Jamie of Duward Discussion has a brand new meme called Take This Tune. When I read her post the song that I'm going to post about jumped into my thoughts. I don't know why...
Gloomy Sunday has an unusual background. It's been called the Hungarian Suicide Song because legend says that after one has heard it he/she will commit suicide. Remember only legend!
To me it's a beautiful, heartfelt, very sad song that gives me chills. Just like the song Jamie posted about, "Sull'aria" - A Little Song On The breeze.
Gloomy Sunday has an unusual background. It's been called the Hungarian Suicide Song because legend says that after one has heard it he/she will commit suicide. Remember only legend!
To me it's a beautiful, heartfelt, very sad song that gives me chills. Just like the song Jamie posted about, "Sull'aria" - A Little Song On The breeze.
"Gloomy Sunday" is a song composed by Hungarian pianist and composer Rezső Seress in 1933 to a Hungarian poem written by László Jávor (original Hungarian title of both song and poem "Szomorú vasárnap" (Hungarian pronunciation: [ˈsomoruː ˈvɒʃaːrnɒp]), in which the singer mourns the untimely death of a lover and contemplates suicide.
Though recorded and performed by many singers, "Gloomy Sunday" is closely associated with Billie Holiday, who scored a hit version of the song in 1941. Due to unsubstantiated urban legends about its inspiring hundreds of suicides, "Gloomy Sunday" was dubbed the "Hungarian suicide song" in the United States. Seress did commit suicide in 1968, but most other rumors of the song being banned from radio, or sparking suicides, are unsubstantiated, and were partly propagated as a deliberate marketing campaign. Possibly due to the context of the Second World War, Billie Holiday's version was, however, banned by the BBC.
Here are the lyrics:
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 coaches
Sorrow has taken you
Angels have no thoughts
Of ever returning you
Wouldnt 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 therell be candles
And prayers that are said I know
But let them not weep
Let them know that Im glad to go
Death is no dream
For in death Im caressin you
With the last breath of my soul
Ill be blessin 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 tellin you
How much I wanted you
Gloomy sunday
My hours are slumberless
Dearest the shadows
I live with are numberless
Little white flowers
Will never awaken you
Not where the black coaches
Sorrow has taken you
Angels have no thoughts
Of ever returning you
Wouldnt 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 therell be candles
And prayers that are said I know
But let them not weep
Let them know that Im glad to go
Death is no dream
For in death Im caressin you
With the last breath of my soul
Ill be blessin 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 tellin you
How much I wanted you
Gloomy sunday
5 comments:
First heard Lady Day's voice when I was 12 and my mother called me in to listen to "Strange Fruit". Quite an introduction to blues in its purest form. This song is a perfect leap for Take This Tune. The whole idea is to take the video I put up and then write about where it takes you. From Comic love to lost love is a wonderful direction. Well done.
Now there's a blast from the past!
i love Billie Holiday! when i was in my early 20's and my friends were crazy about new wave, I was listening to Billie Holiday. "Am I Blue" was the first song that left an impression.
They are deifintely gloomy lyrics.
Her voice is so beautiful. I'd never heard that song.
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