Top 10 Most Depressing Songs

The Top Ten
1 Fix You - Coldplay

This is definitely the most depressing song. I cry all the time listening to this. It reminds me of my nan who has cancer and how lucky I am to have her alive. It also scares me about losing her as well because it is a song she likes, but it sounds like a funeral song. I love my nan and I never want her to leave me (die). I will be depressed for the rest of my life if she does. I wish I could help her, but all I can do is try and make as many memories as possible.

I won't say that the song is not sad, because it is. However, it's very wrong to call it depressing. In the song, the subject is distraught over something, and the singer cares enough about him or her to help through it. Ultimately, the song is about the singer's love for the subject and the hope for the future. A depressing song shouldn't have that hope at the end.

2 There is a Light that Never Goes Out - The Smiths

What a joke list. Creep? Really? Radiohead is my all-time favorite band, and they have far more depressing songs, such as How to Disappear Completely, Last Flowers, or True Love Waits.

Anyway, on to the Smiths. This song is definitely heartbreaking, but it's kind of uplifting in a depressingly beautiful way. Moz sounds like someone who has been through a lot of emotional trauma, and for him to announce his ideal death as being by this person's side is romantic in a sick and twisted way. By far, this is my favorite song on this list and one of my all-time favorites for sure.

3 Mad World - Michael Andrews

Ironically, it's depressing and disturbing in ways, but it always makes me very happy to hear it come on my playlist. One of my all-time favorite songs. I hope I'm not the only one who is comforted by listening to it. It doesn't awaken me to the problems of the world - I constantly see them every day. What it does is relax me. It lets me know that there's someone else who understands what I'm feeling. It tells me I'm not the only one.

I really feel a connection to this song. It's like the story of my life. Sometimes, I feel like no one can understand me. It's as if I'm the only one in this world who is sane. I know it's kind of a condescending way of looking at life, but it's just how I feel, and this song illustrates my feelings perfectly.

4 Creep - Radiohead

This song affects me so much whenever I listen to it. It's oddly satisfying and sad at the same time. There are not many words to describe the emotion shown, yet Thom Yorke combines it with words to make such an amazing song. I have a connection with it, and I can't help but cry when I think of my loved one.

This song is the most relatable song. If you love someone that you know doesn't love you back, this is your song. It is extremely well put together and makes me tear up every night when I listen to it, thinking of that person I've loved for 5 years and will never get because I know that she doesn't and never will love me.

5 Stan - Eminem

The first three verses are pure desperation. Stan is a person with serious problems and depression. Having no one to talk to about his sorrows, he projects the relationship he would have with any person of reference (someone that's obviously missing in his life) onto Eminem. He believes Eminem would understand him, having had the same problems according to his songs. He thinks he found his soulmate ("We should be together too") in Slim Shady. When he doesn't reply, it's as if he has no one in his life and his soulmate betrayed him. The notion that not even Eminem, to whom Stan gave all his love, would care about him is devastating. The suicide/homicide is a cry for help. It's also a fact that people who go on killing sprees are mostly those who never could talk about their massive problems. They are always the silent ones.

But what makes this song so sad is the fourth verse. Where Eminem writes back, giving Stan some serious advice, being honest but not disrespectful, trying to cheer him up and being optimistic about Stan's future life, until he realizes what Stan has done. It's this contrast between the positive style in which Em's letter is written and the darkness of the tragedy that makes this song so sad. And what comes next? All those thoughts that must be rushing through Em's mind the moment the beat cuts off. You can almost hear the sleepless nights Stan is predicting in Verse 3 in that one particular moment when "Damn" is spoken. It's one word that captures the moment of extreme emotional shock more perfectly than any movie ever did.

6 Everybody Hurts - R.E.M.

Michael Stipe's voice pierces like a dagger, and the theme of the song really strikes a note with anyone feeling down. You come out of the song feeling like your day has been lifted a little bit.

I remember this growing up as it was one of my favorites. Even today, through my various bouts of depression, it remains so.

I hate this song, but it's still very depressing.

7 Down In a Hole - Alice In Chains

Not as high on the list because fewer people know about it. But it is an excellent tour through the mind of a man who is utterly hopeless but oh, so talented!

This song should be higher. It's excellent and depressing and just grabs your heartstrings.

So amazing. It really makes you feel like there's no hope.

8 Disenchanted - My Chemical Romance

This song is certainly deep and depressing. My Chemical Romance will forever be my favorite band. The emotion Gerard Way (Lead singer) manages to get across in every song is so impressive, both in lyrics and melodically. However, I can't help but say that Cancer must be more depressing. The emotion behind every song, this one definitely makes me agree that it certainly deserves a spot, but I personally feel that Cancer is a more depressing song.

This song is really emotional because the lyrics were kind of sad. My heart touched when the lyrics "Now, will it matter if I'm gone?" were heard. It was ringing in my head every time I heard the acoustic guitar at the beginning. And it's kind of really describing our life, that, will everything matter after we're gone? And the person that we love all the time was just kind of the one who left us behind. They just make us feel like we're a sad song, and that's really sad. Also, it's amazing.

9 Hurt - Johnny Cash

This song is gut-wrenching for me. NIN's version is good, too, but Cash takes this song to another level. The rasp and evident pain and regret in his voice make this song an apology for all he'd done that hurt those he loved and cared for, and a wish at the end of an old legend's life to go back and do it differently now. Gorgeous and haunting, even if it's not his original material.

In this song, you can hear the pain of Johnny Cash's mistakes, you can hear his every regret. He took this Nine Inch Nails song and made it a masterpiece of his own. This is one of the few songs in existence in which you can feel the pain carried with it.

10 Dear Agony - Breaking Benjamin

I heard this one day and it described how I feel. I have been battling depression for years now, and this song expresses me.

One of my favorite songs because it describes perfectly how I feel.

Amazing lyrics... It's one you can feel all of the emotion he is trying to put into words.

The Contenders
11 Hello - Evanescence

This is one of the saddest songs I have ever heard. I love Evanescence, but every time I hear this song, it makes me want to cry. This song, along with My Immortal, is on the same album, which makes the whole thing even sadder. Amy Lee sure knows how to make someone break down into tears with her music. Another reason to love Evanescence.

I love this song. But I do have to admit that it does make me cry every time I hear it. This was the song that was played at my twin brother's funeral. He loved Evanescence. I even bought him the Fallen album, but after he died, my mother gave it back to me and said that he would have wanted me to have it.

12 Washer - Slint
13 Walking Away - Limp Bizkit
14 Fade to Black - Metallica

The lyrics are just so sad. They make me feel like everything is gone. When you listen to the song, you are able to just be somewhere else, out of this world for a while. (Sorry for bad English. I'm from Finland)

The lyrics in this song are very depressing and dark and almost make you suicidal, but it also helps you get over sad things that have happened to you. Amazing song.

Yesterday seems as though it never existed. Death greets me warm, now I will just say goodbye. Goodbye. A song in which almost all hope is lost. In some parts of the song, the guitars actually cry. This song is excellent to listen to when you have reached rock bottom. In conclusion, this is a song that fits if something has broken and destroyed you.

15 Suicide Note Pt I - Pantera

Pantera's Suicide Notes (Pt I and Pt II) are a powerful set of songs about suicide. This one is more serious and more depressed, while the second one is more angry and hateful. They depict perfectly the feelings of desperation, the two moods a depressed person swings between.

"Would you look at me now? Can you tell I'm a man? With the scars on my wrist, who'll prove I'll try again. Try to die again." I messed up on that a bit. But such a depressing song. And I relate to it. Part Two isn't as good. Part Two is much heavier, but I feel this one is more meaningful.

16 Captain Jack - Billy Joel
17 Yesterday - The Beatles

The song is eternal. Even future generations who hear this song can easily relate to how sentimental and mesmerizing life was in the '70s.

I cry every time I hear this song, but that's mainly because I have very precious memories associated with it.

Of all these songs, this one is the most depressing, distressing, and just plain old sad with a capital S!

18 Caroline, No - The Beach Boys
19 We are Not What We Say We Are - Versa
20 The Long and Winding Road - The Beatles
21 Hollow - Pantera
22 Wish You Were Here - Pink Floyd

So beautiful. But my favorite will always be Queen. Still, Pink Floyd is in my top ten or five or so.

A soulful and screaming guitar line combined with deep vocals creates a raspy yet quiet jam.

Not just the song, but the story behind it – the tale of Syd Barrett. This song has so much power and meaning within two simple verses.

23 Nights In White Satin - The Moody Blues
24 How to Disappear Completely - Radiohead

The first time I heard this song was at 3 am. I bawled so hard that I nearly had a panic attack. To me, this is a picture of my sort of depression. It's not one of just sadness and pain, it's of denial and escape. Like you're fading away to nothingness, to cease to exist.

One of the most depressing pieces of music I've ever heard, or endured. When you can't take anything anymore, there's a way further down. From depression to reflectance. This is what this song means to me and many people.

This song is an absolutely, painfully heartfelt yearning to not be where you are. From a band with many powerfully emotive tracks, this one must be considered the most exceptionally brilliant of them all.

25 We Might as Well Be Strangers - Keane
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