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Cursed Songs (Gloomy Sunday, Etc.)

gloomy moz

Morrissey saw fit, as is his wont, to borrow a few lines from GS for the Smiths' death lullaby Asleep.
 
Heather Nova's new album (can't remember the name!) has a version on it, I think it's beautiful. I wasn't aware of it's history, not being a music buff, but it's really lovely the way she does it. I didn't really think it was that depressing either, I just found it really moving.

Kitty.
 
Re: Re: composer

p.younger said:
The B.B.C. deemed it too depressing for the airwaves.
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And yet they'll still play anything from Michael Jackson's back catalogue without pausing for thought....
 
stevo said:
I very much doubt that many records are ever banned by the BBC, but plenty don't make it onto the current playlists, and the publicists for those records like to say they are banned in order to generate publicity and record sales.
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On the other hand, playing records not on the current BBC playlist has been known to be cited by DJs as a contributing reason (OK, admittedly along with low audience figures) for them losing certain high-profile jobs.
 
suicidally depressing song

I remember reading somewhere that in the olde England (I'm not sure of the century) there was a song (or simply a piece of music) going around that had such a depressing melody that it caused many people to kill themselves, and was for this reason banned by the King (or Queen) of the day.

(I tend to get the same feeling these days when watching Top of the Pops, but that's another story entirely.)

Does anyone know whether this is true, and is the piece of music in existence?
 
I think you're thinking of "Gloomy Sunday."

The Suicide Song

Gloomy Sunday - the notorious 'Hungarian Suicide Song' - was written in 1933. Its melody and original lyrics were the creation of Rezsô Seress, a self-taught pianist and composer born in Hungary in 1899.

The crushing hopelessness and bitter despair which characterised the two stanza penned by Seress were superseded by the more mournful, melancholic verses of Hungarian poet László Jávor.

When the song came to public attention it quickly earned its reputation as a 'suicide song'. Reports from Hungary alleged individuals had taken their lives after listening to the haunting melody, or that the lyrics had been left with their last letters.

The lyricists Sam M. Lewis and Desmond Carter each penned an English translatation of the song. It was Lewis's version, first recorded by Hal Kemp and his Orchestra, with Bob Allen on vocals (1936), that was to become the most widely covered.

The popularity of Gloomy Sunday increased greatly through its interpretation by Billie Holiday (1941). In an attempt to alleviate the pessemistic tone a third stanza was added to this version, giving the song a dreamy twist, yet still the suicide reputation remained. Gloomy Sunday was banned from the playlists of major radio broadcasters around the world. The B.B.C. deemed it too depressing for the airwaves.

Despite all such bans, Gloomy Sunday continued to be recorded and sold.

People continued to buy the recordings; some committed suicide.

Rezsô Seress jumped to his death from his flat in 1968.
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However, I would also like to nominate "Seasons in the Sun" by Terry Jacks.
 
As no-one else has mentioned it... there was an excellent Radio 4 documentary about this song last Tuesday, called (confusingly) 'Killing Me Softly'. It featured clips of various Hungarian and English versions, and also elaborated on the various urban legends associated with it.

It's available to listen to online at
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/atoz/index.shtml#k
(it will probably disappear this Tuesday).
 
Kronos quartet did a suitably gloomy instrumental rendition of the original Hungarian version, 'Szomoru Vasarnap'. I love Billie Holiday's version, but for the most chilling rendition I'd recommend Diamanda Galas' spare and haunting interpretation from her marvellous album, 'Malediction and Prayer'.
 
The Associates version of GS

As someone mentioned, The Associates did a version on their long player, which was my introduction to the song (after being scared witless by the stories about the "haunted song" as a kid, no doubt in some Peter Haining book).

Anyway, the lead singer of The Associates, Billy Mackenzie, topped himself!

