my first thoughts are between Ralph McTell's Streets of London, 'carrying her home in two carrier bags', and Gilbert O'Sullivan's Alone Again Naturally, 'And at sixty-five years old
My mother, God rest her soul
Couldn't understand why the only man
She had ever loved had been taken.'

Just heard the latter today and as usual it brought a tear to my eye.

Why am I in this depressed mood, with new hope on the horizon for all us Poolies?

You said it......Gilbert O Sullivan Alone Again Naturally....and when she passed away, I cried and cried all day, alone again......naturally...............GENIUS.

Sat at traffic lights sobbing today!

Personal fave:

Oh I live by my mirror and I stare in my eyes,
Just trying to make out who I see there,
But I'm looking at a woman that I can't recognise
And I don't think that she knows me either.

There are lines in her face and her hair is a mess,
And the light in her eyes it grows colder.
In the morning there is nothing that will change, ah but yes.
I will be just a little bit older.

I wasn't there that morning
When my Father passed away
I didn't get to tell him
All the things I had to say

I think I caught his spirit
Later that same year
I'm sure I heard his echo
In my baby's new born tears
I just wish I could have told him in the living years

This played on the radio when I was on the way home from my Dad`s funeral, had to pull on to the hard shoulder, chokes me every time.

She’s a big fat cow bag, twice the size of me. Hairs on her fanny like the branches of a tree.

Not that I personally think they're the saddest words, but Neil Young does:

The saddest words
Of tongue or pen
Are these four words
"It might have been"

Always gets me too that song, great lyrics that make you think about....well you know.

Melanie disagrees with Neil:

And the saddest thing under the sun above,
Is to say good-bye to the ones you love.

The one that gets me is this verse from The Green Fields of France
In fact all the verses get me but these are the killer lines about the war to end all wars:

Well the suffering, the sorrow, the glory, the pain
The killing, the dying, it was all done in vain,
For Willie McBride, it all happened again,
And again. And again. And again. And again

WW1 song that does it for me is from our old friend Roger Waters, Us and Them.

That one about the kid that fell out of a sky scraper window.

Would you know my name
If I saw you in heaven

Not just any kid, Eric Clapton's son IIRC.

That's right. Sad sad song.

This always brings a tear too my glass eye

Don't jump of the roof dad
You'll make a hole in the yard
Mothers just planted petunias
The weeding and seeding was hard

If you must end it all now dad
Why don't you give us a break
Just take a walk to the park dad
And there you can jump in the lake

Tommy Cooper 1961

Try all of Harvey Andrew's The Soldier.
If you've ever served in Northern Ireland you'll get every word.

The drugs don't work. The entire song.

Don't remember all the words cos I can't listen to it, but 'Hate Your Drug' by St Etienne is incredibly moving.

Two songs both mentioned........The Living Years for my Dad, and the drugs don't work for my Ma....when she was dying in the Hospice. Personally very sad

She can read and write, fuck and fight, and even ride a motorbike, and she's the girl that's gonna marry me

Alone here in the kitchen I feel there's something missing
I beg for some forgiveness but beggings not my business.

Linkins park latest album was like a cry for help/suicide note.

He killed himself a few months after it came out.

Labelled with love is a song that gets me every time I hear it.

Very very sad and poignant song

"They're taking her children away
Because they said she was not a good mother
They're taking her children away
Because she was making it with sisters and brothers
And everyone else, all of the others
Like cheap officers who would stand there and flirt in front of me
They're taking her children away
Because they said she was not a good mother
They're taking her children away
Because of the things that they heard she had done
The black Air Force sergeant was not the first one
And all of the drugs she took, every one, every one
And I am the Water Boy, the real game's not over here
But my heart is overflowin' anyway
I'm just a tired man, no words to say
But since she lost her daughter
It's her eyes that fill with water
And I am much happier this way"

Sad stuff from Lou Reed but then he added real kids crying as well. Mrs Toulouse always makes me take it off within about a minute of me putting it on.

"Eleanor Rigby"

Ah, look at all the lonely people
Ah, look at all the lonely people

Eleanor Rigby picks up the rice in the church where a wedding has been
Lives in a dream
Waits at the window, wearing the face that she keeps in a jar by the door
Who is it for?

All the lonely people
Where do they all come from?
All the lonely people
Where do they all belong?

