My Sad Songs

What is your ultimate sad song?
That is a question someone might have asked me during some (drunk, perhaps) conversation , thus eliminating the need for this post.But, unlucky for you, reader, no one did. So here it goes. Thing is, I don't do sad songs. Not as a music choice, but mostly not as therapy. I don't listen to sad songs when I'm sad. I really don't understand people who do...Is it because I'm an escapist? I've been told many times by my girlfriends that the process of wallowing in depression and self pity to the appropriate soundtrack is something to be enjoyed and cherished, but I fail to do that. My life would make a very weird movie where the character's darkest moments of grief and anguish would be accompanied by some outrageously upbeat body shaking Latin tune.

I'm telling you this because that is what makes my ultimate sad songs so special. Cause they have managed to overcome my instinctive objection to anything trying to tell me how sad life is. I have thought a lot about these songs I chose, and they have one thing in common - they are songs that tell a story, with eloquence that, like a good book, like art is supposed to, gently erase the boundaries between your private world and everything else in the universe. So I invite you to listen to them with me. (Unfortunately, the player embedding didn't work, so just press the twango icon with the right button and open in another window)

The first one might be considered somewhat of a cliche, and comes from way back from my impressionable youth. Unlike, I suspect, the other two, this one is probably well known to my readers. The song is "Vincent" by Don McLean . It is about Van Gogh, and the lyrics make use of the images in his paintings to create an atmosphere. Another thing I like about it is that the writer, rather than shouting out his on pain, as more "conventional" sad songs do, is actually thinks of something outside himself and his world, something we all should be doing much more of:


"Now I understand

What you tried to say to me

How you suffered for your sanity

How you tried to set them free

They would not listen they did not know how

Perhaps they'll listen now

For they could not love you

But still your love was true

And when no hope was left inside

On that starry, starry night

You took your life as lovers often do

But I could have told you Vincent

This world was never meant for one as beautiful as you..."

Aw Gawd.....

Next one is a Spanish song, by the great singer-songwriter Joaquin Sabina, who's art has pretty much dominated the last 3-4 years of my life. While Spanish lyrics occasionally tend to be very emotional and explicit, every Sabina song is an independent universe , and while I don't understand some of the cultural allusions (not to mention, am nowhere near this level of Spanish) they are incredibly real to me. This Song - "Con la frente marchita"- is a very familiar story of love, interrupted by geographical distances and cultural differences, between our Spanish author and a woman from Argentina. I have no real reason to identify with the story, and it is the little details that make it one of my ultimate sad songs. For a long time it was the one song i didn't dare to defile by translation attempts, but I really want to share it with you:



"Sentados en corro merendábamos besos y porros

Y las horas pasaban deprisa entre el humo y la risa.

Te morías por volver "Con la frente marchita" cantaba Gardel

Y entre citas de Borges, Evita bailaba con Freud.

Ya llovió desde aquel chaparrón hasta hoy.

Iba cada domingo a tu puesto del Rastro a comprarte

carricoches de miga de pan, soldaditos de lata.

Con agüita del mar Andaluz quise yo enamorarte,

pero tú no querías más amor que el del Río de la Plata."

"Sitting among friends we exchanged cigarettes and kisses,
and in smoke and smiles the hours flew by.
You were dying to go back, "Con la frente marchita" sang Gardel,
And amidst quotes from Borges, Evita was dancing with Freud.
And the rain came down pouring from then until now...

Used to go every Sunday, to that place at the market to buy you
Pastry chariots, soldiers of tin.
I wished to concur you with the sea water of Andalusia,
But you needed no other love than Rio de la Plata"

Just so you know I have tears in my eyes while translating this now in the middle of Kyoto university library. Specially when i get to the end (skipped a few verses)

..."Te sentaba tan bien, esa boina calada al estilo del "Che".
Buenos Aires es como contabas, hoy fui a pasear,
y al llegar a la Plaza de Mayo me dio por llorar
y me puse a gritar: "¿Dónde estás?"

Y no volví más a tu puesto del Rastro a comprarte
corazones de miga de pan, sombreritos de lata.
Y ya nadie me escribe diciendo: "No consigo olvidarte,
ojalá que estuvieras conmigo en el Río deLa Plata"

..."And you looked so well, in that beret in the style of Che.
Buenos Aires is just as you've told me. I went for a walk,
When I got to the Plaza de Mayo I broke down and cried,
And I shouted and called "where are you?"

And I never went back, to that place at the market to buy you
Pastry hearts, little tin sombreros,
No one writes to me anymore, saying "I cannot forget you,
How i wish you were here by my side at the Rio de la Plata".

Now, those of you who haven't lost interest by now, we come to the ultimate song. This on unlike the others is very personal to me, and people who know me won't need help understanding why I identify with it. The song is "Amelia" by Joni Mitchell. It is dedicated to Amelia Earhart, the lost pilot, but it talks about many many things, and despite its serene melody is a monsoon of meaning and emotion, at least for me.

"I was driving across the burning desert
When I spotted six jet planes
Leaving six white vapor trails across the bleak terrain.
It was the hexagram of the heavens,
It was the strings of my guitar.
Amelia, it was just a false alarm.

The drone of flying engines
Is a song so wild and blue
It scrambles time and seasons if it gets through to you.
Then your life becomes a travelogue
Of picture-post-card-charms
Amelia, it was just a false alarm"

Once in my dorm appartament in Jerusalem I spent one of my extremely rare Bridget Jones moments playing and singing this song over and over again over a bottle of white wine. Talk about things you didn't know about me, reader.

"Maybe I've never really loved
I guess that is the truth
I've spent my whole life in clouds at icy altitude
And looking down on everything
I crashed into his arms
Amelia, it was just a false alarm..."

P.S. If any of my readers, specially the blogging ones, want to share their song choices with me, I'm very curious!