So, there's another suicide to the story (although he killed himself in his dad's whippet shed so it's not exactly going to turn up as another verse to the song)
 
that song.

i read about a song(i cant type it's name).that was a link to so many deaths over the years that it ended up being banned by the BBC,
a little while back i was in a car with my brother and some friends going to another friends firework show.on the way for some reason i told my brother about the song,i told him that i was to scared to say it so i gave him some clues,and in the end he got it,and like a fool said it out loud,
cut along stories short one of the fireworks,fell over(now this thing was real big)like a drum shape,all of a sudden it goes off but the thing is every one there got hit,it was like you couldn't escape it,if you went one way that was the way the firework went.there wasn't any serious injuries,
but there was something not quite right about the way the firework fell over,
anyway,like i said i dont realy want to type the name of the song but here are some clues.

first word.begining with g,something that is dark and sad.
second word.the day after saturday.

it's pretty easy.
 
again i pick a subject that end's up on another thread,
with the same type of story.
DOH!
 
Don't feel bad, zed; there's just so bloody much on the MB that it's very difficult to know what's there and what's not.
 
Gloomy Sunday

Supposed to be a song written by a Hungarian named Rezsô Seress who was a pianist and composer in 1933.

The crushing hopelessness and bitter despair which characterised the two stanza penned by Seress were superseded by the more mournful, melancholic verses of Hungarian poet László Jávor.

Apparently when it became a hit, people were apparently commiting suicide after listening to it and they were found dead with it continuing to play.

Reports from Hungary alleged individuals had taken their lives after listening to the haunting melody, or that the lyrics had been left with their last letters.

Then two lyricists Sam M. Lewis and Desmond Carter each penned an English translatation of the song. It was Lewis's version, first recorded by Hal Kemp and his Orchestra, with Bob Allen on vocals (1936), that was to become the most widely covered.


The popularity of the song increased greatly through its interpretation by Billie Holiday (1941). they ever added a third stanza to the song to alleviate pessemistic tone, but stillthe suicide reputation still stayed.

Gloomy Sunday was banned from the playlists of major radio broadcasters around the world. The B.B.C. deemed it too depressing for the airwaves.

Despite all such bans, Gloomy Sunday continued to be recorded and sold.

Anyway original version of the song by Renzo Seress.

LITERAL ENGLISH TRANSLATION:

It is autumn and the leaves are falling
All love has died on earth
The wind is weeping with sorrowful tears
My heart will never hope for a new spring again
My tears and my sorrows are all in vain
People are heartless, greedy and wicked...

Love has died!

The world has come to its end, hope has ceased to have a meaning
Cities are being wiped out, shrapnel is making music
Meadows are coloured red with human blood
There are dead people on the streets everywhere
I will say another quiet prayer:
People are sinners, Lord, they make mistakes...

The world has ended!
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Laszlo Javor version.

LITERAL ENGLISH TRANSLATION:

Gloomy Sunday with a hundred white flowers
I was waiting for you my dearest with a prayer
A Sunday morning, chasing after my dreams
The carriage of my sorrow returned to me without you
It is since then that my Sundays have been forever sad
Tears my only drink, the sorrow my bread...

Gloomy Sunday

This last Sunday, my darling please come to me
There'll be a priest, a coffin, a catafalque and a winding-sheet
There'll be flowers for you, flowers and a coffin
Under the blossoming trees it will be my last journey
My eyes will be open, so that I could see you for a last time
Don't be afraid of my eyes, I'm blessing you even in my death...

The last Sunday
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Sam M Lewis one.

Sunday is gloomy, my hours are slumberless
Dearest the shadows I live with are numberless
Little white flowers will never awaken you
Not where the black coach of sorrow has taken you
Angels have no thought of ever returning you
Would they be angry if I thought of joining you?

Gloomy Sunday

Gloomy is Sunday, with shadows I spend it all
My heart and I have decided to end it all
Soon there'll be candles and prayers that are sad I know
Let them not weep let them know that I'm glad to go
Death is no dream for in death I'm caressing you
With the last breath of my soul I'll be blessing you

Gloomy Sunday

Dreaming, I was only dreaming
I wake and I find you asleep in the deep of my heart, here
Darling, I hope that my dream never haunted you
My heart is telling you how much I wanted you

Gloomy Sunday
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Desmond Carter Version.

