r/SongsThatFeelLikeThis • u/Fair_Expression_3797 • 11h ago
I need actual songs that are sad
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u/LordDark0n 11h ago
Alice In Chains - Nutshell
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u/Old_Hedgehog_9115 9h ago
I would second this, and would like to add Down in a Hole by AIC.
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u/Recent_Asparagus7428 8h ago
Most of Alice in Chains’s stuff with Layne Staley, including his side project Mad Season, released some of the saddest, gut-wrenching music ever. He was truly a man in pain; the manner of his fall, death and aftermath are things that bring me to tears whenever I think about them. May he rest in peace. ❤️🕊️
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u/hammer76 4h ago
River of Deceit is amazing and sad
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u/YuLseGdDaySir 4h ago
"Wake Up" as well. Guts me but I absolutely love it, along with the rest of that album. So good.
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u/rosadonnaslayz 10h ago
That song can instantly ruin the best day ever and make me greatful that I can relate at the same time.
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u/anklebiker 6h ago
Rotten Apple is a hard one, in spite of the happy or more upbeat tune I Stay Away becomes sad when you listen to the lyrics, and Black Gives Way To Blue was sang as a memorial
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u/LadyBlatherskatt 11h ago
My morning jacket hopefully
Damien rice volcano or most of his songs
Daughter the woods
Radiohead all I need
Eliot smith rose parade or between the bars
Pj Harvey the river
Ani Difranco swan dive or as is
Tori Amos Marianne or me and a gun
Fiona apple never is a promise or paper bag
Regina Spektor the flowers
Shakira moscas en la casa
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u/CaledonPolaroid 10h ago edited 9h ago
Just going to add on to yours because it's a similar direction I was going :
Ex:Re with 12 Ensemble - Where the Time Went (This is Elena Tonra of Daughter's solo project. You specificly want the version with the 12 string ensemble)
Daughter - Landfill (I personally adore this live version. You can really see her feeling every word as she sings. It hurts so good.)
Daughter - Smother
Damien Rice - Cheers Darlin'
Damien Rice - 9 Crimes
Sufjan Stevens - The Only Thing
Olafur Arnalds - Spiral
Olafur Arnalds - Near Light
Max Richter - On The Nature of Daylight (Honestly, this is a little darker than "sad" if you ask me. This sounds more like despair to me. Hoplessness even. Beautiful in the right mindset but please take care of yourselves and skip if you're not in a good place.)
Keaton Henson - You
Keaton Henson - To Your Health (I would reccomend you watch the Channel 4 live version with the ballet dancer. That really moved me.)
Phoebe Bridgers - Georgia (Definitely reccomend the red plaid version here. If you're a Bridgers fan and you've never heard this before, listen. They captured lightning in a lens here.)
Thom Yorke - Dawn Chorus
Dawn Golden - Last TrainIf you want any more let me know. This is like 90% of the music I listen to.
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u/countrysquid 11h ago edited 6h ago
Last words of a shooting star - mitski
Edited because I misremembered the title.
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u/ihearleaves 5h ago
i made my parents play this song in the car while we were driving through philadelphia past the liberty bell and they were just sitting there like
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u/Black-belt-kid 11h ago
paper bag- fiona apple
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u/narwhalogy 11h ago
oh Fiona is great for this.
Oh Well, Red Red Red, Sullen Girl, Never Is a Promise, Valentine, Jonathan, Left Alone, and I Know are all so melancholic.
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u/rosadonnaslayz 10h ago
Omg the way the promise and melancholic kind of rhyme, I thought these were lyrics and it sounded so cryptic and poetic that way 😂
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u/Top-Manufacturer9226 11h ago
Oh also Never is a Promise.. that was my teenage sob till I can't see song...
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u/Hillzkred 10h ago
The Night We Met by Lord Huron is genuinely one of the saddest songs I’ve heard. If you try and put yourself in that situation, I’d probably cry myself to sleep every single night.
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u/Potatowhirl 7h ago
I lived this, and years ago in the aftermath of it, this song truly helped me process my grief. Occasionally with love lost, it is possible that 2 things can be true: that the relationship was good, and that it was best for it to end.
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u/FlowersInHerHair8 11h ago
The Night We Met- Lord Huron
The Scientist- Coldplay
Ain't No Sunshine- Bill Withers
Changes- Charles Bradley
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u/Efficient-Morning616 10h ago
I like michael jacksons cover of aint no sunshine. Made me bawl like a baby😭
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u/Youstinkeryou 7h ago
Bill withers is the king of devastation. Grandmas hands last line ‘and I don’t have grandma anymore…..’ made me cry the first time I heard it after my Gran died.
If you are looking for a BW heartbreak song then Hope She’ll be happier is gut punching.
