Gloomy Sunday

Can you name a song that supposedly been related to over 100 suicides? No? Well here's one. Gloomy Sunday was first written in 1933 but rose to fame in America when sung by Billie Holiday in 1941. Many urban myths have surrounded the "hungarian suicide song" since it first aired on radio around the world, one such myth states that lovers who hear this song will jump to their death immediatly after. While that may not be true it's fair to say that the success of the song contributed to the composer's unhappiness as he knew he'd never be able to produce a second hit. In an ironic twist the composer(Rezso Seress) killed himself 35 years later. There is talk of the song actually being banned from radio stations for the sheer darkness of the lyrics. Though that extreme measure might not have occured there is enough evidence to support that the song got enough negative response that the lyrics had to be shuffled around a little to soften the meaning. This is shown in the last stanza. It was added when Bilie Holiday recorded to make it sound as if the first two stanzas were merely in the narrators head. Personnally I prefer the versions without it. One of the better ones was sung by Paul Whiteman in '36. You can find Billie's recording and 25 other "exquisitly sad songs" here