Sadly one Sunday I waited and waited
With flowers in my arms for the dream I'd created
I waited 'til dreams, like my heart, were all broken
The flowers were all dead and the words were unspoken
The grief that I knew was beyond all consoling
The beat of my heart was a bell that was tolling

Saddest of Sundays

Then came a Sunday when you came to find me
They bore me to church and I left you behind me
My eyes could not see one I wanted to love me
The earth and the flowers are forever above me
The bell tolled for me and the wind whispered, "Never!"
But you I have loved and I bless you forever

Last of all Sundays
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Other two are in Italian or Spanish so read them here.

http://www.phespirit.info/gloomysunday/ ... _gonda.htm

http://www.phespirit.info/gloomysunday/ ... rrindo.htm

More Links.

http://www.phespirit.info/gloomysunday/

Read the original one but maybe it was the tune to it that made people depressed
 
I've heard the Billie Holiday recording plenty of times. It's never made me want to top myself. If I was in the mood to top myself though, it might be the kind of record I'd put on as the last thing I wanted to hear. I suspect the legend arises from people confusing cause with effect. Listening to depressing music doesn't cause you to become suicidal. But if you're already suicidal, you'll probably start listening to depressing music.
 
I just heard a jolly instrumental on the radio by the Move called "Music To Commit Suicide To". I wonder if it was inspired by "Gloomy Sunday"? Or is this one for the coincidences thread?
 
I think it has more to do with feeling suicidal in the first place. In that mental /emotional condition, any appropriately somber-sounding tune could be the trigger. We had a family friend who took his life while ''Don't Dream It's Over'' by Crowded House was playing on his CD changer in a continuous loop. It was still playing when his sister discovered him.
To this day, whenever I hear the opening chords of that song, I have to change the radio station.
 
Gloomy Sunday

Back in the 1930s, when "Gloomy Sunday" was new, the hotel detectives at the fairly upscale Hotel Edison on New York's Times Square had orders to knock on room doors if they heard the song being played, and if they received no answer to immediately enter with their pass keys or even to break down the door if it was deadbolted.

When I first learned of the tune back in the middle 1960s I asked a well- known Cincinnati, Ohio, jazz musician what he knew about it. His reply, in effect, was "I've never even heard of it....but if you find a recording DON'T play it."
 
Funny, I was just about to do a search on the Hungarian Suicide song after it being mention in a Phil Rickman book which I've just finished. This thread has answered a number of my questions (is it real? etc.). One of those nice bits of synchronicity though :)
 
Re: Gloomy sunday

fbasil~ said:
Gloomy Sunday is the title of a movie with the song and its theme intact. It is currently playing in a movie theatre in New Zealand for over a year without being replaced by another movie because it is 'popular' it is made by a european company and it is set in Hungary.

Lazlo (as a character) is one of the three main actors in the movie.
See it.
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I saw it tonight. It's a German/Hungarian movie: "Gloomy Sunday - Ein Lied von Liebe und Tod" (1999) (A Song of Love and Death), based on the novel by Nick Barkow. The female lead, Erika Marozsán, is simply stunningly beautiful to my eyes. The film is well worth a watch, and like many good films shifts mood from light to quite serious and has a nice aesthetic about it with it's dreamy and then sinister 40s setting. The actual handling of the song part is fine, although the suicide aspect is a little theatric sometimes and borders on tongue in cheek. Do watch it though, it's well worth your time.

edit: forgot to add - they change the means of the composer's death and there's plenty tied in with the growing consequences and consciousness of the final solution and what a man's life/dignity is worth.
 
Shifting the Blame

Tom Slemen relates the story of "Gloomy Sunday" in one of his books, but he shifts the location of the Suicide Song's composition from Budapest, Hungary, to....Paris, France!
 
Re: Gloomy Sunday

MaxMolyneux said:
Sam M Lewis one.

Sunday is gloomy, my hours are slumberless
Dearest the shadows I live with are numberless
Little white flowers will never awaken you
Not where the black coach of sorrow has taken you
Angels have no thought of ever returning you
Would they be angry if I thought of joining you?

