the saddest song i know is a ladino (sephardic) song with a haunting, east-meets-west melody. the translations goes like this:

here comes the captive
with all the captive women
among them
is the white girl

it was not dawn,
neither was it daylight
when the white girl
sang her sorrow:

oh green fields,
fields of olive trees
where my mother, grace,
washed and hung out the clothes

oh beautiful pine
where, with my husband,
under its shade,
we slept with pleasure

oh white tombs
tombs of the grandfathers
i pass over them
like a bird in flight

it was not dawn,
nor was it daylight
when the white girl
sang her sorrow, thus.