The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #12357   Message #96576
Posted By: WyoWoman
18-Jul-99 - 06:49 PM
Thread Name: The Saddest Song of All
Subject: RE: The Saddest Song of All
Too many to name. I LOVE a good melancholy song -- must be the Irish in me (sorry, all '-} )

One version of "Geordie," in which the judge tells her, "sorry about you bein' pregnant with his child and all, but it's off to the gallows with 'im." Some versions have a very uppity wife reacting in various ways, but the one I learned years ago and still love ends with him being hanged for killing one of the King's deer.

"I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry"

One by Malvina Reynolds, of "Little Boxes" fame, called "The Girl on the Rim of the World," written about a homeless girl she kept seeing out the window of her apartment in San Francisco.

One by Dave van Ronk, which I think is called "In a Mood for Going," and which is just wonderful for when you're really morose and just need a song as sad as you are.

"Waltzing Matilda," by Tom Waits.

And ... oh, heavens. I could keep this up all day. What does it say about me (whom most people would describe as having a downright *merry* disposition) that I love really, really sad songs so much?

WW