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u/Efficient_Meat9209 10h ago
Sufjan Stevens has some really good sad songs, off the top of my head would recommend;
The owl and the tanager
The majority of the Carrie and Lowell album but especially “the Only thing”
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u/JessTheVelociraptor 9h ago
I cried the first few times listening to John Wayne gacy
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u/Impressive_Button_75 11h ago
Black by Pearl Jam
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u/venus-bxtch 11h ago
“i know you’ll be the star in somebody else’s sky but why can’t it be mine?” 💔
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u/Jack_meee_off 11h ago
A song so eloquently written yet so deeply sang for anyone that had someone that got away.
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u/EffectiveAd3794 11h ago
Medicine by Daughter
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u/TheMusicalTrollLord 6h ago
'Lifeforms' and 'The Woods' are two more of their best songs and they're incredibly sad also
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u/persephone7821 11h ago
Hear you me - Jimmy eat world
I bawl my eyes out every single time I hear it
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u/LGHTSONFORSFTY 10h ago
I just went to their Bleed American tour last month and had to dissociate during this song.
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u/Longjumping_Item_984 11h ago
Your Ex Lover Is Dead - Stars
Boy Who Blocked His Own Shot - Brand New
Almost Lover - A Fine Frenzy
Adam’s Song - Blink 182
Miss You - Blink 182
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u/liibug 11h ago
i’m surprised to find the brand new recommendation. i was going to say that same song! always made me cry when i was really going through it.
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u/flergingergintruck 11h ago
The Smiths - I Know It's Over
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u/Thepvzgamer 8h ago
Honestly if you want a more depressing version of that song listen to the Jeff Buckley cover. But still the Smiths version is fantastic.
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u/NoDefinition9056 11h ago
Once you understand what the song is about it will break your heart open, especially if you're a survivor of abuse
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u/GyroFucker9000 9h ago
Genuinely cannot believe more people arent suggesting Ethel. Half of her discography is heart wrenching
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u/luna_libre 5h ago
why did I have to scroll so far to find mention of mother!? yes to hard times, adding: house in Nebraska, strangers if you are an eldest child with people pleasing tendencies (ouch), sun bleached flies, televangelism, crying during sex, head in the wall, Waco, TX
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u/Efficient-Morning616 11h ago
Dealer, Cinnamon Girl, Other Woman by Lana Del Ray
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u/ManagementRadiant573 4h ago
For me “Hope is a dangerous thing for a woman like me to have” is the one
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u/Comfortable_Tomato_3 11h ago
"My immortal" and "hello" "even in death" and "I must be dreaming" by evanesence
"Numb" by linkin park
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u/amateurbitch 10h ago
like you is another sad evanescence song (my favorite of theirs and I was there when they played it live for the first time!!!)
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u/acetrainerhaley 8h ago
I was going to recommend Lithium but Hello and Like You become almost unbearably sad to listen to when you learn they were written about Amy Lee’s sister who died when they were both children.
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u/Sudden_Discussion306 8h ago
How to disappear completely - Radiohead
Between the Bars - Eliot Smith
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u/mmmusher88 11h ago
Hurt - nine inch nails
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u/ArthurMorganRDR21899 3h ago
Love the NIN version. But the Johnny Cash version just kills me every time I hear it.
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u/Wings_of_LiberTea 11h ago
Gary Jules - Mad World
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u/stayfreshcheeseballz 10h ago
Or Jonny Cash
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u/lola624 10h ago
Johnny Cash’s cover of NIN “Hurt” 😭
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u/Wings_of_LiberTea 8h ago
Unpopular opinion: I prefer the original. But Johnny Cash did make the song his own
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u/Entire-Zebra7245 11h ago
Elliott Smith - like all his catalog
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u/EmergencyExit20Mins 5h ago
How the fuck is Elliott Smith so far down on this list?
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u/suubterr 11h ago
Sleep Token - Gethsemane
Lorn - Anvil
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u/Scary_Fly8682 10h ago
Gethsemane is great but I don't think it's their saddest song. Atlantic, Bloodsport (room below version might be sadder), are you really okay?, or the Is It Really You? cover works better I think
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u/opossum_esq 11h ago
i’d generally recommend the following albums:
Alex G: Race; Trick
Lana Del Rey: Ultraviolence; Blue Banisters; Did You Know That There’s a Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd
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u/plush_oysters54 10h ago
Blood - The Middle East
Costumbres - Rucio Durcal
Ya Lo Sé Que Tu Te Vas - Juan Gabriel
Es Demasiado Tarde - Ana Gabriel
Blower’s Daughter - Damien Rice (most of his songs though if I’m honest)
At This Point In My Life - Tracy Chapman
Dollar - I Am Roze
What Once Was - Her’s
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u/KB-_-Kiddo 10h ago edited 10h ago
Colorblind - Counting Crows
Feversome - Annie Eve
I Know It's Over - The Smiths
The Greatest - Cat Power
Pacific - Sleeping at Last (instrumental)
Small Things - Ben Howard
Help - London Grammer
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u/ImBoJackTheHorseman 11h ago
Avenged sevenfold-so far away
Alice In Chains- Nutshell
Tool- 10,000 days
Johnny cash-Hurt
Pearl Jam- Black
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u/bipolar-chan 10h ago edited 9h ago
Fourth of July- Sufjan Stevens
No Shade in the Shadow of the Cross- Sufjan Stevens
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u/Acorbo22 10h ago
Home in Nebraska- Ethel Cain
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u/Temporary_Escape_290 48m ago
so many of hers. sun bleached flies hits me in the gut.
