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Music for weeping: A miserabilist examines world’s saddest songs

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Los Angeles Times Pop Music Critic

Life is terrible. The world hates you. Even your mother and father have forsaken you. But at least there’s someone who’s more misunderstood than you. “Safe in your place deep in the earth/That’s when they’ll know what you were really worth,” sings Nick Drake in “Fruit Tree,” one song among hundreds addressed in “This Will End in Tears,” writer Adam Brent Houghtaling’s detailed survey of sad songs.

Formatted as an artistic encyclopedia, the book runs from singer (and former USC professor) David Ackles (whose song titles included “Inmates of the Institution” and the child-abuse focused “Candy Man”) to British doom crooner Robert Wyatt. In between are both the obvious (The Smiths, Joy Division, Leonard Cohen) and the antiquated (Skip James, Samuel Barber).

Writing in his introduction, Houghtaling goes deep, citing Civil War death songs and Appalachian murder ballads as foundations, and bringing into the conversation the effect of certain sound waves on different parts of the brain. He cites both scientists and fictive rock stars (Nigel Tufnel’s trilogy, which the Spinal Tap guitarist says makes “people weep instantly”), and delves into musical weapons such as the mid-’30s song “Gloomy Sunday,” the so-called suicide song that was said to have spawned many self-inflicted deaths.

But glum topic aside, “This Will End in Tears” offers much redemption, in the form of gallows humor and insight, essays on artists such as Billie Holiday, Will Oldham, Cat Power and Mark Eitzel, and playlist tips for even the saddest of sacks.

“This Will End in Tears: The Miserabilist Guide to Music”
Adam Brent Houghtaling

It Books: $16.99

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Follow Randall Roberts on Twitter: @liledit

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