The Hungarian Suicide Song
It’s supposed to be the most depressing song in the world. It was allegedly banned in Hungary because of its devastating effects. Spurned lovers were found drowned in the Danube, the sheet music clutched in their fingers. Lonely women lay back on their beds and slipped into oblivion as the gramophone needle ground through the grooves.
The song is “Gloomy Sunday” – Billie Holiday recorded the most famous version in 1941 – and a lot of the moral panic surrounding ‘the Hungarian suicide song’ is a mixture of urban myth and cannily morbid marketing. It was written in 1933, both the original Hungarian lyrics by Laszlo Javor and the English translation deal with a lost, dead lover and the singer’s own thoughts of suicide. The composer, Reszo Seress, jumped to his death from a window in 1968. Billie McKenzie of the Associates, who covered the song, also killed himself. But Bjork, Elvis Costello, Lydia Lunch and many others have all covered it too and most of them are okay.
It’s interesting that people are so ready to ascribe blame to music. It seems natural, if sad, that those of a depressive bent would be drawn to a miserable, yet beautiful, song, in the same way that those who feel alienated would tend towards Marilyn Manson (to give a reasonably contemporary folk devil.) It says a lot about music’s power, to inspire, to terrify, to confuse, that any claim of ‘the song made me do it’ is even halfway believable. Of all other art forms only film has copped as much stick. Can you really imagine paintings frequently blamed for encouraging murder, or an architectural triumph cited as a cause of lewd behaviour?
Wow, I hadn’t the first clue about this. Neat/weird/awesome!
For those in country’s where the Link is not available here is eMusic’s list of Gloomy Sunday
http://www.emusic.com/search.html?mode=s&QT=Gloomy Sunday&x=9&y=9
There is one version of Billie Holiday doing it three quaters down the first page but some interesting ones too.
Woody Herman
The Smithereens
and Christian Death (Though I only slightly sure that this is the same song)
To die for!
There is actually a fantastic movie of the same name that is in some ways about the song and the whos and hows of the time it was written and sung. Great stuff. It is a German film as well, and the acting and story is just, amazing.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0155722/
What I find most interesting is that after the suicide panic they added an extra verse to the song to make it all just a dream, thereby somehow alleviating the pain of it.
Heather Nova has the featured song from the film, but alas it is not available on Emusic.
I first came across Gloomy Sunday when The Associates covered it and Billy McKenzie’s vocal is still the gold standard for me.
No Idea this song was out there
Well its funny you say that.
The moral panic squad have been gunning for a guy “Bill Henson” after one of his exhibitions featured a young teenaged girl in various states of undress. Of course anyone who saw the images would have recognised it to have been not in the slightest bit pornographic , and the government censor declared the images “rated G, safe for viewing by minors unacompanied by adults”, the lowest possible rating. But that didnt stop witch hunts and the likes.
Unfortunately there are some who will never really understand art, and for them, like all unknowns it shall remain scary.
I downloaded the Smithereens’ version a while back, but had no idea it was a cover. Interesting history.
Check out Venetian Snares crazee strings n’ d’n'b version “Öngyilkos Vasárnap”; track 3 from “Rossz Csillag Alatt Született” with the Holliday sample…’tis on eMusic…sorry, I’m too lazy for a link right now.
RoMcG, good catch. that’s so going on my SFL list (and it’s on planet mu)
I wait for this song to kill me, everyday I Play it at least once when practicing it brings tears to my eyes still I have no courage to do myself in yet.
Hi extremely good website!! Man .. I will take the rss feeds
That’s kinda scary to think about mainly because my grandfather came from Hungary and he died when i was just a baby.
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