Like the previous Top Ten Songs That Rarely Fail to Bring a Smile to My Face, I found this difficult to put together, but for the opposite reason: too many to choose from. And like my little Sis said of her Top Ten Smile songs, it might be different on another day. But, here on this rainy, rainy day, and seeing a green world without really being able to see the green in it, these are the songs that come to mind. I should add that I've been thinking of lines from Nick Hornsby's "High Fidelity" while writing this:
What came first? The music or the misery? People worry about kids playing with guns and watching violent videos, we’re scared that some sort of culture of violence is taking them over. . .But nobody worries about kids listening to thousands—literally thousands—of songs about broken hearts and rejection and pain and misery and loss.
(Thank you John Cusack for bringing Hornsby's novel to film--one of the best book-to-movie deals I've seen). Well, my answer is the misery. Or, rather, the melancholy. At least in my case, I don't think painful music added, or adds, to my sadness. It clarifies it.
10. Mad World, Roland Orzabal (Donnie Darko Soundtrack, 2001). I think this song should have come at the beginning rather than the end of the movie, given that Donnie is laughing at the absurdity of it all, but the song still captures the angst that fills anyone who thinks about the (seeming?) capriciousness of the world.
09. Ain't No Sunshine, Bill Withers (Just as I Am, 1971). Withers channeling pure loss and aloneness.
08. If You Could Read My Mind, Gordon Lightfoot (Sit Down Young Stranger, 1970). Okay, I'm bordering on treacly, but it's here because I was singing it one day in the Lutheran Heights lodge when pre-marriage Margo walked in and told me to "Stop playing such damn depressing songs!" This simply has got to be in my top ten list.
07. Fire And Rain, James Taylor (Sweet Baby James, 1970). I was nine or ten, and I remember stopping cold when I heard it. It was the first song that I recognized to be speaking of a transcendent sadness. I should add that of course at that age I didn't know or understand the term "transcendent," and I also should qualify this--I already had been hearing transcendent sadness in the Lutheran liturgy and hymns; I just couldn't put a finger on what I was feeling.
06. Cold Rain, Crosby, Stills & Nash (CSN, 1977). CSN at their height of harmonic power, with in-your-face melancholy.
05. People's Parties/Same Situation, Joni Mitchell (Court and Spark, 1974). Here I'm cheating a bit, but on the original LP, these two songs were actually seamless--they were meant to be heard together. Unfortunately, the barbaric CD producers didn't know, or didn't care.
04. We Do What We Can, Sheryl Crow (Tuesday Night Music Club Rock, 1993). Story of my life, though in the context of the academic world.
03. You Get Bigger As You Go, Bruce Cockburn (Humans, 1980). "Bales of memory like boats in tow." The glory and heartache of aging.
02. Llorando, Rebekah Del Rio (Mulholland Drive Soundtrack, 2001). Thanks, David Lynch.
01. All At Once, Bonnie Raitt (Luck of the Draw, 1991). "Looks to me there's lots more broken/Than anyone can really see/And why the angels turn their backs on us/It's a mystery to me.” Can’t get much more wretched than that.
