The saddest songs from musicals

"September Song" -- Knickerbocker Holiday

"The Party's Over" -- Bells Are Ringing

"Mira" -- Carnival

"The Feeling We Once Had" -- The Wiz

"Could We Start Again Please?" -- Jesus Christ Superstar

"Another Suitcase in Another Hall" -- Evita

"No One is Alone" -- Into the Woods

"Finale" -- The Secret Garden

"The 'I Love You' Song" -- The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee

Empty Chairs..............

"What Would You Do?" from "Cabaret"

"My Husband Makes Movies" from "Nine"

I always find Maria Reynolds's part at the beginning of "Say No to This" in "Hamilton" ("I know you are a man of honor...") incredibly sad. The whole song makes me sad, even though it's all about having guilty sex. It's my favorite song in the score.

Les Miserables owns this thread!

On My Own

Dreamed a Dream

Empty Chairs at Empty Tables

Esmeralda lies dead and Quasimodo grieves.

The Party's Over is a great selection @ R1

Somewhere/West Side Story

Something Good/The Sound of Music (movie)

Frank Mills/Hair

Send in the Clowns/A Little Night Music

Feed the Birds/Mary Poppins

My Time of Day/Guys and Dolls

Sunrise, Sunset/Fiddler on the Roof

"It's Quiet Uptown" from Hamilton.

I've seen the show twice, listened to the soundtrack a ridiculous number of times, and that song still tears my heart out of my chest. Every. Damn. Time.

"Who Can I Turn To?" from "The Roar Of The Greasepaint - The Smell Of The Crowd"

Don't forget "Bring Him Home" also from Les Miserables.

I Still See Eliza from Paint Your Wagon

Interesting choice for JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR, R1. It got me thinking, and I see where you’re coming from.

However I must say I’m more moved by the numbers ‘Poor Jerusalem’, ‘Peter’s Denial’ & ‘Judas’ Death’; the latter song in the 2000 film is difficult to watch if you aren’t already feeling down. The shocked desperate hopeless “you have murdered me!” line never fails to upset me (I know, Mary!), but maybe it’s because a gay man played Judas in that production? Many dislike the the 1992 Australian cast recording, but it’s hard to deny the raw power in ‘Poor Jerusalem’ that makes it sound like the world is ending and all that’s left to do is wail and cry.

I think it’s one of those musicals that if done right and well can’t fail to bring tears, and that’s high praise coming from someone who isn’t a Christian and doesn’t care for them either.

"Where Am I Going?" - Sweet Charity; "Rose's Turn" - Gypsy; "All Of My Life" - Do Re Mi; "Some Other Time" - On The Town; "Dear Friend" - She Loves Me; "What Kind Of Fool Am I?" - Stop The World I Want To Get Off

This one reduces me to a blubbering mess.

Time Heals Everything - Mack & Mabel The Day After That - Kiss of the Spider Woman No More - Into the Woods Children & Art - SITPWG Sunday - SITPWG

"Will You? "and "Another Winter in a Summer Town" - both from Grey Gardens

[Quote] "Where Am I Going?" - Sweet Charity

My favorite version is Dionne Warwick's. It damn near brings tears to my eyes.

Knowing its context, no song makes me tear up more than "For Forever" from "Dear Evan Hansen". My favorite song from a musical period.

For me it’s Telephone Wire from Fun Home. In the flashback adult Alison slips in and replaces adolescent Alison for the last car ride with her father before he commits suicide. The song grows more and more desperate as Alison admonishes herself to connect with her father this one last time and change what has happened. I break into a million pieces at these lines:

This is where it has to happen!

There must be some other chances.

There’s a moment I’m forgetting.

Where you tell me you see me.

I included a clip of it from a regional production as there isn’t one from the Broadway production. Staging is a part of the intensity as they are seated driving staring straight ahead. On Broadway it was in the round and they actually rotated during the song in the production sitting on the piano bench.

"Empty Chairs and Empty Tables" still gets to me all these years later, since Les Miserables run was concurrent with AIDS/HIV worst years... Saw the song in the movie and turned into a blubbering mess thinking of my lost friends.

And from and earlier age:

I'll See You Again from Noel Coward's Bitter Sweet. Also If Love Were All from the same show.

And those classic Gershwin torch songs:

The Girl I Love, deleted from three shows before finally making a name as The Man I Love as an independent hit and later used in An American in Paris.