Father McKenzie writing the words of a sermon that no one will hear
No one comes near
Look at him working, darning his socks in the night when there's nobody there
What does he care?

All the lonely people
Where do they all come from?
All the lonely people
Where do they all belong?

Ah, look at all the lonely people
Ah, look at all the lonely people

Eleanor Rigby died in the church and was buried along with her name
Nobody came
Father McKenzie wiping the dirt from his hands as he walks from the grave
No one was saved

All the lonely people
(Ah, look at all the lonely people)
Where do they all come from?
All the lonely people
(Ah, look at all the lonely people)
Where do they all belong?

agreed horden.

Hit me with your rhythm stick........thats sad!

You can tell the Captain,
You can tell the crew,
I don't want a monkey or a cockatoo.
I want a banana, I want a banana,
bring me back a banana sailor boy.

One little chap he had a mishap,
Broke off his horse's head,

It gets me every time

Now old Paddy's goat had a wonderous appetite
And one day for breakfast he ate some dynamite
A big box of matches he swallowed all serene
And out he went and swallowed up a quarter paraffin

He sat by the fireside, he didn't give a hang
He swallowed a spark and exploded with a bang
So if you go to heaven you can bet a dollar note
That the angel with the whiskers on is Paddy McGinty's goat

Bette Middler, The Wind Beneath my Wings,
Ohhhh, oh, oh, oh, ohhh.
It must have been cold there in my shadow,
To never have sunlight on your face.
You were content to let me shine, that's your way.
You always walked a step behind.
So I was the one with all the glory,
While you were the one with all the strength.
A beautiful face without a name for so long.
A beautiful smile to hide the pain.
Did you ever know that you're my hero,
And everything I would like to be?
I can fly higher than an eagle,
For you are the wind beneath my wings.
It might have appeared to go unnoticed,
But I've got it all here in my heart.
I want you to know I know the truth, of course I know it.
I would be nothing without you.
Did you ever know that you're my hero?
You're everything I wish I could be.
I could fly higher than an eagle,
For you are the wind beneath my wings.
Did I ever tell you you're my hero?
You're everything, everything I wish I could be.
Oh, and I, I could fly higher than an eagle,
For you are the wind beneath my wings,
'cause you are the wind beneath my wings.

If you hear it on Eastside Story, the majestic album it's taken from, it's even more so. There's a 30-second spell of that LP that gets me every time.

The song preceding it is a little ditty about a bird who Chris Difford used to know who, in his words..

"she kept an old acoustic, she never, ever used it. I learned to play her favourite Country Songs, with one or two chords always going wrong.."

then, without a gap between the tracks, it's the opening bars of "Labelled With Love".

Absolute geniuses, the pair of them, and Elvis Costello who produced it and came up with the idea.

"Grocer Jack,Grocer Jack,get off your back"..was a sad un. he never did though.

And Ernie..he drove the fastest milk cart in the West.

I always flirt with death
I look ill but I don't care about it

Blink 182 - Another Girl, Another Planet

Shame on you Joe Mac.

Another song that should never, ever have been allowed to be covered.

Talk Talk's Mark Hollis ..I Believe in You

Only a Hobo..Dylan.. but Rod gave it heart.

Sad Songs.

Rod Hull?

Because it showed the original up?

I'm a big Blink182 fan, but that's just daft.

Gordon Lightfoot - The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald

When suppertime came, the old cook came on deck sayin'
Fellas, it's too rough to feed ya
At seven pm a main hatchway caved in, he said
Fellas, it's been good t'know ya
The captain wired in he had water comin' in
And the good ship and crew was in peril
And later that night when his lights went outta sight
Came the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald

Does any one know where the love of God goes
When the waves turn the minutes to hours?
The searches all say they'd have made Whitefish Bay
If they'd put fifteen more miles behind her
They might have split up or they might have capsized
They may have broke deep and took water
And all that remains is the faces and the names
Of the wives and the sons and the daughters

In a musty old hall in Detroit they prayed,
In the maritime sailors' cathedral
The church bell chimed till it rang twenty-nine times
For each man on the Edmund Fitzgerald
The legend lives on from the Chippewa on down
Of the big lake they call 'gitche gumee'
Superior, they said, never gives up her dead
When the gales of November come early