So I like Sad Songs. So what?

Ain't there one damn song that can make me break down and cry? -Bowie

So I’m listening to Young Americans, and I hear this line, and I think, huh… yeah, probably. I actually came up with three that can get me going with some consistency:

1. Eva Cassidy – Fields of Gold
2. Cat Power – Good Woman
3. Tony Bennett – The Way You Look Tonight

People worry about kids playing with guns, and teenagers watching violent videos; we are scared that some sort of culture of violence will take them over. Nobody worries about kids listening to thousands – literally thousands – of songs about broken hearts and rejection and pain and misery and loss. The unhappiest people I know, romantically speaking, are the ones who like pop music the most; and I don't know whether pop music has caused this unhappiness, but I do know that they've been listening to the sad songs longer than they've been living the unhappy lives. -Rob Gordon

Guster - Diane

If you know me at all, you know I like sad songs. Often, they are my catharsis, my release. This is one of those.

In a nutshell, this is a song about a doomed relationship where the couple’s only form of honest communication is through sleep-talking. He loves her, but she’s grown tired of the whole thing, and in fact, only smiles when she’s dreaming (“who were you just thinking of, Diane?”). But he remains (perhaps naively) optimistic. I have no idea why he thinks they’ll make it out together.

Why do I like this song so much? Perhaps some of it is that the drum beat reminds me of Tom Petty’s Breakdown. Well, much of it is probably due to the fact it’s pretty much biographical. I can relate to the unjustified optimism the narrator professes. Over some girl in London.