Someone to Watch Over Me from Oh, Kay!

But Not for Me from Girl Crazy.

Didn't someone mention My Man's Gone Now from Porgy and Bess?

Hello, Young Lovers from The King and I.

This Nearly Was Mine from South Pacific.

Finally for now, a minor song but personal favorite Noel Coward wrote for his soulmate Gertrude Lawrence to sing in their classic comedy Private Lives, Someday I'll Find You. It's a poignant song and always followed by a poignant pause. Then her ex-husband pops in with "Strange how poignant cheap music is."

"As Long as He Needs Me" -- Oliver

[quote] My Time of Day/Guys and Dolls

Is that really one of the saddest songs? It strikes me as more sweetly melancholic. Sky is sharing a quiet side of himself with Sarah.

The Man that Got Away from A Star Is Born.

Never Will I Marry from Loesser's Greenwillow. Or it more a song of defiance? Cuts a wonderfully fine line.

[Quote]Didn't someone mention My Man's Gone Now from Porgy and Bess?

I don't think so, r22, but that song definitely deserves to be mentioned.

"Till We Reach That Day" (the first act closer) from "Ragtime."

"My Ship" -- Lady in the Dark

No More from Into the Woods reduces me to tears with the first few notes. I've never had another experience like it.

I haven't even seen this show, but my friend sung this at a concert and I fell in love with it. It tells a whole story - a woman desperate to try and stay positive, knowing that her husband might just die. It's from a fairly new show, too. Who knew they still wrote lovely songs like this?

Am I the only one who's never been moved by a version of "Rose's Turn?" It's a great song and, if performed by a real dynamite power belter, it can be extraordinary, but I've never felt much from anyone's performance of it. Is there a certain version that brings people "the feels" as the kids would say?

I know it's sappy and a little victim-y, but this performance is so extraordinary. I've heard a lot of people cover this song, but no one's even been better than Dorothy. She makes me cry. It also has the first verse which I think is so important for establishing this woman's life and where she's coming from. Most people omit it and I think that's a huge mistake.

So Big/So Small

"Lily's Eyes" from The Secret Garden.

R32, here's the song sung by a man.

Oh yes, r28. Can you believe producer Buddy DeSylva of the Ginger Rogers' film version actually filmed it but then cut it before release because he hated Weill's music? Why was he producing the damn film then? The film doesn't make much sense when Ginger at the end finally says "Oh, yes, I remember all the words now!" and instead of singing it, after trying the whole film to remember it, omits the song and the film quickly cuts to the final scene and final credits? Many things I love in that film though, including Mitchell Leisen's wonderful direction and Raoul Pene Du Bois' fine set decoration and costume design. Edith Head's typical attempts to steal design credit for the Mink Dress were just that -- typical for her. (The design was all Leisen. Head's attempt to build it failed completely and he had to bring in Barbara Karinska from New York to execute the design.)

R26, thanks so much for posting that wonderful clip from Trevor Nunn's Porgy and Bess. That version isn't perfect but it's absolutely wonderful. I hadn't seen it in nearly 20 years.

And r22, for me Ragtime was the last great musical of the 20th century. Again, thanks so much for posting that.

I apologize for posting so much off topic. Still getting used to being quarantined in Chelsea. Especially since I started developing symptoms yesterday and any hospital in Manhattan is currently the last place on earth I want to be. Time for less bourbon and more dinner. Cheers!

I always find certain versions of Maybe This Time from Cabaret heartbreaking. You know Sally and Cliff's relationship is doomed. He's a gay man and she can't stand still for more than two minutes and would make a horrible wife. Her optimism at that moment breaks my heart.

A good Sally will make you feel something during the title number where she finally surrenders to hedonism like her dead friend, Elsie, and decides to go through with the abortion and continue on her self-destructive streak.

Mama Look Sharp

A great deal of Marc Blitzstein's score for the Broadway musical "Juno," especially "For Love," "One Kind Word," "I Wish It So," "My True Heart," and "Where?"

"Losing My Mind" from Follies.

"When I Look At You" from The Scarlet Pimpernel

R37, did you know that Maybe This Time wasn't originally written for Cabaret? Kander and Ebb wrote it originally for Kay Ballard in the early 1960s and then it became a popular cabaret standard in New York. Liza recorded it either once or twice, I can't remember, and that's how it got included in the film version of Cabaret.

