Go” – Melissa Etheridge (1992)

Like Adele’s “One and Only,” which I posted earlier in this series, Melissa Etheridge’s “The Letting Go” is another “deep cut” that was never a hit (and that most casual fans probably never have heard) but still ranks (along with several other of her more understated, vulnerable cuts) as one of my favorite songs in her catalog.

“Piece by piece I take apart
This complicated heart
And I hope to find
Something I can prove is real
I can feel is truth
I can say is mine
That’s all I ever wanted to be
The closer that I got
The further I could see
But when lovers change
And the night feels strange
We choose our road
The letting go”

Day 217: Sad Songs #SaySoMuch, Day VI / “Whiskey Lullaby” – Brad Paisley feat. Alison Krauss (2003/2004)

For me, the combination of the song’s dark subject matter – alcoholism, guilt, infidelity, and suicide – and simple, albeit ambiguous storyline, coupled with Krauss’ haunting vocals make this one of the most affecting (and quietly heartbreaking) duets in recent memory.

“She put that bottle to her head and pulled the trigger
And finally drank away his memory
Life is short, but this time it was bigger
Than the strength she had to get up off her knees
We found her with her face down in the pillow
Clinging to his picture for dear life
We laid her next to him beneath the willow
While the angels sang a whiskey lullaby”

Day 216: Sad Songs #SaySoMuch, Day V / “You Don’t Know Me” – Norah Jones with Wynton Marsalis (2009)

There are literally dozens of versions of this song, originally recorded by Eddy Arnold in 1956. This recording, featuring Norah Jones and Wynton Marsalis, is neither the first nor the most famous nor the most successful nor the most acclaimed. It is, however, the version that first acquainted me with the song.

“I never knew the art of making love
No my heart aches with love for you
Afraid and shy I let my chance go by
The chance that you might love me too”

Day 215: Sad Songs #SaySoMuch, Day IV / “Both Sides Now” – Joni Mitchell (2000)

Joni Mitchell included versions of this song on two different studio albums – Clouds, released in 1969, and Both Sides Now, released in 2000. I’ve chosen the latter, because of the way its slower, lusher arrangement and darker, more somber vocals underscore its lyrical themes of melancholy, nostalgia, realization, and regret.

“Tears and fears and feeling proud, to say, ‘I love you’ right out loud
Dreams and schemes and circus crowds, I’ve looked at life that way
But now old friends are acting strange they shake their heads, they say
I’ve changed
But something’s lost but something’s gained in living every day

I’ve looked at life from both sides now
From win and lose and still somehow
It’s life’s illusions I recall
I really don’t know life at all”

Day 214: Sad Songs #SaySoMuch, Day III / “Broken Strings” – James Morrison feat. Nelly Furtado (2008)

This is another “sad song” that I really like in spite of the fact that it never achieved any real success on the mainstream U. S. music charts (nor received much positive critical recognition).

“You can’t play on broken strings
You can’t feel anything
That your heart don’t want to feel
I can’t tell you something that ain’t real
Well the truth hurts
And lies worse
How can I give anymore
When I love you a little less than before?”

Day 213: Sad Songs #SaySoMuch, Day II / “One and Only” – Adele (2011)

Even though it was never released as a single (and, unlike many of her other non-single tracks, never even charted on the Hot 100), this is still my favorite Adele song. It’s another example of a song that isn’t obviously sad.

The first thing that drew me to it was the beauty and vulnerability conveyed in its lyrics about reaching out to someone who’s afraid – or at least unable – to let go of the past and their own insecurities, but the more I times I listened to it, the more affecting the idea of being that person, unable to let go of the past or the current doubt and insecurity it helped create, became to me.

I’m actually including a couple of different excerpts from this one, because I honestly couldn’t choose just one.

“I don’t know why I’m scared
‘Cause I’ve been here before
Every feeling, every word
I’ve imagined it all
You’ll never know if you never try
To forget your past and simply be mine”

“I know it ain’t easy giving up your heart
Nobody’s perfect
(I know it ain’t easy giving up your heart)
Trust me I’ve learned it”

Day 212: Sad Songs #SaySoMuch, Day I / “Let It Go” – James Bay (2015)

For the first time in a little more than two hundred days, I finally did it: Between spending the morning and early afternoon out of town in meetings and the rest of the afternoon and the entire evening driving back home, I missed a day of posting to the blog.

To make up for it (and keep the numbering in place for the remaining blog entries), I’m going to double up today with a make-up Day 213 post for yesterday and a regular Day 214 post for today.

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I spent a lot of time (including somewhere between ten and twelve hours listening to the radio and CDs in the car) listening to music over the several days. Somewhere along the way, I started thinking about the way that sad songs sometimes really can be beautiful – even if the beauty comes in a form (or with an emotion) we don’t typically associate with the word, and I decided it might be interesting to do a week-long “Sad Songs #SaySoMuch” theme here on the blog.

There’s no particular rhyme or reason to what I’m going to be sharing. In fact, the only real unifying features of the seven songs I’ll be posting over the next seven days are that they’re all, in some way, sad songs and that they’re all, at least to me, beautiful in some way – some in what they say, some in how they say it, and some in how they make me feel.

I’m going to start with James Bay’s 2015 single “Let It Go,” which is one of those deceptively sad songs you don’t actually realize is sad until you’ve heard it at least two or three times and had a chance to really listen to the lyrics.

“Everything that’s broke
Leave it to the breeze
Let the ashes fall
Forget about me

Come on, let it go
Just let it be
Why don’t you be you
And I’ll be me”