Sad Songs

 These are the saddest songs I've ever heard. I know I'm missing many on this newer playlist, so if you have any please let me know in the comments. 

I can't listen to bands like Nirvana and Alice in Chains anymore. Knowing their singer's fate is a bad reminder. I'm too emotional to separate them. These are men who sang about their torture and then died because of it. I can't celebrate that. It's no different than Kafka's Hunger Artist who puts his self-torture on display as featured art at a zoo. People show up for the entertainment, but in the end they don't care about the person at all. 

I have an altogether different  theory concerning Chris Cornell of Soundgarden. I can't listen to most of the Soundgarden stuff. It's depressing. It's about death and suicide. But I celebrate Cornell's solo work, especially his final album and masterpiece Higher Truth. I personally believe he shouldn't have gone back to Soundgarden for that final reunion tour. It brought him back to a bad place in his past. People ought to not go there. His solo work offers hope. His band work offers misery. It's all speculation as to what would've or should've happened; it happened. 

The opposite is to be said of Michael Hutchence. I love his solo album, but it's dark and dreary, and wasn't even released until after he had died. His INXS band work is much healthier.  

Zakk Wylde's "Throwing it all away" on the other hand is a sad song, but it's a warning song - throw everything good away and you're dead. And it helps that it's in a brighter sounding key. I'm a sucker for minor E, which provides a introspection and melancholy. "Darkest Hour" is a sad song, but it doesn't make me personally sad because it's about history, and again it's a great warning to society. I'll write more about warning songs throughout the year. 

"A Love so Beautiful", "Don't know what you got..." and "Echo" are all sad, but don't bring me down too badly. All that said, this is a list I wouldn't listen to when I'm depressed. And I'd follow it up with "Shiny Happy People" by REM.