Soaring sweeping dramatic and really sad songs

[sweeper]

I'm on the hunt for some of this stuff. Along the lines of:

For Those - Tindersticks
Still Life - Suede
Wilder - Boo Radleys
These Days - Nico
Dress You in Mourning - Jack
Nature's Hated - Orlando
One of These Things First - Nick Drake
Dive For Your Memory - Go-Betweens

You know what sort of thing I mean.

Hidden gems and obscurities ideal.

[fuzzyste]

[bobloblaw]

The king of all these is surely Ruby's Arms by Tom Waits

[curiousoranges]

The Winner Takes It All.

[bobloblaw]

More:

Sebadoh - Soul and Fire
American Music Club Apologies for an Accident / Jesus' Hands
Stones - Wild Horses / No Expectations
Secret Machines - Alone, Jealous & Stoned / 1000 Seconds
Ezra Furman - Ordinary Life
Beck - most of Sea Change
Keren Ann - In Your Back
Monkees - Me and Magdalena
Mark Lanergan and Isobel Campbell - The Circus is Leaving Town
Anthony & the Johnsons' version of I Was Young When I Left Home
Bright Eyes - Lua
The Cure - Pictures of You
Belly - Untogether
Fleetwood Mac - Landslide
The Delines - He Don't Burn For Me
Eels - The Stars Shine in the Sky Tonight
VU - Sad Song
Sufjan Stevens - 4th July / Casimir Pulaski Day
Bob Mould - Can't Fight It

[Vodkafone]

The pinnacle for me

[Sean Ymphs]

[Clatty McCutcheon]

Where Dreams Go To Die - John Grant
The Days of Pearly Spencer - Marc Almond (also the original by David McWilliams, to be fair).

[Clatty McCutcheon]

[Dr Rock]

[Lordofthefiles]

[Mr Banlon]

[badaids]

I love For Those but most Tindersticks songs fit in this category. 

Tiny Tears, Marbles, Travelling Light, Rented Rooms, Tonight Are You Trying To Fall In Love Again, Another Another Night In, My Sister, A Night In.

[Vodkafone]

ABC - All of My Heart

[madhair60]

ABC - All of My Heart

incredible tune

[Small Man Big Horse]

Nature's Hated - Orlando

Man, I love that song and still regularly play it all these years on, and I'm glad I'm not the only one.

I have a real fondness for My Life Story's November 5th - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JuEJsbfjUt0 - but it's partially as it brings back memories of a very specific time and person, and could understand someone not liking Jake's voice / lyrics.

Edit: Just listening to it now and could imagine James Acaster could do a pretty spot on cover of that!

[sweeper]

Nature's Hated is a genuine lost classic, I think, which is rare these days, when every stone seems to have been unturned.

[Sebastian Cobb]

[Dr Rock]

Blimey that's fantastic

[Crabwalk]

'Nature's Hated' is fantastic, but it's not even the saddest, soaring-iest track on Passive Soul (which is a front-to-back secret masterpiece IMO). I'd award that to the album closer 'Here (So Find Me)':

American Music Club were mentioned by boboblaw above, and probably have more songs in this thread's vein than anyone this side of Tindersticks, but solo Eitzel offers some gems too, like 'Mr Humphries':

'On Tour With Zygos' by Okkervil River has me in bits every time. A beautiful character portrait, and that central piano riff...

PS If I were to choose one Tindersticks song for this thread it'd probably be 'Mistakes'. Fucking hell.

[Tombola]

A couple of sad bangers used in Buffy / Angel:

[Jockice]

Jealousy by the Pet Shop Boys tops every one of these. Possibly the greatest heartbreak song ever made.

[Sebastian Cobb]

Blimey that's fantastic

Glad you like it. The whole album is full of sorrow really, Swamp Dogg on production so lots of it is also quite upbeat.

Susan Cadogan covered 'Congratulations Baby' on her Hurts So Good album.

[Ron Maels Moustache]

Scott Walker - The War Is Over

Stevie Wonder - They Won't Go When I Go

George Michael - You Have Been Loved

Frank Sinatra - What's New

[lauraxsynthesis]

Reed's voice even breaks into a bit of a sob at the end of this.

Of all the Smiths' oeuvre, this one seems to hit the hardest to me. Marr on piano.

Yo La Tengo take a John Cale song and break its heart. I associate this with the first boy I ever loved when I was 14 and I can't listen to it dry-eyed.

I'd put much of Cat Stevens in this category, but perhaps this one most of all.

Somehow I'd never noticed quite how sad this song was until it was played to great effect at the end of Scorsese's George Harrison documentary. The Low version is even sadder though. And now Mimi's dead and all.

[madhair60]

angels robin williams

[Langdale]

Gravenhurst, The Prize. Builds and builds and builds...

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=U4n5NG3VgAg

[Small Man Big Horse]

Nature's Hated is a genuine lost classic, I think, which is rare these days, when every stone seems to have been unturned.

I remember Simon Price writing about the best lost albums of the 90s and Passive Soul was featured which led to some folks I know tracking down the album, but it has sadly now seem to have been forgotten about again.

'Nature's Hated' is fantastic, but it's not even the saddest, soaring-iest track on Passive Soul (which is a front-to-back secret masterpiece IMO). I'd award that to the album closer 'Here (So Find Me)':

That's my second favourite song on it, I think Nature's Hatred just edges it for me as it was the first song I ever heard by them and quickly became obsessive about them.

I saw them a few times and always loved them, but the best gig was at the Cambridge Boat Race supporting Kenickie, which might seem like a jarring combination, but it really was one of the most fun nights of my life.

[All Surrogate]

[NoSleep]

And the melodramatic, Vanilla Fudge-inspired arrangement of a Motown hit, and played by the same Memphis musicians that usually played with Elvis: