12 Bittersweet Songs to Open Your Heart to the Terrible Beauty of Life
This is in response to episode 843 of The James Altucher Show with Susan Cain. The episode is about Melancholy.
If you assemble this list of songs and listen to it in one siting, please do not hold me accountable for what happens to you. Each of these songs is beautiful and a bit sad, but together they are devastating.
If you assemble this list of songs and listen to it in one siting, please do not hold me accountable for what happens to you. Each of these songs is beautiful and a bit sad, but together they are devastating.
Preview
1. Into My Arms by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds
Some of my favorite lines:
I don't believe in an interventionist God
But I know, darling, that you do
But if I did I would kneel down and ask Him
Not to intervene when it came to you
Not to touch a hair on your head
To leave you as you are
And if He felt He had to direct you
Then direct you into my arms
2. Rock Bottom Riser by Smog
Some of my favorite lines:
I left my mother
I left my father
Left my sisters too
Left them standing on the banks
And they pulled me out
Of this mighty, mighty, mighty river
I am a rock
Bottom riser
And I owe it all to you
3. Innocent When You Dream by Tom Waits
We're running through the graveyard
And we laughed, my friends and I
We swore we'd be together
Until the day we died
Until the day we died
And it's such a sad old feeling
All of the fields are soft and green
And it's memories that I'm stealing
But you're innocent when you dream
When you dream
4. The Park by Feist
With sadness so real
That it populates
The city and leaves
You homeless again
Steam from the cup
And snow on the path
The seasons have changed
From the present to past
5. In the Aeroplane Over The Sea by Neutral Milk Hotel
Favorite line:
Can't believe how strange it is to be anything at all
6. Ghost Town by First Aid Kit
Some of my favorite lines:
And I remember how you told me
All that you wanted to do
The dream of Paris in the morning
Or a New York window view
And I can see it now you're married
And your wife is with a child
And you're all laughing in the garden
And I'm lost somewhere in your mind
If you've got visions of the past
Let them follow you down
For they'll come back to you someday
7. Get Me Away From Here, I’m Dying by Belle and Sebastian
Oh, that wasn't what I meant to say at all
From where I'm sitting, rain
Falling against the lonely tenement has set my mind to wander
Into the windows of my lovers
They never know unless I write
"This is no declaration, I just thought I'd let you know goodbye"
8. The Latter Days by Frontier Ruckus
The Latter-Days are harder than I ever could've known
Come back to retrieve me sometime soon
If the Latter-Days are ending then I hope I'm ending too
And buried someplace where your breath tastes new to me and
Always blowing, so my body's bent and bowing
Deep into the day's ending in summer
The Latter-Days are always panting like a
Second-Comer
9. Tiger Mountain Peasant Song by Fleet Foxes
Some of my favorite lines:
Dear shadow alive and well
How can the body die
You tell me everything
Anything true
Jesse
I don't know what I have done
I'm turning myself to a demon
I don't know what I have done
I'm turning myself to a demon
10. Willow Tree by Chad Van Gaalen
Sleep all day
Just waiting for the sun to set
I hang my clothes
Up on the line
When I die
I'll hang my head beside the willow tree
When I'm dead
Is when I'll be free
11. Crow Jane by Two Gallants
But who’s gonna save me from myself?
Gotta lay the blame on someone else
Somehow I ain’t got no hope
'Cause I’m still runnin’ from the sheriff’s rope
My shoes don’t fit me 'cause they filled with dope
Crow Jane quit me and I just can’t cope
12. Hoppípolla by Sigur Ros
og útilykt? af hárinu þínu
Ég lamdi eins fast og ég get
með nefinu mínu
Hoppa í poll
Í engum stígvélum
Allur rennvotur(rennblautur)
Í engum stígvélum
Translated:
The Wind
An outdoor smell of your hair
I breathe as hard as I can
with my nose
Jump into puddles
With no boots on
Completely drenched(Soaked)
With no boots on
No comments.