Sad Music For Happy People

I love all sorts of music, but there’s something SO GOOD about a heart-wrenching, goose-bump inducing tearjerker. That said, I’m not really one to listen to sad music when I’m bummed out – I typically prefer to listen to really sad music when I’m happy. Why is that? Maybe because when you’re generally happy, life feels a bit…dull, but in a great way? Kind of like something’s missing, but you definitely don’t want that something. But listening to a really sad, soul-crushing song can make you really feel alive for a minute, even if you don’t necessarily relate right in the moment – it’s kind of like, proof you can still feel pain like a tortured artist even if you’re a grinning goofball in reality.

Here are some of my all-time favorite sad bastard songs:

• Talking In Code ~ Margot & The Nuclear So and So’s (GOD this song is good – best breakup song of all time, in my book)
• The Gold ~ Manchester Orchestra
• Simple Math ~ Manchester Orchestra
• Lightness ~ Death Cab For Cutie
• Transatlanticism ~ Death Cab For Cutie 
• I Don’t Want Love ~ The Antlers
• A Lack of Color ~ Death Cab For Cutie (this song actually isn’t really sad, but it has that sad feeling – also, Death Cab is clutch for this type of music, clearly)
• Should You Return ~ Copeland (if you want to get REAL sappy)
• Colorblind ~ Counting Crows (also great for your, ahem, sexy time playlist…which, oddly enough, is the case with several of these songs – all that raw emotion, man.)
• Black And Blue ~ Counting Crows
• Dizzy ~ Jimmy Eat World
• 23 ~ Jimmy Eat World (This was actually our wedding song, HA!)
• The Big Fight ~ Stars
• Not Your Lover ~ Blitzen Trapper
• Discoloration ~ Dawn Golden
• Cold Fame ~ Band Of Skulls
• That Western Skyline ~ Dawes
• Curs in the Weeds ~ Horse Feathers
• Darlin’ ~ Houdmouth
• My Baby Don’t Understand Me ~ Natalie Press
• NYC ~ Interpol
• Leif Erikson ~ Interpol
• I Can’t Make You Love Me ~ Bonnie Raitt (The classic!)
• The Background ~ Third Eye Blind (Your classic dead lover cancer song)
• Casimir Pulaski Day ~ Sufjan Stevens (another cancer song for good measure)
• Demons ~ Guster

Another option is to just listen to straight Radiohead – pretty much any Radiohead will do, but In Rainbows is a good album choice for the real soul-crushing stuff.

Happy weeping!

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