Gloomy Sunday

Gloomy is Sunday, with shadows I spend it all
My heart and I have decided to end it all
Soon there'll be candles and prayers that are sad I know
Let them not weep let them know that I'm glad to go
Death is no dream for in death I'm caressing you
With the last breath of my soul I'll be blessing you

Gloomy Sunday

Dreaming, I was only dreaming
I wake and I find you asleep in the deep of my heart, here
Darling, I hope that my dream never haunted you
My heart is telling you how much I wanted you

Gloomy Sunday
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Desmond Carter Version.

Sadly one Sunday I waited and waited
With flowers in my arms for the dream I'd created
I waited 'til dreams, like my heart, were all broken
The flowers were all dead and the words were unspoken
The grief that I knew was beyond all consoling
The beat of my heart was a bell that was tolling

Saddest of Sundays

Then came a Sunday when you came to find me
They bore me to church and I left you behind me
My eyes could not see one I wanted to love me
The earth and the flowers are forever above me
The bell tolled for me and the wind whispered, "Never!"
But you I have loved and I bless you forever

Last of all Sundays
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The Sam Lewis Translation probably inspired The Rolling Stones' 'Paint it Black':

I see a line of cars and theyre all painted black
With flowers and my love both never to come back
I see people turn their heads and quickly look away
Like a new born baby it just happens every day........etc

And the Desmond Carter one is (to my mind) oddly reminiscent of A E Houseman's poem 'Bredon Hill':

In summertime on Bredon
The bells they sound so clear;
Round both the shires they ring them
In steeples far and near,
A happy noise to hear.

Here of a Sunday morning
My love and I would lie,
And see the coloured counties,
And hear the larks so high
About us in the sky.

The bells would ring to call her
In valleys miles away:
"Come all to church, good people;
Good people, come and pray."
But here my love would stay.

And I would turn and answer
Among the springing thyme,
"Oh, peal upon our wedding,
And we will hear the chime,
And come to church in time."

But when the snows at Christmas
On Bredon top were strown,
My love rose up so early
And stole out unbeknown
And went to church alone.

They tolled the one bell only,
Groom there was none to see,
The mourners followed after,
And so to church went she,
And would not wait for me.

The bells they sound on Bredon
And still the steeples hum.
"Come all to church, good people,"--
Oh, noisy bells, be dumb;
I hear you, I will come.
 
The Lewis lyrics were used on the famous 1936 version recorded by Hal Kemp and His Orchestra.

I've heard stories that approximately half of the regular members of the Kemp band refused to participate in the recording and replacements had to be hired for that single session.

Kemp himself was killed in an automobile crash four years later.

The Kemp organization was one of the best American dance orchestras of the 1930s, comparable to Jack Hylton in Britain.
 
It's possible this subject has been covered elsewhere but I cant find it so here goes:
Some time ago, I was in a small local second hand record shop hunting for stuff by Clannad. The shop owner produced a small selection all of which I already had. He told me he'd had an Enya album in recently (making the connection that Enya used to be in Clannad) but it had gone and he was glad of it as it "Had that song on, you know, the cursed one: Marble Halls?"
Not being a Enya fan particularly I was unfamiliar with the song which apparantly carried a curse and brought ill fortune to all who listened to it.
I've not heard of that particular curse before or since but wondered if anyone else has heard of a similar legend about that or any other song (apart from the well known "Gloomy Sunday")?
 
To say that she's performed it live, on tv, and that it's now on youtube, an awful lot of people must be cursed by now if that is the case!

I just listened/watched the video on youtube, and nothing bad has happened yet (well apart from listening to an enya song :p ). But i will let you know if anything disasterous happens later today!
 
Cursed songs play a big part in Japnese/Korean horror movies. Whoever listens to them commits suicide or gets killed.
I haven't heard of the Enya song yet, must have a listen to that song straight away... :twisted:
 
gloomy sunday, famously, which i think has a thread all for itself


in local terms, i know it doesn't mean a lot to you but in italy there's a song by a francesco guccini (the title is canzone per un'amica) which is "known" to mean bad luck. it's about a woman who died in a car accident.
the classic scene is, a load of friends get on a car to go somewhere and somebody jokingly starts singing the first line of the song and everybody else starts touching their balls as an apotropaic gesture...
 
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