My kids, like all kids of their generation, are movie addicted. I started early on trying to interest them in some of my favorites, but it took a few failures with the likes of “Chariots Of Fire”, “High Noon” and “Camelot” before I figured out that film preferences of middle-schoolers vary significantly from 50-somethings. The one that really surprised me though was “Fiddler On The Roof”. This movie is so rich with human emotion and soul-stirring music that I thought they would eat it up.
“No, Dad – it’s too sad.”
I guess that sad songs and sad movies are an acquired taste of adulthood. I had forgotten that the palates of children must pass through the sweetness of mother’s milk and mashed potatoes long before they appreciate the sharp bite of bitter hops or that delectable edge of a particularly dark chocolate. So too with culture. Wee ones must commence with homey "board books" like “I Am A Bunny” or the cartoon delights of Disney’s “Robin Hood”. Maybe, decades later, given the right training, they will relish the haunting darkness of “Blade Runner”.
Sad movies are good, sad songs are better. Perhaps it is because you can enjoy them more often in bite-size pieces, but why find pleasure in this genre at all? I’ll be pondering that before my final installment.
#14) “Can’t Find My Way Home” by Blind Faith:
The blues are a US invention, but the Brits have done well with their own twist of the genre.This is
a particularly lovely piece by Stevie Winwood.
“Well, I’m near the end and I just ain’t got the time.
And I’m weary and I’m wasted and I can’t find my way home.”
#13) “Wouldn’t Have Made Any Difference” by Alison Krause:
I was very familiar with this song in its original version by Todd Rundgren. One afternoon I was wandering around Barnes & Noble and heard the voice of an angel singing of some lost love. Then “Wouldn’t Have Made Any Difference” came on in a lush, twangy, hillbilly version of this infinitely sadder tune. I walked over to the clerk, she told me it was some singer named Alison Krause and that this disc was selling like hotcakes. I was the next buyer.

“... And maybe you remember,
The last time, you called me,
To say we were through.
How it took a million tears, just to prove they all were for you.
But it wouldn’t have made any difference,
If you loved me.
How could you love me?
When it wouldn’t make any difference
If you really loved me.”
#12) “Love Hurts” by Gram Parsons & Emmylou Harris:
Gram was one of those shooting stars that chose to burn out rather than fade away. Emmylou emerged from the smoke that remained. This song is a classic from country’s finest.
“I'm young, I know, but even so;
I know a thing or two, I learned from you.
I really learned a lot, really learned a lot,
Love is like a stove, burns you when it's hot.
Love hurts, mmm, mmm, love hurts.”
#11) “Red Dirt Girl” by Emmylou Harris:
There are so many sad “story songs”. This genre probably goes back to Viking sagas of love lost to shipwreck. The Irish perfected it and then brought it with them to America where country and folk
artists have run with it. This particular song is despair without redemption, where only the smallest sprout of hope is allowed to grow and then crushed under the boot of a bad start, bad choice and bad love.
“She tried hard to love him but it never did take.
It was just another way for the heart to break,
So she dug right in.
But one thing they don't tell you about the blues when you got em,
You keep on falling cause there ain't no bottom.
There ain't no end,
At least not for Lillian.”
#10) “I Used To Be A King” by Gram Nash:
Nash cries out in agony over the lost Joni Mitchell.
“I used to be a king
and everything around me turned to rust.
It’s `cause I built my life on sand,
And watched it crumble in the dust.
But it’s all right I’m O.K., I want to know how you are.
For what it’s worth, I must say I loved you as you are,
And in my bed, where are you?
Someone is going to take my heart,
But no one is going to break my heart again."