On March Sadness

What makes a sad song sad? I mean, really sad, as in palpably sadder than the endless barrage of songs otherwise purporting to be sad? This was the essential challenge of an online “tournament” I recently participated in, dubbed “March Sadness.” The idea was to hold a 64-song tournament designed to identify the saddest songs of all-time. Participants submitted one song in each of eight wholly-depressing categories — lying, dying, cheating, getting cheated, lonely, unrequitted, and “family matters.” The eighth category was a catchall called “make your case.”

A bracket of 64 songs was culled from the initial submissions by way of popular vote. The top eight songs in each category were then “seeded” and pitted against each other in rounds. There were upsets. There was advocacy. There was good-natured argument, and more than a bit of whining (including by me). Lyrics and meanings were debated. “Distinctions” of sadness were discussed (i.e., between something inciting “sadness” versus, say, “anger,” for example). Eventually, a final four was chosen and an eventual “champion” crowned. This year’s winner was “Without You” by Harry Nilsson (I can’t liiiiiiiiiiiiivvvee, if livin’ is without youuuu. I can’t giiiiiiiiivvveee, I can’t give anymore . . . that one). It won by a landslide in an anti-climatic final against 1975’s “I’m Not In Love,” by British pop/art band, 10cc. It was a battle of 70’s soft rock titans.

None of my submissions fared well. Only one (Nick Drake’s “Way to Blue”) advanced beyond the first round, losing in the Sweet Sixteen to Joni Mitchell’s “Both Sides Now.” Three others were bounced in the first round. John Lennon’s “Mother” (my submission in the “family matters” category) was ousted by Eric Clapton’s “Tears in Heaven.” Leonard Cohen’s “Famous Blue Raincoat” (“getting cheated”) was bumped by Gram Parsons’ and Emmylou Harris’ “Love Hurts.” Jonny Cash’s “Long Black Veil” (“cheating”) was taken out by “Me and Mrs. Jones” by Billy Paul. My other submissions —Richard Buckner’s “22” (“unrequitted”), Terry Jacks’ “Seasons in the Sun” (“dying”), and R.E.M.’s “The Wrong Child” (“lonely”) failed to make the field. (Buckner’s omission was particularly egregious, I thought, but there I go, whining again).

Nilsson and 10cc were joined in the Final Four by Janis Ian’s “At Seventeen” and Willie Nelson’s “You Were Always On My Mind.” The next four out were Joni Mitchell’s “Both Sides Now” (ousted by Ian), James Carr’s ’60’s soul classic, “Dark End of the Street” (ousted by Nelson), Harry Chapin’s “Cats in the Cradle” (Nilsson), and Billie Holiday’s “Strange Fruit” (10cc). All in all, a respectably demoralizing final eight, I thought, despite my protestations.

Still, when it was over, I was left wondering, why these particular songs? What was it about Without You that stood out above the other 63 songs— let alone, the tens of thousands of others out there bemoaning the loss of life, love, innocence, sadness, betrayal, loneliness, and pain?

Obviously, demographics played a role in the outcome. While I didn’t know most of the participants, from what I could gather, it was a predominantly white crowd, mostly, if not exclusively, American, largely between 35 and 55 years of age. These were children of the late ’60’s, ’70’s, and ’80’s, who grew up listening to the popular music of their eras. Few songs pre-dating the ’60’s made it into the tournament. Of the final eight, only “Strange Fruit” preceded 1967. The remainder, beginning with Carr and ending with Nelson, ranged from 1967 to 1982 — a span of a mere fifteen years. Five of the eight were from the’70’s.

I do believe the ’70’s were particularly ripe for depressing pop music. “Soft rock” was pretty much invented in the decade, after all. Bread, the Carpenters, Seals and Croft, America, Air Supply . . . the pool of mostly wretched, sad, and nearly unbearable soft-rock was virtually depthless in the ’70’s, in more ways than one. It was as if the hope and promise and possibility of the ’60’s suddenly just petered out, and white America went into some sort of drowsy, hung over funk, surrendering the hopeless realities of injustice, war, pollution and corruption, and deciding instead to just write a bunch of dopey, depressing, minor-keyed ballads whilst drifting aimlessly across the country in a shagged-out custom van. Summer breeze, makes me feel fine, blowin’ through the jasmine in my miiiiiiiiinnnd . . .

As a kid in the ’70’s, I hated almost all of this dreck. It was the soundtrack to depressing bus rides to and from school, groggy mornings in near darkness, dreary afternoons in fading winter light, last week’s snow turned to frozen, charcoaled slush. It was the sound of torturously long car rides, of irritable parents, uncomfortable clothes, and the nauseous smell of cigarette smoke, vinyl, and leaded gas fumes mixing with the general unrestrained queasiness of being bounced around in the backseat of a ’69 Ford Galaxy 500 driving way too fast down the highway. It was the cadence to a world gone to hell — of fallen presidents and fallen soldiers, of corrupt corporations, embargoes, hijackings, suicides, divorces. It was the sound of burned out ex-hippies no longer marching for a cause; of close-minded traditionalists who ceded not an inch to the previous dozen years; of everything having changed, and nothing having changed, and nothing anyone could do about any of it. A world I was too young to understand, but already sensed was broken beyond repair. It was, in a word, depressing. We had joy, we had fun, we had seasons in the sun . . . 

Reflecting on all of this, two thoughts occur to me. First, that perhaps the saddest songs aren’t the ones that get us through our darkest times, but rather the ones that embody those times. They are the jeans we wore through them, that may not fit anymore, and may no longer be in style, but once felt like part of our own skin.

And second, in the end, loneliness still reigns supreme in the world of sadness. Harry Nilsson, laying bare the gut-wrenching loneliness of living apart from the one he loves, but let get away; the seventeen year-old Janis Ian, desperate for love, making up pretend boyfriends to talk to on the phone because no one would ask her out; Harry Chapin’s young boy, longing for his father’s love and attention, and the father, suddenly old and alone, desperate for his son’s. It’s the lonely existential resignation of a wizened Joni Mitchell, who still doesn’t know love or life at all, despite having lived it from all sides. The regretful Willie Nelson, realizing that his loveless existence is the result of his own neglectful actions.

It’s this loneliness that seems to lie at the heart of our darkest sadness; this loneliness, that cuts through all the rest— even the lying, the cheating, and death that are all parts of life. This loneliness, that seems capable, at times, of  transcending it.

And no, I don’t need a hug, but thanks for asking. Just promise me you won’t play any ’70’s soft rock around me, at least until March of next year . . .

As always, thanks for reading, and my best to all.

– T

Photo: I took this one out my front window a couple months’ back. ‘Seemed appropriate somehow :). Copyright Tim Fearnside, all rights reserved.