New World - Dancer in the Dark

“When Your Feet Don’t Touch the Ground” from Finding Neverland.

It had a reprise for the finale, but when the show went on tour, they decided to end on the upbeat “Believe.” I was disappointed with this choice.

The staging of Sylvia’s death was one of the most chilling things I saw stage.

Blood Brothers - Tell Me It's Not True

A mother singing over the dead bodies of her two sons.

I listened to this over and over again when the new roommate I was infatuated with abruptly moved out and didn’t want to see me again.

Petula Clark version of "Tell Me It's Not True" in "Blood Brothers" with David and Shaun Cassidy playing her sons.

R45, don’t forget “Easy Terms!”

Not While I’m Around from Sweeney Todd is always heartbreaking because you know he’s all but dead at that point.

Depends on who sings them.

This song from Maltby & Shire's Off Broadway review, Closer Than Ever. The more famous song from the show was Father of Fathers but this is the one that always brings tears to my eyes, for personal reasons. I'm not sure whether this performance by Richard Muenz from the original cast is the best because there's also a truly wonderful one from an artist named William Lucas on youtube. But it's a guy singing about his love for his father.

But if I sing you are the music....

‘Die Schatten werden länger’ (‘The Shadow Grows Longer’), from Kunze’s ELISABETH.

Suicidally-depressed drunken syphilitic inept young Prince with abandonment issues falls in unrequited love with the literal personification of Death just the same as his mother did, then goes on to accidentally assist with the rise of the Nazis in Europe and the consequent downfall of his own family’s Empire through blind desperate unconvicted idealism and a death-wish, then kills his lover and himself.

"As Long As You're Mine" from "Wicked"- Longing for that one special someone, getting to be with him but knowing it's only for a short time, possibly only one night. Your heart soaring and breaking simultaneously. I know- MARY!

Every time I hear "You'll Never Walk Alone," I think of Jerry Lewis singing to crippled children on crutches and in wheelchairs on his MDA telethons. It ruined the song for me.

Chava from Fiddler on the Roof

I'm always saddened by the underlying message of Pure Imagination from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.

It seems to be about hope and imagination but what is really saying is that good times will only be in your head and not in the real world.

There is no life I know

To compare with pure imagination

Living there you'll be free

If you truly wish to be.

If you want to view paradise

Simply look around and view it

Anything you want to do it

Wanna change the world

There's nothing to it...

Of course, you can't change the world so easily, if at all, and therein lies the bittersweet rub.

[quote]Every time I hear "You'll Never Walk Alone," I think of Jerry Lewis singing to crippled children on crutches and in wheelchairs on his MDA telethons. It ruined the song for me.

Well, I can certainly see how that would, r54. But may I suggest you try going back to Claramae Turner on the soundtrack or Christine Johnson on the OBCR or just about any artist on any on the numerous highly professional recordings of Carousel and try to forget thinking about The Day the Clown Cried?

56 replies and no submissions from Lucy’s Mame?

[quote]Suicidally-depressed drunken syphilitic inept young Prince with abandonment issues falls in unrequited love with the literal personification of Death

So we're back to to Harry and Meghan?

Ol’ Man River—Show Boat

The Letter, from Billy Elliot The Musical

Mis'ry's Comin' Aroun and Bill from Show Boat.. A show so far ahead of it's time.

I doubt anyone here will know this one: Spend Spend Spend -A true story about a woman who won -and lost a fortune. This song, "Who's Gonna Love Me Now?" has the present-day character and her younger self recalling losing her husband.

Another brilliant song from Spend Spend Spend: "The Scars of Love"

This one gets me every time. The reprise of "If I Loved You" in "Carousel," when Billy Bigelow is allowed to return to Earth for one day.

Here is the recording session of " When Your Feet Don;t Touch the Ground."

Carousel Finale from Lincoln Center.

Yes, it's a cartoon, but it's still a musical.

"What Would I Do?" from Falsettos

People Like Us from The Wild Party - Queenie and Black let down their jaded guard and recognize the desperation in their shallow, good-time lives, finding a fleeting moment of truth in each other. They're doomed and they know it; they just don't know quite where their end point is or how close it's coming.

Toni Colle.tte should be a bigger star.

