The Sad Son: A surprisingly funny memoir about mental illness and a mother's love

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Everybody Hurts” is one of the rare songs on this list that actually offers catharsis. It’s beautifully simple: you’re sad, but you’re not alone because “everybody hurts, everybody cries.” You’re human, in other words, and we all have our moments. So take R.E.M.’s advice, “take comfort in your friends,” blast this song, have yourself a good cry, and then move on. You’ll feel better, I promise.— Bonnie Stiernberg And don't try to convince yourself that you, as a step parent, can love your spouse's children the same as if they were your own either. You won't. EVER. It's nothing to be ashamed of. It's just how it is. And how it should be, really. That depth of love is reserved for our own children. It cannot be replaced, and shouldn't be. If Claire had to give even a small portion of the love she had for Grayson to a child that was not her own there's no way she'd have been able to do all she did for him...and that things would have turned out the way they did. The title alone for this song tells you that it’s going to discuss a somber topic that everyone feels at some point in their lives.

Mike Hadreas’ songwriting is unabashedly raw, the kind that speaks about the dirty and the unsightly in a way you can’t ignore. He puts a traumatic experience into words that sound like poetry—they’re arranged in such a way that it’s almost just as heartbreaking to read them on paper as it is to hear Hadreas tenderly singing them. But it wouldn’t have quite the effect without that bleak, pulsating piano line.— Tess Duncan Stark. The echo chamber of a broken heart for a beat; dried twigs scratching at a cold window for a voice make Townes Van Zandt’s “Waitin’ Around To Die” a haunting more than a song. Beaten women, getting hustled, crime gone bad, jail time, addiction. Two minutes, 23 seconds of harsh reality, stoic in its acceptance of a fate worse than death.— Holly Gleason That molten caramel voice drenches an acoustic guitar. Another man-fighting-with-his-wife country ballad is deceptive as the chorus swells up “You don’t know sadness til you face life alone / You don’t know about lonely ’til it’s chiseled in stone…” Suddenly, sorrow’s permanence is concrete, pride is poison and Vern Gosdin bends notes and your heart. It’s 1989’s Country Music Association’s Song of the Year for good reason.— Holly GleasonSome sad songs on this list, like Noah Cyrus and PJ Harding's "Dear August" or Julia Stone's "We All Have," hold a glimmer of hope that befits this moment, as the pandemic stretches on and a return to normalcy can feel like a blur in the distance. https://youtu.be/Y6yUY7M9yfw Video can’t be loaded because JavaScript is disabled: REM – Everybody Hurts Lyrics (https://youtu.be/Y6yUY7M9yfw) The undulating pedal steel guitar on “D-I-V-O-R-C-E” pulls at metaphorical heartstrings, but the lyrical content is gut-wrenching enough on its own. Tammy Wynette articulates the internal struggle of so many divorcees-to-be with children, the strain and ache in her warble serving as a vehicle for her overwhelming remorse. Plus juxtaposing words like “toy” and “surprise” with “divorce” and “custody” severely ups the misery factor.— Tess Duncan

It’s difficult to talk about “Two-Headed Boy Pt. 2” without talking about the album it brings to a powerful close, but I do believe that even without the context of In the Aeroplane Over the Sea, the song stands out as one of the most moving pieces of music in the past two decades. Like most of Jeff Mangum’s work, there are times when you have to put in some effort to parse the expressionistic imagery (“blister please with those wings in your spine…how he’d love to find your tongue in his teeth”) but at other times, the emotion is plain and jarring. “In my dreams you’re alive,” he sings, in that plaintive, keening, inimitable voice, and it builds to a climax that I, personally, find devastating: “When we break, we’ll wait for our miracle. God is a place you will wait for the rest of your life.” I can’t think of a better way to encapsulate the hope and fear and agony and grace of being alive. Nor can I think of anyone who can somehow express this inexpressible concept with such power and emotional precision quite like Mangum. At the song’s end, you can hear the scuffling sound of a chair as he rises and leaves—a subtle, poignant conclusion to one of the most singular, beautiful albums ever made.— Shane Ryan The moaning organ provides a steady accompaniment for Tom Waits’ gruff wailing on this desolate blues song. He delivers with anxiety-driven urgency, sounding like he could just break down into a blubbering frenzy at any moment. The horn section rides along smoothly in comparison, cresting and dipping deftly as Waits sings vigorously, wounds exposed. There’s no one who can pull off the palpable dejection of “I don’t need anybody, ’cause I learned to be alone” quite like Waits does.— Tess DuncanMatt Vasquez wrote this History From Below tearjerker as an ode to his late grandparents, who both passed away within a short timeframe. It’s written from the perspective of his deceased grandfather, who implores his still-living wife to “sleep oh sleep, my Vivian” because “heaven is too cold without you.” I mean, come on. If your heart is made of stone and that’s not enough to choke you up, he also visits his ailing wife from beyond the grave to comfort her as she dies: “I know it’s hard to deal with the pain/you’re yellow from your liver giving out/so just close your eyes and think of me/oh, Jerry’s not leaving this gal.” I’m getting misty just thinking about it.— Bonnie Stiernberg I hope that anyone struggling with a child, no matter what age, will read this book and take some inspiration from it. No matter how hard it seems, don't lose your sense of humor, don't give up hope, turn to your friends when you need to (especially that one SUPER GOOD ONE that won't blame you for your child's behavior), DON'T ask anyone who doesn't have kids for parenting advice (DCFS is FULL of staff without children, which I find is a huge issue), stay away from judgmental people, ignore judgmental looks and stares (they don't know you or what you're going through), and eventually things WILL work out. What counts as a " sad song"? It doesn't have to be a ballad sung by a soft voice. Nor does it have to be one that makes you weep every time you hear it. A sad song is one with an emotional soul—a song that unravels something in you. Maybe it helps you process your own feelings by bringing them to the surface or articulates a feeling you thought you'd been alone in. Through a special alchemy, the right sad song can give its listener a cathartic release that actually feels really good. Yes, sad songs do say so much. And these 50 songs helped the Paste staff to hurt so good. I tried to keep it to one song per artist but Johnny Cash ended up getting a pass. This list barely scratches the surface of sad songs—or even sad songs that got nominated by our writers. If your favorite is missing, add it to the comments section below. Here are our 50 favorite of the saddest songs: Sad songs can be a great way to deal with sadness and express emotion because, in reality, everybody hurts from time to time. Songs can also provide comfort in difficult times.