The Number 6 spot goes to David Berman (formerly, Silver Jews) and his second band, Purple Mountains. Nights That Won't Happen is possibly the saddest song in the world (and I've heard Mt. Eerie's A Crow Looked At Me). I can barely watch this elegiac compilation of home movies and performance footage without tearing up knowing that Berman is no longer with us. In retrospect, it was so obvious that the man was suffering from depression and probably other maladies, but between his humor, his gift for lyrics, and his laid-back music, no one acted on it until it was too late. Ironically, in the song, Berman provides perhaps the best argument against suicide: "All the suffering gets done by the ones we leave behind."
There's really nothing more to say beyond what Berman sings in his own song.
There's really nothing more to say beyond what Berman sings in his own song.
Runner-Up/For Your Consideration: The antidote to Nights That Won't Happen, the only song that can pull me up out of that bottomless pool of despair, is Rudy Willingham's appropriately named Pool Party. "Hey, ladies!"
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