People like us. We take lovers like pills.

Just hoping to cure what we know we can’t fix.

And we’ll lay in their arms

And we’ll say pretty things:

But we’ll still get our kicks:

And we heal awful fast and we don’t even scar:

We are here but not here

In a roomful of friends

We could join the fray

Or stay here where we are --

“I Never Know When” - Goldilocks

“When There’s No One” - Carrie

“I’ll Never Fall in Love Again” - Promises Promises

“It Might as Well Be Spring” -State Fair

“Falling in Love with Love” - The Boys from Syracuse

“Macula Non Est in Te” - Cry for Us All

“What Do You Want of Me?” - Man of La Mancha

“Imagine That” - Sherry

“I Can’t Find the Words” - Anne of Green Gables

“The Girls that Boys Dream About” - Robert and Elizabeth

“Something Wonderful” - The King and I

“Winter Was Warm” - Mr. Magoo’s Christmas Carol

“Before I Gaze at You Again”- Camelot

Not sure if it counts as "Broadway" but "Wicked Little Town" from "Hegwig..." always gets me, especially Tommy's later rendering of it in the film. I had a Tommy Gnosis of my own at the time so guess that helped.

If Ever I Could Leave You- Camelot

Younger Than Springtime- South Pacific

This one makes me tearful to listen to:

Any Dream Will Do - Joseph And The Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat

Dancing in the Dark - Dietz and Schwartz, The Band Wagon, 1931

Goodbye Love from Rent

"Some Other Time" -- On the Town

"Love, Look Away" -- Flower Drum Song

"Here I Am" -- Henry, Sweet Henry

"What I Did for Love" -- A Chorus Line

[quote] 56 replies and no submissions from Lucy’s Mame?

The entire thing was just SAD.

R13, Nathan’s right. Rose’s Turn is the expression of a lifetime of resentment and regret. Missed opportunities and grievance. Merman does a great job of making a truly obnoxious person seem pitiful and even sympathetic.

She Used To Be Mine - Jessie Mueller

If I Can't Love Her

From ANNIE - Maybe, and Something Was Missing. Reid Shelton was a powerful amazing baritone Warbucks

The musical nor the song are not popular, but I always thought My True Love from the Yeston's Phantom (not Webber's POTO) was always so sad and beautiful. I've always thought the Leroux story was so sad and this song I think really showcases well the themes of long-term desire ultimately leading to unrequited love with the slow chordal progression and the swelling and crescendos (which culminates in Christine running off after seeing his unmasked face). Also I love the singer's voice.

R83 it’s wonderful to hear someone else extolling the Kopit/Yeston PHANTOM. It really is the superior adaptation but it’s relatively unknown and overlooked.

For some mysterious reason though, in Asia it is more popular than ALW’s version.

What about "I'll Cover You (Reprise)" from Rent?

You younger queens really have shit taste in show music!

Are there no songs from Dear Evan Hansen to weep over?

I wept over that whole, sorry show. :(

TOTALLY this...

R19, I like the broadway cast version better. Unfortunately, it's just the song without actual video of the performance.

Days and Days from Fun Home is devastatingly sad as well. This is from the off-Broadway production. Judy Kuhn portrays Helen Bechdel, Alison's mother.

Anything For Him. A song about a straight man playing a gay man's love and using it against him.

R87 Words Fail

R87, I liked “You Will Be Found.”

How come no one has mentioned Miss Saigon yet?

And the song “Please” from Miss Saigon is ominously sad.

And of course, “I Still Believe.”

So many good songs in this thread.

I dunno why, but I’ve never been moved one tiny bit by either Les Miz or Miss Saigon. I think it’s because they both try so hard to make you cry. I instinctively resist.

[quote]Anything For Him. A song about a straight man playing a gay man's love and using it against him.

Or a gay man trying to get his sexual needs fulfilled by a straight man in prison.

No, what makes the song sad is that the gay character is genuinely in love with his straight cellmate. It's not just lust or infatuation. It's love, and it it cannot be returned. Tragic.

Hey Guys, Usually I'm not a huge Andrew Lloyd Webber fan, but he's been posting stuff to help us get through Corona virus. Here's "All I Ask of You." For some reason, I'm really touched by this. He's posted other stuff as well on YouTube.

