The Guardian gives us the Top 25 Saddest Songs. I can’t agree with all of them. Pink Floyd never made me sad. Dark and moody perhaps, but never sad. However, at #2 was a track I was scarred by as a kid:
2. The Shortest Story Harry Chapin (1976)
The most misguided song ever written, the ghastly The Shortest Story features the late songwriter/activist Harry Chapin adopting the persona of an African baby who dies of malnutrition. From the infant’s viewpoint, we hear about his hunger pangs, weeping siblings, and how his mother’s shrivelled breast cannot produce milk. He finally expires while sickly birds "crawl across the sky". The song ends with the portentous clang of a tubular bell, the banshee of musical instruments. Though it was meant to instill awareness about world hunger, The Shortest Story is like 50 tons of nuclear waste dumped in the middle of a park to show how bad it is to drop litter.
I cried everytime I heard this track on my dad’s turntable. I cried the first time I heard it (I think I was 6). When I dried up I went and asked my dad what the lyrics were about. Then I cried some more just thinking about it. For some reason I listened to it about once a week all summer until it lost its tear-inducing effect. To this day I can’t hear it without getting choked up.
