Sean Paul Murphy, Writer

Sean Paul Murphy, Writer
Sean Paul Murphy, Storyteller

Thursday, August 10, 2023

Top 5 Songs That Depressed Me As A Kid

I had a great childhood. I felt loved and secure. I grew up in Hamilton, a safe, tree-lined neighborhood in northeast Baltimore filled with kids and adventure. There was always something to do. Plus, I was a child of the sixties: the golden age of Top 40 radio. The big AM stations played an incredible mix of hits unimaginable in today's era of specialization. You could hear a hit from The Beatles, Frank Sinatra, The Supremes or Glen Campbell back-to-back. However, there were a few pop hits that always struck a strangely melancholy chord in me.

The irony is that none of the songs on this list are inherently depressing. My mother was a big Simon & Garfunkel fan. You'd think, as a child, I should have found songs like The Sound of Silence depressing, but I didn't. I suppose it was because I knew it was a depressing song. The tone of music and lyrics worked together in a cohesive way that didn't trouble me. The songs on this list are genuinely upbeat, but all of them possessed something that hit a discordant note that depressed the hell out of me.

Here they are:


Recorded by Dionne Warwick
Written by Burt Bacharach & Hal David

Burt Bacharach and Hal David were among the best songwriters of their period, and Dionne Warwick was perhaps the perfect instrument for their work. Now, I really enjoy this song and consider it a little pop masterpiece. However, at the time, it really depressed me. Every time I heard it, not only did I doubt whether I would ever fall in love, I doubted the value of falling in love  -- all before my first boyhood crush on a girl. What a morose kid I could be!

 

Recorded by The Beatles
Written by John Lennon and Paul McCartney

I listen to a lot of Beatles podcasts. Whenever someone speaks, they usually identify themselves as a first, second or third generation fan. I guess I'm a first generation fan since I remember some of the singles when they first came out despite my youth.

This Lennon/McCartney original is often used as a case study in the relative viewpoints of the two men. McCartney wrote the upbeat "We can work it out" parts, and Lennon wrote the "Life is very short" parts. Obviously, it was those Lennon parts that hooked me. He got me worrying -- at the age of four -- that life was too short. Geez. Plus, I found the harmonium parts depressing. To this day, I prefer the flipside of the single: Day Tripper.

 


3). Georgy Girl (1966)
Recorded by The Seekers
Written by Tom Springfield and Jim Dale

What an upbeat, chirpy single with an infectious hook. Even very young Sean could groove to it until these lyrics came up: "Nobody you meet could ever see the loneliness there inside you." I don't know why it bummed me out. Loneliness was just a word to me. With all of us kids living in that small house on Hamlet Avenue, I doubt I had any first hand experience with it! This isn't a song that has grown on me in an emotional sense -- although I can appreciate the craft. I'm not a really big fan of the movie either.

 


2). Hey Jude (1968)
Recorded by The Beatles
Written by John Lennon and Paul McCartney

Hey Jude? How could that song depress me? It is an amazing anthem to healing....

I'll never forget the first time I heard it. I was getting into my father's white Volkswagen Beetle to go home after swimming in the pool at my grandparents' house on Royston avenue. It was a great, happy day. My father turned the radio on and I heard the words: "Hey Jude, don't make it bad. Take a sad song and make it better." I focused on things being bad and sad, and tuned out the healing. Now it's one of my favorite songs, but it took years to work itself into my good graces.

 


1). Downtown (1964)
Recorded by Petula Clark
Written by Tony Hatch

This song is actually one of my earliest memories. It was released in November of 1964. It played incessantly on the radio that whole Christmas season. I was three-years-old, going on four, and I remember it like it was yesterday. Those opening lyrics -- "When you're alone and life is making you lonely" -- stole away the holiday joy every time I heard it. I don't know why I was so obsessed with loneliness when I was a child. I already had three siblings when this song came out! But the loneliness reference really unnerved me.* Weird. I like the song now. It's quite joyous. I suppose that's what bothered me as a kid, the contradiction between the sadness and the joy.

By the way, another thing stole my joy that same Christmas season. There were constant commercials for the film Santa Claus Vs. The Martians. I kept begging my mother to take me to see it but she always refused. I've got to thank her for that now! Excellent judgment!

 

Well, those are the songs that depressed me. Don't worry. I can handle them now. You're not going to find me dead with a gun in my hand with Georgy Girl playing on loop -- the way Bing Crosby's kids would kill themselves listening to White Christmas. I'm fine.

*Downtown didn't unnerve me anywhere near as much as Harry Nilsson's song Coconut unnerved my late brother Mark. That song freaked him out!

Here are my other lists:


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