[quote]No, what makes the song sad is that the gay character is genuinely in love with his straight cellmate. It's not just lust or infatuation. It's love, and it it cannot be returned. Tragic.

He's not in love. It is lust. There is nothing in the story that indicates love. He's a self-centered gay man who won't shut up about his movie infatuation with some screen actress named Aurora.

Someone above mentioned Elaine Stritch singing I Never Know When from Goldilocks.

Stritch at her best singing a jewel from a nearly lost Broadway treasure:

The sound on the OBCR is better than this youtube reposting.

"Holding to the Ground" - Falsettoland/Falsettos

"Millwork" from Working

"Here's That Rainy Day" from Carnival in Flanders

There was no OBC album, which Dolores Gray (who sang it on Broadway) hugely regretted, since the song afterwards became a standard; but she memorably sang it on TV in 1977.

This is a very little-known song from the beginning of "Coco," by Alan Jay Lerner and Andre Previn, but I've always found it so sad and beautiful, even though it is very short.

"But That's the Way You Are" sung by Jack Dabdoub

"Supper Time" from the Revue As Thousands Cheer

Spring is Here

"Mira" from Carnival, featuring at its end Anna Maria Alberghetti's famous pianissimo:

Our Time from the last great musical of the 20th Century Merrily We Roll Along.

A song of enormous hope that comes at the end of an assembling of broken dreams. Simply the most heartbreaking moment I've ever experienced in a Broadway musical.

"Bui Doi" is the song from "Miss Saigon" that does me in. Granted, it's manipulative, but it works on me.

r112 again. Maybe it hits home to me because Vietnam was my generation. (I was in college from '70-'74 and avoided the draft, but plenty of my peers did not.)

My Best Love, a song written for Keye Luke to sing in the original production of Flower Drum Song. He couldn't handle it, so it was re-assigned to Juanita Hall, but she couldn't sing it either, so it was cut.

Bruce Kimmel recorded it for one of his Lost on Broadway albums and I first encountered it when it was interpolated into a City Opera production of Cinderella in a different version from the last Broadway revival.

I searched for it on youtube but all I found were a couple of dreadful amateur versions and an even more dreadful version from that last Bway revival.

It's a more wistful than sad song but it's gorgeous. When I saw it at City Opera, it was redone as a duet between father and son and it was so wonderful.

.

Once before I go always gets me

[quote] How come no one has mentioned Miss Saigon yet?

Umm...no fats, no femmes, no asians ???

Who was the best Spiderwoman? Chita Rivera or Vanessa Williams?

Spring Can Really Hang You Up the Most was used in the1959 show The Nervous Set. Jane Monheit hits the sad notes.

I know it might not be a popular opinion here but “I Am the One (Reprise)” and “How Could I Ever Forget?” from Next To Normal

[quote]Who was the best Spiderwoman? Chita Rivera or Vanessa Williams?

Chita.

The role is a showy dance role which Chita excels at. Plus Chita was already experienced in the Kander & Ebb "razzle dazzle" style of songs like "Where You Are." And I think that Chita's singing served the music better than Vanessa's voice. The K&E music never needed a refined singing voice and it fits Chita's voice very well.

[quote]Who was the best Spiderwoman? Chita Rivera or Vanessa Williams?

Chita was the better Spiderwoman. You would have needed a third Spiderwoman to name one of them the best.

[quote]You would have needed a third Spiderwoman to name one of them the best.

There were other Spiderwomen. Carol Lawrence filled in for Chita's vacations. And I'm just too lazy to remember the name of the actress who replaced when Vanessa left. Conchita Alonso something or other?

What'll I Do? by Irving Berlin, introduced in the Music Box Review of 1923.

....

‘Best In The World’ - A Day in Hollywood, A Night in the Ukraine. Devastating.

Love this thread! Keep 'em coming.

And They’re Off, Sailing, and The Music Still Plays On from A New Brain.

“My Brother Lived in San Francisco” from Elegies for Angels, Punks, and Raging Queens

Do Hollywood Disney musicals count?

“Hushabye Mountain” from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang” Is sad and creepy, as is “Feed the Birds” from Mary Poppins. Both tugged at the heartstrings.

"Hey There" from THE PAJAMA GAME

I never saw the musical (did anyone?) of Ghost on B'way. But I love "With You." Sad and beautiful.

