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It’s probably safe to assume that Robyn advocates dancing your worries away, so it makes sense that she’d write a song that’s empowering in its self-awareness. She sums up those natural feelings of jealousy when an ex moves on to someone new sooner than expected. But instead of writing a dreary ballad about it, Robyn flipped the script. Though she’s watching her former love get frisky with his “new friend” in the club, the chorus doesn’t come across as self-pitying. Instead she triumphantly announces, “I keep dancing on my own.” The situation is undeniably hurtful and uncomfortable, but Robyn wants her audience to know that she’s going to be just fine alone, and you are too.— Tess Duncan And don't try to convince yourself that you, as a step parent, can love your spouse's children the same as if they were your own either. You won't. EVER. It's nothing to be ashamed of. It's just how it is. And how it should be, really. That depth of love is reserved for our own children. It cannot be replaced, and shouldn't be. If Claire had to give even a small portion of the love she had for Grayson to a child that was not her own there's no way she'd have been able to do all she did for him...and that things would have turned out the way they did. The title alone for this song tells you that it’s going to discuss a somber topic that everyone feels at some point in their lives. That molten caramel voice drenches an acoustic guitar. Another man-fighting-with-his-wife country ballad is deceptive as the chorus swells up “You don’t know sadness til you face life alone / You don’t know about lonely ’til it’s chiseled in stone…” Suddenly, sorrow’s permanence is concrete, pride is poison and Vern Gosdin bends notes and your heart. It’s 1989’s Country Music Association’s Song of the Year for good reason.— Holly Gleason The song speaks to the universality of human experience, and the idea that we all suffer in different ways. It’s a reminder that we aren’t alone in our pain, and that there is comfort in shared experiences. Final Thoughts
Stark. The echo chamber of a broken heart for a beat; dried twigs scratching at a cold window for a voice make Townes Van Zandt’s “Waitin’ Around To Die” a haunting more than a song. Beaten women, getting hustled, crime gone bad, jail time, addiction. Two minutes, 23 seconds of harsh reality, stoic in its acceptance of a fate worse than death.— Holly Gleason You’ve shown your children, your family, your friends, and now the world, that mental illness is not something that happens to other people. It’s not always something that happens because of one’s poor choices. It’s not something one can avoid by being a good mom or living in good neighborhoods or having a good upbringing. It happens. Matt Vasquez wrote this History From Below tearjerker as an ode to his late grandparents, who both passed away within a short timeframe. It’s written from the perspective of his deceased grandfather, who implores his still-living wife to “sleep oh sleep, my Vivian” because “heaven is too cold without you.” I mean, come on. If your heart is made of stone and that’s not enough to choke you up, he also visits his ailing wife from beyond the grave to comfort her as she dies: “I know it’s hard to deal with the pain/you’re yellow from your liver giving out/so just close your eyes and think of me/oh, Jerry’s not leaving this gal.” I’m getting misty just thinking about it.— Bonnie StiernbergEasy to read and relate to. Well done, and it's a great read for parents in the trenches. In our state, you had to commit a crime to be sent to an inpatient facility (Criminally insane prison.) Just last December an in patient facility opened, so you can just be referred first, instead of arrested. Why do we wait until they get violent? NAMI (family of mentally ill) org does try to educate people on mentally health, but you don't really get it til you live with it. And for those who live with it, there's no time beyond the caregiving and trying to survive. NAMI parents are the best source of mental illness info and are largely ignored. Some sad songs on this list, like Noah Cyrus and PJ Harding's "Dear August" or Julia Stone's "We All Have," hold a glimmer of hope that befits this moment, as the pandemic stretches on and a return to normalcy can feel like a blur in the distance. The undulating pedal steel guitar on “D-I-V-O-R-C-E” pulls at metaphorical heartstrings, but the lyrical content is gut-wrenching enough on its own. Tammy Wynette articulates the internal struggle of so many divorcees-to-be with children, the strain and ache in her warble serving as a vehicle for her overwhelming remorse. Plus juxtaposing words like “toy” and “surprise” with “divorce” and “custody” severely ups the misery factor.— Tess Duncan
Mike Hadreas’ songwriting is unabashedly raw, the kind that speaks about the dirty and the unsightly in a way you can’t ignore. He puts a traumatic experience into words that sound like poetry—they’re arranged in such a way that it’s almost just as heartbreaking to read them on paper as it is to hear Hadreas tenderly singing them. But it wouldn’t have quite the effect without that bleak, pulsating piano line.— Tess Duncan https://youtu.be/Y6yUY7M9yfw Video can’t be loaded because JavaScript is disabled: REM – Everybody Hurts Lyrics (https://youtu.be/Y6yUY7M9yfw) It’s difficult to talk about “Two-Headed Boy Pt. 2” without talking about the album it brings to a powerful close, but I do believe that even without the context of In the Aeroplane Over the Sea, the song stands out as one of the most moving pieces of music in the past two decades. Like most of Jeff Mangum’s work, there are times when you have to put in some effort to parse the expressionistic imagery (“blister please with those wings in your spine…how he’d love to find your tongue in his teeth”) but at other times, the emotion is plain and jarring. “In my dreams you’re alive,” he sings, in that plaintive, keening, inimitable voice, and it builds to a climax that I, personally, find devastating: “When we break, we’ll wait for our miracle. God is a place you will wait for the rest of your life.” I can’t think of a better way to encapsulate the hope and fear and agony and grace of being alive. Nor can I think of anyone who can somehow express this inexpressible concept with such power and emotional precision quite like Mangum. At the song’s end, you can hear the scuffling sound of a chair as he rises and leaves—a subtle, poignant conclusion to one of the most singular, beautiful albums ever made.— Shane Ryan What counts as a " sad song"? It doesn't have to be a ballad sung by a soft voice. Nor does it have to be one that makes you weep every time you hear it. A sad song is one with an emotional soul—a song that unravels something in you. Maybe it helps you process your own feelings by bringing them to the surface or articulates a feeling you thought you'd been alone in. Through a special alchemy, the right sad song can give its listener a cathartic release that actually feels really good. And last, 3- thank you for being so brutally honest! Without singling out judgy people in certain positions, this is a sharp reminder for people to practice what they (WE) preach!! Thank you for sharing your story. Thank you for sharing Greyson. Thank you for going to places you probably would rather have buried in all those logs you kept, to bring awareness to an illness that gets far too little attention, explanation and understanding.
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Well, it's been a rough old few years, hasn't it? And sure, it's 2023, but even without the global pandemic, life can get a little sad from time to time. Sometimes the only antidote is a tub of ice cream, some incredibly sad songs and a seriously good cry. So don't worry, we've got you. In our opinion, the best sad songs don’t just whine and gesture at bad feelings - they wallow in the depths with you. Yes, sad songs do say so much. And these 50 songs helped the Paste staff to hurt so good. I tried to keep it to one song per artist but Johnny Cash ended up getting a pass. This list barely scratches the surface of sad songs—or even sad songs that got nominated by our writers. If your favorite is missing, add it to the comments section below. Here are our 50 favorite of the saddest songs:
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