“What came first, the music or the misery? People worry about kids playing with guns, or watching violent videos, that some sort of culture of violence will take them over. Nobody worries about kids listening to thousands, literally thousands of songs about heartbreak, rejection, pain, misery and loss. Did I listen to pop music because I was miserable? Or was I miserable because I listened to pop music?”
— Rob (John Cusack), High Fidelity

There are times — even during good times — when you just need a little melancholy in your music. Not sentimentality, but just a touch of blue. When those times come, here are some of the songs (or, more precisely, the lyrics to those songs) that I turn to:

“Banks Are Made of Marble”

I’ve traveled ’round this country
from shore to shining shore
It really made me wonder
the things I heard and saw

I saw the weary farmer
plowing sod and loam
l heard the auction hammer
just a-knocking down his home

But the banks are made of marble
with a guard at every door
and the vaults are stuffed with silver
that the farmer sweated for

I’ve seen the weary miner
scrubbing coal dust from his back
I heard his children cryin’
“Got no coal to heat the shack”

But the banks are made of marble
with a guard at every door
and the vaults are stuffed with silver
that the miner sweated for

I’ve seen my brothers working
throughout this mighty land
l prayed we’d get together
and together make a stand

Then we might own those banks of marble
with a guard at every door
and we might share those vaults of silver
that we have sweated for

Originally by Les Rice. The most famous versions are by Pete Seeger and the Weavers, but Iris Dement does a lovely take on it.

“No Expectations”

Take me to the station
And put me on a train
I’ve got no expectations
To pass through here again

Once I was a rich man and
Now I am so poor
But never in my sweet short life
Have I felt like this before

You heart is like a diamond
You throw your pearls at swine
And as I watch you leaving me
You pack my peace of mind

Our love was like the water
That splashes on a stone
Our love is like our music
Its here, and then its gone

So take me to the airport
And put me on a plane
I got no expectations
To pass through here again

— Jagger/Richards, The Rolling Stones. While I could pick nearly anything from Beggar’s Banquet, after I heard this played behind the harrowing footage of Katrina refugees turned away on the bridges out of New Orleans five years ago, it has come to have a special meaning for me.

“O Worship the King”

O tell of his might, O sing of his grace,
Whose robe is the light, whose canopy space;
His chariots of wrath the deep thunder-clouds form,
And dark is his path on the wings of the storm. Yes, the old hymn. There is something about that last couplet …

“Broken Bicycles”

Broken Bicycles, old busted chains/With busted handlebars out in the rain/Somebody must have an orphanage for/These things that nobody wants anymore/September’s reminding July/It’s time to be saying goodbye/Summer is gone, but our love will remain/Like old broken bicycles out in the rain.

The things that you’ve given me will always stay/They’re broken, but I’ll never throw them away.

Tom Waits, “Broken Bicycles” (I must admit I like Maura O’Connell’s version from A Real Life Story better).

Melancholy, but lovely.

See? I feel better already.