R106, Dolores Gray looked pretty good with some meat on her bones

R123, Irving Berlin was a master; the things he could do with a few notes and some plain-spoken lyrics continues to amaze me.

"What'll I do, with just a photograph, to tell my troubles to…"

The play is mostly maudlin as fuck, but "She Used to Be Mine" from "Waitress" has an undercurrent of real bitterness, loss, regret, and, depending on who's performing it, a tinge of self-loathing. It's the only song in the whole play that got to me a little.

R133 I actually wanted to list that song but didn't know what musical it came from or if it even was a part of a musical. One of my favorite performances of it is in that goofy George Lucas movie Radioland Murders. It's sung by Joey Lawrence of all people. The orchestral parts are particularly beautiful, and Joey does a good job as a early-1900s crooner.

Re: Les Miz and Miss Saigon, the music in both is generally beautiful and arguably poignant. But like someone mentioned above, they both really drill the misery into their work with the subtlety akin to that of a horny teenage boy trying to pick up a girl. Schönberg's composing is so schmaltzy and pop-sounding, with Boublil's lyrics being so clunky and unpoetic. "On my Own" may as well have been titled "I am Sad" in that it just beats the listener over the head with archetypal crestfallen phrases. Same with Miss Saigon. For sure, they're not bad songs, but a good sorrowful song has nuance and subtlety in both lyrics and music, neither of which Boublil or Schönberg do well.

R102 I have the same impression as R100, and during the final interrogation, Molina can save his own life, if he betrays Valentin and gives up the name of the contact, but he refuses to. And the last thing he screams before he is shot is, "I LOVE YOU."

"What'll I DO when YOU are far away?"

Joey Lawrence is awful.

r129 "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang" is not from Disney.

r135 Did Alan Boublil write the English lyrics? I thought Richard Maltby did.

[quote] Did Alan Boublil write the English lyrics? I thought Richard Maltby did.

Not r135 here, but Boublil didn’t write the English language lyrics for Les Miz. That was Herbert Kretzmer (with a few random contributions from an earlier English language lyricist and also, I believe, Trevor Nunn). Some of the big song lyrics in that show are basically just translations of the original French text by Boublil, but other stuff diverges considerably from what Boublil wrote and of course, huge swaths of the show as we know it now didn’t exist at all in the original French versions.

The English lyrics for Miss Saigon were by Maltby and Boublil together.

This is sad song.

Guys and Dolls: More I Cannot With You

R87: Check out R33.

Love Look Away from Flower Drum Song Another song of unrequited love.

In Fiddler on the Roof, the song the second daughter sings to her father at the train station as she is leaving for Siberia.

^Far From The Home I Love. Crushing song, especially if you know enough Russian history to know what's in store for her and Perchak.

That would be "Far From the Home I Love" [R145]. Great choice. That song and "Chavela" tear me apart every time, even when I was doing the show nightly.

Yes, the sappiness of the lyrics in both Miss Saigon and Les Miz are not the fault of Boublil. Translation is an art, and translating lyrics is even more specialized. Some of the best are Lin Manuel Miranda's West Side Story translations for a recent Broadway revival, and the Russian translations of Jesus Christ Superstar and Beauty and the Beast.

I saw Chita, Vanessa, and Maria Conchita Alonso play Aurora (along with a couple of others in regional/local productions). All three were great -in different ways. I saw Chita in London previews and she blew me away with her energy. She came alive, and lit up the stage. Vanessa Williams sang the best, and really delivered the songs, making you appreciate the score. I saw MCA's very first performance. She was nervous as hell, and warmed into her performance. But she was clearly giving it everything she had -for her audience. People fell in love with her for that. I never saw her live again after that, but I've seen both Chita and Vanessa in several things since. If I have to pick one, it's Chita -She's a living legend. I'd buy a ticket to watch her read the phone book.

Agree with r60. So many great ones here, but if I have to narrow it down- "Ol' Man River".

Hearing it never fails to move me.

No other song captures the relentlessness of time, our mortality, the longevity of natural matter (a river) and how our existence is dwarfed by them. That O'l River existed way before we were born and still will be here long after we die and what poignancy there is to that. How fleeting is our time...

And, of course, it's class, race and slave, er, pardon me, I mean labor, themes are so powerfully conveyed.

r148 Preach, sister!

