Posted by Recently I have been creating playlists on my Apple Music so I can listen to songs I have not heard for some time. These songs somehow brings good vibes and memories. It started when I read from a Filipino blogger who once so often will highlight “old” songs.
After he featured the song “Heaven Knows I’m Miserable Now” by the Smiths, a song I probably have not heard since I was in college, it inspired me to create a “Euro 80’s Songs” playlist which included this song. “Crying In The Rain,” a remake by A-ha, which I posted about (see post) not too long ago, was also on that list.
Then I also created a playlist I named as “Nostalgic Songs” for songs that I heard regularly during my early youth. These songs transport me back to my childhood days back home in Sampaloc Manila when I still don’t have a care in the world. We have an Akai stereo component and the radio was always on, listening to AM station like DZRH in the early morning for news, and then FM stations for music during the latter part of the day.
Many of the songs I included in this “Nostalgic Songs” I did not really pay attention so much of what they were about, except that I heard them a lot during those yesteryears. Listening to them recently, I realized that some of the songs were rather tragic than nostalgic. Here are 3 very “sad songs” I have on my playlist.
Green, Green Grass of Home
This song is a beautiful ballad, which was initially recorded as a country song, but made popular by Tom Jones, becoming a major hit in 1966. I thought it was just about a man longing to return to his childhood home where he would like to touch the green, green grass of home. It has all the nostalgia of homecoming and being met by his parents and his childhood sweetheart.
But the twist was it was about a man who was in his prison cell, surrounded by four gray walls, and is on death row. He did “go home” but to be buried in the green green grass of home. Here is the last lines of the song:
Yes, they’ll all come to see me
In the shade of that old oak tree
As they lay me ‘Neath the green, green grass of home.
Seasons of the Sun
This is an upbeat song that you would not think it is a sad song from its tune. It was originally a French song but was made popular in English, by Terry Jacks making it a global hit in 1974. I thought the singer was saying goodbye to the summer, or he was just going away.
As I listened to the lyrics recently, I realized that it was about a dying man who was saying his final farewell to his childhood friend, his father, and possibly a daughter (Michelle). Terry Jacks rewrote the lyrics further after a close friend of his was diagnosed with acute leukemia and passed away just four months later. This makes it a very sad song masked by a deceptively cheerful, upbeat melody.
Here’s the chorus of the song:
We had joy, we had fun
We had seasons in the sun
But the hills that we climbed
Were just seasons out of time.
Alone Again (Naturally)
This song has a catchy tune, that when I heard it when I was a child it did not bother me at all. However, this song is considered one of the saddest pop songs ever written. It was written and sang by Gilbert O’Sullivan, and was released in 1971.
The singer starts by describing how he was abandoned at the church by the person he planned to marry. Then he openly contemplates climbing a tower to jump off and end his pain. He also recounts crying when his father died, and later losing his mother, who passed away with a broken heart after missing her husband.
Here’s a recent video (2024) of Gilbert O’Sullivan singing this “tragic” song.