Topic: The ultimate feeling sorry for yourself song is....

[Shameless Custard]

Alone Again by Gilbert O'Sullivan

Great tune, but you still wanna slap him

https://youtu.be/D_P-v1BVQn8

[Jockice]

"AAAAHHHH WON' LET YOU DAHHHHHNNN... WON' LET YOU DAHHHHHNNN AGAIN..."

Thanks for reminding me about my PhD nightmare.

[SteveDave]

Alone Again by Gilbert O'Sullivan

Great tune, but you still wanna slap him

https://youtu.be/D_P-v1BVQn8

Give him a break his dad died. Then his mum. AND he got dumped at the church.

[Jerzy Bondov]

The entire record that this is from is seriously miserable. My own wallowing track used to be one of the instrumentals - Leaving Hope. Whenever I find myself listening to this a bit too often I know it's time to mix things up a bit.

A lot of the music in that era was written with 'the end' in sight, and I wonder if this bunch of curiosities were considered a bit 'too much' for The Fragile. It's one of my favourite records, but there's signs of serious sadness all over it. La Mer was written in some sort of coastal alienation episode where Rez had ostensibly gone to write music, but later stated to it was to kill himself. There's hints written throughout - the following track, The Great Below, seems to be quite literally about getting in the sea.

Yes absolutely. I've only just found out the cover of Still is a blurry aerial shot of the sea. When 'fans' say Reznor was better when he was on the drugs they're forgetting that if he'd carried on we wouldn't have got another The Downward Spiral, another The Fragile, another Still. We'd have got fuck all because he'd have died. With Teeth isn't great but it's not that bad.

[Geoffs~Cape]

Eric Carmen - All By Myself

For the tune as much as, if not more than, the lyrics. It just sounds sooooo whiiiiiiiny. Only just realised it drags on for over 7 minutes as well. Pull yourself together Eric!

[SpiderChrist]

The Temptations - I Wish It Would Rain

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xM7BRP7uzFk

From Wikididdleydoodah:

More so than a number of other Motown songs, there is real sentiment and pain behind the song's words. Lyricist Rodger Penzabene had just found out his wife was cheating on him with another man. Unable to deal with the pain and unable to stop loving his wife, Penzabene expressed his pain in the lyrics of this song and its follow-up on the Temptations' release schedule, "I Could Never Love Another (After Loving You)". The distraught Penzabene committed suicide on New Year's Eve 1967, a week after the single's release.

[Lordofthefiles]

Too Drunk To Fuck - Dead Kennedys

https://youtu.be/uJ7pgElCPXE

[jobotic]

It's something by The Field Mice or Trembling Blue Stars isn't it? He liked a good mope that fella.

[spaghetamine]

The Magnetic Fields - All The Umbrellas In London

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tnLLR4QwEPY

particularly good for sad walks in the rain, stephin merritt has such a wonderfully melancholy voice

[jamiefairlie]

It's something by The Field Mice or Trembling Blue Stars isn't it? He liked a good mope that fella.

That's the one. It seems like they were all about the same girl too, who was a bandmate in both bands.

Feeling sorry for oneself seems to come in two main flavours - romantic, as exemplified by Mr Bobby Wratten in this case, and existential. Nobody did this better than Joy Division, here's New Dawn Fades.... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lBykvBKMeec

[Sin Agog]

Really not into Magnetic Fields solely because of Merritt's melody-gobbling voice, but that's why I completely and utterly adore their first two albums (and, to a lesser extent, The 6ths, where he got various lo-fi indie luminaries to sing his songs for him), because Susan Anway takes the mic and she adds an interesting dysphoric layer to these sad gay love songs with pretty melodies.  Big fan of the chintzy synth-Spector sound as well.  https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=5vBCqOGq49I&list=PLLQiex-sV-5boSBD9Vrc3BQRhQgGcSfWZ&index=1

[Deyv]

Personally, I love Merritt's voice, but I also love Anway's. 100,000 Fireflies has that line "This is the worst night I ever had" and the way she sings it brings a genuine tear to my eye. Not sure if it's applicable to this thread, but it certainly makes me feel awful and self-piteous.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OKXkVUM4xu8

[spaghetamine]

Really not into Magnetic Fields solely because of Merritt's melody-gobbling voice, but that's why I completely and utterly adore their first two albums (and, to a lesser extent, The 6ths, where he got various lo-fi indie luminaries to sing his songs for him), because Susan Anway takes the mic and she adds an interesting dysphoric layer to these sad gay love songs with pretty melodies.  Big fan of the chintzy synth-Spector sound as well.  https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=5vBCqOGq49I&list=PLLQiex-sV-5boSBD9Vrc3BQRhQgGcSfWZ&index=1

right on, those first two albums are my favorite things the magnetic fields every produced, stunning records and virtually every track makes for high quality moping music

railroad boy (another favourite)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oFTHzLB3x2c

[non capisco]

'Just Make It Stop' by Low is a good one for a strangely affirmative wallow about all the things you could have possibly achieved if only your own brain hadn't been constantly calling you every insult under the sun all these years.

[jamiefairlie]

'Just Make It Stop' by Low is a good one for a strangely affirmative wallow about all the things you could have possibly achieved if only your own brain hadn't been constantly calling you every insult under the sun all these years.

Aye, that's guaranteed to get the tears flowing for me too. Great choice.

[RicoMNKN]

The Magnetic Fields are usually my choice for a good mope, too.

I Wish I Had Pictures being my choice off the last album - captures the pangs of sadness in looking back.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4MPXMUJ7Zuk

[Noodle Lizard]

The Magnetic Fields’ “I Don’t Believe In The Sun” is a great, self-aware example of this type of song:

“Since you went away, it’s nighttime all day, and it’s usually raining too”
“Astronomy will have to be revised!”

[Auntie Beryl]

Tindersticks - could be a number of songs. The one that got me was 'Raindrops', perfectly timed for my first decaying relationship:

We sit and watch the divide widen
We sit and listen to our hearts crumble
With our only chance to jump
Neither of us had the guts
Or maybe we're just too proud
To say it out loud

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RXmHvU8w6hQ


Plus there's always 'No Regrets'. The Walker Brothers, of course, but Tom Rush's original rabbitpunches the kidneys almost as much:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bb7ld3dWChE

[Larry Heliotrope]

I immediately thought of At Seventeen by Janis Ian  - amazed it hasn't been mentioned already ...
 https://youtu.be/-SuavKHes_Y

[SteK]

'Floating In the Forth' by Frightened Rabbit. About suicide but with a twist, he went and did it last year exactly per song. RIP Scott Hutchison.

[Pearly-Dewdrops Drops]

The entire "Purple Mountains" album (RIP)

[kngen]

Anymore Time Between by Bob Mould

Especially the bit that goes:

Sick of yourself, sick of yourself
Sick of being someone else
I'm sick of myself, sick of
Everything I am, any

Time between, you and, everything
Time between, you and, this

Look at me, look at me
I'm as useless as can be
No time anymore, not tired anymore
Tired of what you see in me

Really nailed my feelings of misery and self-loathing when my disconnection and depression was so (almost literally) visceral I would fantasise about tearing open my stomach and chest cavity and let everything inside fall to the floor in front of me. Yay!

Revolver by Mission of Burma

For me, the chorus could be pure suicidal or homicidal ideation depending on how fucked off I was with the world (and why I still won't have a gun in the house … just in case).

I'm far, far happier now, btw - these songs now just make me sad about how miserable I was when I relied on them to make some kind of grim sense to me in my darkest moments.

And they are still great songs, just - y'know - small doses …