I had this version more in mind, r149

No one can beat this:

Dorothy: “Well, I did once do a production of ‘Showboat’ in high school, and everyone said I was pretty good.” Sophia: “No one can sing ‘Old Man River’ like my Dorothy.” Frank: “Then you're saying you'll do it?” Dorothy: “Well, it is my production, and as they say, ‘The show must go on.’” Sophia: “Aw, Pussycat. It'll be like the old days. Come on, just one more time.” Dorothy: “Get a little drunk and you land in ja-aaaaaaaaail... I still got it!”

Ok, Ok, that earned an lol, r151

If Love Were All - Sir Coward

One for My Baby (and One More for the Road) by Harold Arlen and Johnny Mercer from The Sky's the Limit.

It's been done a thousand times in a hundred ways from swaggering swing to quiet sorrow.

I like a lot of interpretations, but one of my favorites is Ella Fitzgerald's, the version where she's accompanied only by piano. It captures the feeling of being the last one in the saloon at a quarter to three.

She lives up to the "dreamy and sad" request made in the lyrics.

By Myself - Dietz and Schwartz

R140 and R147, thank you for correcting me. I didn't realize the lyrics weren't originally in English. That would aptly explain the clunkiness in them. I still stand by what I said about Schönberg musicals though.

R137 he's certainly not the best, but for some reason I enjoy his mellow, almost whispering take on the song. But more so, I just enjoy the big band, early-1900s sound in that recording. Brings me to an Art Deco dark bar in the city with the sounds of ice clinking in an empty glass, an untied tie dangling around my neck and my collar unbuttoned.

Gorgeous little song to an ex from a little-known off-Bway show, BROWNSTONE.

(Bette Midler also covered it, but I thought it was better to let you hear an actual singer perform it.)

r129 just as I thought of those two songs I scrolled on to your post!

I'd say Hushabye Mountain is more uncertain and mysterious than "creepy", then sung by their father as a lullaby it becomes comforting as well. I haven't seen the film since I was a child but there is a sad, eerie, beauty to the song that always stuck in my head

Maria Conchita Alonso seems to have have work done, or been stung by hundreds of bees. One or the other.

Goodbye Until Tomorrow/I Could Never Rescue You from The Last Five Years, contrasting the feelings at the beginning/end of a relationship

A few more:

-“Shall I Take My Heart and Go?” Goldilocks

- “What’s the Use of Wondrin’?” Carousel

- “This Nearly Was Mine” South Pacific

- “Only Love” Zorba

- “Love Finds the Lonely” Ambassador

- “Where or When” Babes in Arms

- “Baby Mine” Dumbo

- “God Bless the Outcasts” Hunchback of Notre Dame

- “For Good” Wicked

- “Pink” War Paint

- “If He Walked into my Life” Mame

- “I Never Knew” Far from Heaven

- “Losing My Mind” Follies

Several songs from Kurt Weill's tragic Broadway opera "Street Scene," especially "Somehow I Never Could Believe," "A Boy Like You," "I Loved Her Too," "Lonely House."

Far away,

Long ago,

Glowing dim as an ember,

Things my heart used to know,

Things it yearns to remember

And a song someone sings

Once upon a December

"Johanna Quartet" from Sweeney Todd. The song is sung in various iterations but this time it sees Sweeney giving up on ever finding his daughter. Anthony swears that he'll steal her, Johanna herself is hopeful, and the Beggar Woman starts cluing in to what's going on. It's beautifully performed by Len Cariou and the others. But his resignation and descent into unfeeling murder while singing so achingly of his lost daughter is heartbreaking.

r158, I experienced a devastating loss and weeks afterward was listening to an old Tony Bennett record when Hushabye Mountain came on like an emotional ambush.

I experienced a catharsis through a flood of tears when I heard the lyrics for the first time as accepting death and setting someone free on the boat to Hushabye Mountain.

I know, MARY! but it was something so pure, like the simple sadness experienced by a child that I couldn't truly reach as an adult.

Until Tony Bennett told me it was okay.

"Once Upon a Time," from "All American," sung on the OBC album by Ray Bolger and EIleen "Myrtle Fargate" Herlie. Bolger mostly talks his way through it, but it's a lovely melody.

"Once Upon a Time" is an excellent choice.

Best rendition of "Once Upon a Time" was Mandy Patinkin.

"Good Thing Going" from Merrily We Roll Along

The ending reprise of "Camelot"... what a contrast to the upbeat, hopeful first version.

