The depressive stuff

[michaelm]

Yeah, he's such a great lyricist. One of my favorites that is kind of depressing in so many subtle ways is Kentucky Avenue:

Well, Eddie Grace's Buick got four bullet holes in the side
And Charlie DeLisle is sittin' at the top of an avocado tree
Mrs. Storm will stab you with a steak knife if you step on her lawn
I got a half a pack of Lucky Strikes, man, so come along with me
And let's fill our pockets with macadamia nuts
And go over to Bobby Goodmanson's and jump off the roof

Well, Hilda plays strip poker when her mama's cross the street
Joey Navinski says she put her tongue in his mouth
And Dicky Faulkner's got a switchblade and some gooseneck risers
That eucalyptus is a hunchback, there's a wind down from the south
So let me tie you up with kite string and I'll show you the scabs on my knee
Watch out for the broken glass, put your shoes and socks on
And come along with me

Let's follow that fire truck, I think your house is burnin' down
And go down to the hobo jungle and kill some rattlesnakes with a trowel
And we'll break all the windows in the old Anderson place
And we'll steal a bunch of boysenberries and I'll smear 'em on your face
I'll get a dollar from my mama's purse and buy that scull and crossbones ring
And you can wear it 'round your neck on an old piece of string

Then we'll spit on Ronnie Arnold and flip him the bird
And slash the tires on the school bus, now don't say a word
I'll take a rusty nail and scratch your initials in my arm
And I'll show you how to sneak up on the roof of the drugstore
I'll take the spokes from your wheelchair and a magpie's wings
And I'll tie 'em to your shoulders and your feet
I'll steal a hacksaw from my dad and cut the braces off your legs
And we'll bury them tonight out in the cornfield
Just put a church key in your pocket, we'll hop that freight train in the hall
We'll slide all the way down the drain to New Orleans in the fall

[Vader]

The Godmachine - Scenes from the Second Storey. Some twenty years ago.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4MHTbw ... F0&pxtry=1

[michaelm]

The Godmachine - Scenes from the Second Storey. Some twenty years ago.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4MHTbw ... F0&pxtry=1

I have been meaning to buy that album for a long time - thanks for the reminder.

[sgt.null]

Dumptruck - for the Country

from one of the most depressing albums ever. Dumptruck's For the Country.

the chorus to this song -

"drifting on an ocean til you die"

[michaelm]

Billie Holliday's version is great, but this is also a really good arrangement of it:

Strange Fruit

[Vader]

One of my all time favorite songs ever:

David Bowie - Cygnet Committee

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OKMSgZo9c8s

I bless you madly, sadly as I tie my shoes
I love you badly, just in time, at times, I guess
Because of you I need to rest
Because it's you that sets the test

So much has gone and little is new
And as the sparrow sings
Dawn chorus for
Someone else to hear
The Thinker sits alone growing older
And so bitter

I gave Them life
I gave Them all
They drained my very soul...dry
I crushed my heart to ease Their pains
No thought for me remains there
Nothing can They spare

What of me?
Who praised Their efforts to be free?
Words of strength and care and sympathy
I opened doors that would have blocked Their way
I braved Their cause to guide, for little pay
I ravaged at my finance just for Those
Those whose claims were steeped in peace, tranquility
Those who said a new world, new ways ever free
Those whose promises stretched in hope and grace for me

I bless you madly, sadly as I tie my shoes
I love you badly, just in time, at times, I guess
Because of you I need to rest, oh yes
Because it's you that sets the test

So much has gone and little is new
And as the sunrise stream
Flickers on me,
My friends talk
Of glory, untold dream, where all is God and God is just a word

"We had a friend, a talking man
Who spoke of many powers he had
Not of the best of men, but Ours
We used him
We let him use his powers
We let him fill Our needs
Now We are strong

And the road is coming to its end
Now the damned have no time to make amends
No purse of token fortune stands in Our way
The silent guns of love will blast the sky

We broke the ruptured structure built of age
Our weapons were the tongues of crying rage
Where money stood
We planted seeds of rebirth
And stabbed the backs of fathers
Sons of dirt

Infiltrated business cesspools
Hating through Our sleeves
Yea, and We slit the Catholic throat
Stoned the poor on slogans such as

Wish You Could Hear
Love Is All We Need
Kick Out The Jams
Kick Out Your Mother
Cut Up Your Friend
Screw Up Your Brother or He'll Get You In the End

And We Know the Flag of Love is from Above
And We Can Force You to Be Free
And We Can Force You to Believe

And I close my eyes and tighten up my brain
For I once read a book in which the lovers were slain
For they knew not the words of the Free States' refrain
It said

I believe in the Power of Good
I Believe in the State of Love
I Will Fight For the Right to be Right
I Will Kill for the Good of the Fight for the Right to be Right

And I open my eyes to look around
And I see a child laid slain on the ground
As a love machine lumbers through desolation rows
Ploughing down man, woman, listening to its command
But not hearing anymore
Not hearing anymore
Just the shrieks from the old rich

And I Want to Believe
In the madness that calls now
And I want to Believe
That a light's shining through
Somehow

And I Want to Believe
And You Want to Believe
And We Want to Believe
And We Want to Live
Oh, We Want to Live

We Want to Live
We Want to Live
We Want to Live
We Want to Live
We Want to Live

I Want to Live
I Want to Live
I Want to Live
I Want to Live
I Want to Live
I Want to Live

Live
Live
Liiive

[Vader]

Never been into grunge, but this song stuck in my head for some reason.