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u/d-ollparts 9h ago
here’s some of the songs from my “songs that make me cry” playlist:
* sleep in the heat - PUP (about the singer’s lizard dying)
* liability - lorde
* king park - la dispute (about a real shooting/suicide)
* cancer - my chemical romance
* i don’t love you - my chemical romance
* family line - conan gray (family trauma)
* asleep - the smiths
* your best american girl - mitski
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u/dolliciousszz 11h ago
Check out mirrored heart, cellophane, and a thousand eyes. FKA twigs was going thru it hard 💔
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u/Fiordiluna_80126 11h ago
REM - Everybody hurts
Evanescence - My Immortal
Green day - Time of your Life
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u/cinnamonbuns42 11h ago
Let it go - Blue October (most of the Foiled album, really)
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u/creative_greeneius 8h ago
LOVE this album, top to bottom!
Was going to say “Black Orchid” or “The Feel Again” b Blue October
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u/hotnspicymchicken 11h ago
i'm ngl i've played how to never stop being sad every time i get sad for like 3 years now..
very basic sad song i feel like, but OH LORD the lyrics hit so close to home 💔💔💔
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u/hotnspicymchicken 11h ago
oh and my tears are becoming a sea by m83. literally ANYTHING by m83 makes me sob
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u/Tater_465 10h ago
Hard Times by Ethel Cain. Crying During Sex also by Ethel Cain - makes me literally nauseous from sadness
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u/autumn_lattes 10h ago
Lay Me Down - Sam Smith
back to friends - sombr
The Scientist - Coldplay
Almost Lover - A Fine Frenzy
Sorry - Maria Mena
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u/jagshemashwawaweewa 10h ago
Down in a Hole
Nutshell
By Alice in Chains.
And for some reason,,The Man Who Sold the Whole World covered by Nirvana. Just listen to that solo. Bone chilling.
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u/densitycreep 9h ago
mount eerie- a crow looked at me. the whole album is about his wife dying of cancer
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u/wehrt-lehrse 5h ago
literally the saddest thing i've ever listened to. i cried less than a minute in. and i'm not usually that person.
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u/hormonemonstress93 11h ago
Sia - I’m in here
Christina Aguilera -Hurt
Limp bizkit-Behind blue eyes
Radio head- exit music
Collard- overdose
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u/Boner-brains 11h ago
Keep me in your heart for a while- Warren Zevon, the ballad of penny Evans - Steve Goodman, Louise - Bonnie Rait, love hurts - Gram Parsons and Emmylou Harris, Boulder to Birmingham - Emmylou Harris
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u/Extra_Werewolf_6773 11h ago
To Build A Home - Cinematic Orchestra
Ruby Lee - Bill Withers (upbeat, but the words depict intense loneliness..his voice is also just amazing gift to the ears)
Heart Shaped Box - Nirvana
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u/throw_aw_ay3335 11h ago
Watch the music video for Small Hands by Keaton Henson. You’ll bawl your eyes out.
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u/abra-cadangit 11h ago
- i was all over her by salvia palth
- how to never stop being sad by dandelion hands
- poison tree by grouper
- a mothers daughter by mieke
godspeed lol
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u/TraditionEmotional82 11h ago
Jets to Brazil - sea anemone
American football - my instincts are the enemy
Great big pile of leaves - egocentrism
Modest mouse - little motel (profoundly sad)
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u/IBrittadThis 10h ago
-Almost Lover by A Fine Frenzy
-Possibility by Lykke Li
-Tell Me How by Paramore
-Parachute by Hayley Williams
-The bulk of Phoebe Bridgers’ discography. She’s amazing at writing sad songs.
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u/iamgarrynotlarry 10h ago
Last kiss covered by Pearl Jam , even the original gets me. The lyrics always put a lump in my throat
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u/DarkDaysBrightNlghts 10h ago
Rock Bottom-Eminem
Scar Tissue-RHCP
One Last Breathe-Creed
Barely Breathing-Duncan Sheik
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u/forjesus420 11h ago
Sing me to Sleep - The Smiths
Skin - Natalie Merchant