"If He Walked Into My Life" from Mame.

"Look Over There" from La Cage Aux Folles

IF I SING is a godawful song. But so are most of the songs above. "Sad" doesn't mean maudlin or sentimental or weepy, but one that EARNS its emotion, like ONCE UPON A TIME or MAMA, A RAINBOW.

Thank you R146 and R147.

Here is another vote for Baby Mine and for My Man Is Gone Now.

Wait a minute....Did no one mention "Memory" or "I AM WHAT I AM"!! My personal favorite( from a movie) AND SO IT GOES from Victor/Victoria.

For Jason Robert Brown fans....

"All That Wasted Time" from PARADE. It's a shitty quality video from Rosie O's show, but the audio is much better.

PS: it makes it much sadder if you know that he's about to be lynched by an angry mob.

Napoleon was one of the biggest flops in musical theater. This song "The Friend You Were to Me" is poignant however.

A New Life from Jekyll and Hyde. Linda Eder sings this song of hope and imminent happiness. Not really a sad song in itself, except right after she throws it out there believing in a wonderful future, she gets her throat slit. Sort of like real life, actually. So, that makes the song so sad.

[quote]"If He Walked Into My Life" from Mame. "Look Over There" from La Cage Aux Folles.

Really, you think those two are among the saddest songs in musical theater???

Dorothy Hammerstein, Oscar's wife, was once at a party and overheard someone say "Jerome Kern wrote Ol' Man River." She turned and said "No, Jerome Kern wrote dum, dum, dum-dum. My husband wrote Ol' Man River."

Meanwhile, I'll Be Seeing You wasn't written for a musical but it's been used in several that feature music of the WWII period. Here's Ann Hampton Callaway in the musical Swing!

Dorothy Hammerstein, Oscar's wife, was once at a party and overheard someone say "Jerome Kern wrote Ol' Man River." She turned and said "No, Jerome Kern wrote dum, dum, dum-dum. My husband wrote Ol' Man River."

Meanwhile, I'll Be Seeing You wasn't written for a musical but it's been used in several that feature music of the WWII period. Here's Ann Hampton Callaway in the musical Swing!

[quote] IF I SING is a godawful song. But so are most of the songs above.

Thanks for weighing in, Cunty.

One More Walk Around the Garden from the Burton Lane/Alan Jay Lerner musical Carmelina. I tried to find the original cast recording but had to settle for this.

Todd Duncan sings the title song from Kurt Weill's Lost in the Stars.

My pick was "Suppertime" from "As Thousands Cheer" but someone picked that. So I'll say "Will I?" from "RENT".

"Lost in the Stars" is another beautiful choice.

[quote]My pick was "Suppertime" from "As Thousands Cheer"

Not to be confused with "Suppertime" from "You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown."

‘Try to Remember’

‘If Ever I Would Leave You’

‘My Cup Runneth Over’

"My Cup Runneth Over" and "If Ever I Would Leave You?" Really? Both of those are beautiful songs, but some of you people have a very strange idea of what the word "sad" means. I didn't think it was a difficult word to understand, but I guess it is....

Not to be confused with Suppertime from Little Shop of Horrors.

Not to be confused with Suppertime and the living is easy…

SHUMMERTIIIIIIIIIME an' the livin' is easy

Fish are SHUMPIN'...

Miss Madeline's Lost in the Stars....

Thanks for that "One More Walk Around the Garden" video. :) The story goes that after Alan Lerner's death his final (7th?) wife visited their English country home. She asked her friends to stay in the car while she toured the place one last time. They heard her singing this song while she literally took one last walk around the garden. Dunno if the story is true, but I hope it is.

50 percent sung by Dorothy Loudon (YouTube it)

R141 I completely forgot about that song until you mentioned it. I grew up on the Shirley Jones' film movie so, when I saw the live musical, I was intrigued by the song as I think it's a really excellent example of Rodger's prowess in composition and a nice departure from the flowery love songs and boisterous group numbers at which he excelled. I can see why they omitted it from the movie, but I think it's a beautifully crafted melody and accompaniment (Hamm's lyrics are a bit on-the-nose though). I posted the song above from Yeston's Phantom and I see a lot of similarity between the two. I guess I have a thing for slow, plodding ballads/arias expressing agony.