Pearl Jam - Black

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7wmpNkfVJ1U

[Sorus]

Headstones - Midnight Of This Life

well it will end
as always
in tears
and heartbreak
and you can't pay the price this time
it's just the midnight of this life has proven to be the hardest to bear
and this life has proven to be the hardest to bear
well it descends
as always
in the harsh glow of daylight
and I can't turn the tide this time
it's just the midnight of this life has proven to be the hardest to bear
and this life has proven to be the hardest to bear
I pray to God for the daylight
I wake up out of this dream
I swore to you it would be right
but you know that I know that you know what it means
well I will bend as always in tears and heartbreak
but I won't pay the price this time
in the midnight of this life has proven to be the hardest to bear
it's just the midnight has proven to be the hardest to bear



There was a partial version of this song in a very dark TV show that I was obsessed with during a dark time in my life. I spent quite some time looking for the full version, and concluded that it didn't exist. I just found out today that it was finally released last year.

[Ananda]

I love this song's hypnotic darkness with it's simple, but emotional delivery. Reminds me of Yeats or some other golden dawn type vision. This whole album is my favourite of the post industrial apocalyptic neo-pagan folk type stuff.
Current 93 - All the stars are dead now

Bloody smoke
Foggy smoke
Beginnings and endings...
There's a heart of the world
In the bowed bony Burren
There's a trip-hole to her heart
In soaring Snæfellsness
And the crack of the world
The moist ruddy lips of her
Thee slit of the mother fallen
Sliced from the stars
By the slicing discus
At Kamarupa

From her mouth at the end
Of the worlds
From her mouth at the end
Of the times
The shapes that form the ends
Of the wheelings
The forces that shape the forms
Of the breaths
That cover the clouds
Of the green world's last dancings
Flicker forth like spring-heeled jackals
All laughing and bloody and wrathful
And peaceful and shining and pallid
And burning and liquid and sadness
And joy
(Mansour is smiling teethly at the stars
John sits on the stairs with me
His eyes are shining -
Mother - come to me)

Little lovely licking tongues of fire
Smiling and slyly emerge from the stones
The air is now very very viscous
In the distance Sunday children play pipes
The air is now very violent
Birds do not fill the air
Laughing does not fill the air
No bodies fill the air
But the sun filters slowly through the air
As if it has turned to sticky sweet mud
All flowers die
Except for some few
A chain of burning bloody flowers
Follow my eyes crying tears
(Lilith is smiling at the corpse of a cow
And in that corpsey cow
The corpse of another
And so on and so on
And perhaps forever
If times were not folding and falling
Over each other
And so on and so on and so on
And certainly endless)


Mene mene tekel upharsin
We have been weighed and lost
We have been weighed and lost

(I slept I dreamt I dreamed a dream:
London bright fires smiling and burning
Light roads road through the starlacked night
Many dark suns are falling falling down
London Bridge is destroyed)
In my mind pigs and rubble gnaw
In the dark heights and hearts of Albion
Shudderings in the heart
Cruelty in the heart
And this is over
All over now
In Kamarupa

My eyes my mind spinning
Spinning back and forth
Eyes in London
Mind in a hole
Oh they come they come
They run out
Fleeing from what
They come out running
Running
Great Babylon has fallen fallen fallen
Jerusalem has fallen fallen fallen
The great great beast
Is dead dead dead dead
Simon Simon is dead dead dead dead
And some other bleeding children
Are smiling
They're dead in the rubble
They're dead dead dead dead
And Mercury rises
And Mercury falls
And how dead dead dead dead
Dead dead are you


Summertime
When the living is easy
Summertime
When the dying is easy

The world shudders on
Black tree against a bruised blue sky
The fairground is all shabby and silent
Red sky at night
Red sky at night
Danger
Christ is crying
Christ's tears leaving
His heart and night
All the many faces we have worn
All the many faces we have borne
And dead dead dead dead dead dead
Dead dead dead dead dead are we

Though once I thought
Oh once I read
The hidden god plays hide and seek
Whilst others still run from him
From the world's stomach
The goddies emerge
And who comes to judge us
And who comes to push us
The bloody master
Is bloody dead dead dead


And who comes to strike us
And who comes to hold us
Where is his colour
Where is her cover
And What is her nature
And where does he shine from
(Broken birds move through the air -
They all drink blood)
When Christ smiles his smile is broken
Holly ivy old dead trees
Dead dead dead
Holy and ivy dead dead dead dead
Dead dead dead dead
Dead dead dead dead
Rainbow lovely arc lovely lights
Dead dead dead dead
Horn stag cross meets hunter
Dead dead dead dead
(Oh Saint Eustace ora pro nobis)
Old woman old woman old woman
Old and dead dead dead dead
Now no summers left
This side of boxwood
Crosses broken in my midsummer

The south is dying
The north is dying
The west is dying
The east is dying

There are four corners to the world she said
And every one
Is dead dead dead dead
Dead dead dead dead
Dead dead dead dead dead
Dead dead dead dead
Dead dead dead dead dead
And all the planets
They're dead dead dead dead
And all my heart
Is dead dead dead dead
Dead dead dead dead dead dead dead
Dead dead dead dead dead dead dead
It's all dead dead dead