Sadness Is A Blessing: Sad Songs, Quotes, and Movies That Will Make You Happier

“Nothing thicker than a knife's blade separates happiness from melancholy.”- Virginia Woolf

"Melencolia I" by Durer

Have you ever watched a sad movie, read a sad book, or listened to sad music and somehow felt happier or more inspired having watched/read/listened to them? I have and still do. When I'm feeling my lowest (which can be pretty damn low), I like to put on the most depressing music or movies and escape from the world. I come out the other end feeling rejuvenated and content. If you're anything like me, and I know you are out there, people, please enjoy this post full of the sad movies and songs that are my go-to's when I am at my saddest.

“Sometimes we get sad about things and we don't like to tell other people that we are sad about them. We like to keep it a secret. Or sometimes, we are sad but we really don't know why we are sad, so we say we aren't sad but we really are.” - Mark Haddon

It's good to know that you are not alone in your sadness, too, right?

“Because secrets do not increase in value if kept in a gore-ian lockbox, because one's past is either made useful or else mutates and becomes cancerous. We share things for the obvious reasons: it makes us feel un-alone, it spreads the weight over a larger area, it holds the possibility of making our share lighter. And it can work either way - not simply as a pain-relief device, but, in the case of not bad news but good, as a share-the-happy-things-I've-seen/lessons-I've-learned vehicle. Or as a tool for simple connectivity for its own sake, a testing of waters, a stab at engagement with a mass of strangers.”- Dave Eggers

 

 1. "Sadness Is A Blessing" by Lykke Li: Sometimes I try and fight the sadness and anxiety. That hardly ever works. It's much better to just give in and let all of the feels in and then let them leave. As Lykke Li says in this song, "Sadness I'm your girl".

2. "Asleep" by the Smiths: Sometimes sleep is the only respite you get from the sadness (that sounds so emo, I love it).

3. "Valentine" by Fiona Apple: Oh unrequited love. You wish that they would notice you, you would do anything for them. You know you should move on, but you're a "fugitive too dumb to flee". If you watch Girls on HBO (which you totally should be), you'll remember this song in one of the best scenes of season 2. 

Hey, guys, let's all take a looksie at another great scene from season 2. And hey, Fiona Apple is mentioned again. Lena Dunham and I are clearly in the I-adore-Fiona-Apple club:

4. "The Nicest Thing" by Kate Nash: When I was a young undergrad student I used to listen to this song on repeat and cry. I was THAT cool. I think we all just want someone who understands us and our quirks. It reminds me of that poem that Drew Barrymore's character in Never Been Kissed recites about the boy that she likes: "Does he notice me? Does he hear my heart screaming his name-- sometimes it's so loud I think the Gods can hear my pain. His voice is so mellifluous, oh to get just one small kiss." Yeah, I clearly was super popular with the menfolk in college. Obvi.

5. "No Children" by the Mountain Goats: A super sad and anger-filled song that sounds happy. Fooled ya!

6. "I Know You Care" by Ellie Goulding: Ellie's album, Halcyon, has become my go-to record when I am going through a breakup. She wrote it after she went through a tough one, too. Every song on the album represents a different stage in getting over the pain. This one shows up near the end of the album and it's all about the overwhelming feeling of sadness of the relationship ending and losing what was once so close to you.

7. "Oh! Sweet Nuthin'!" by the Velvet Underground: This song is great when you've just got nothing left. No sadness, no anger, just numbness. It's kind of a wonderful feeling, rock bottom. As Tyler Durden says in Fight Club, "It's only after we've lost everything that we're free to do anything." RIP Lou Reed.

8. "Always Gold" by Radical Face: Sometimes people don't understand you, except for that one special person. This song is about losing a friend or loved one that just could never get comfortable with living. They maybe didn't realize how much they meant to other people, though.

9. "The Last Time I Saw Richard" by Joni Mitchell: This sadness is temporary. We're all going to "build our gorgeous wings and fly away" it's only a phase "these dark cafe days".

10. "More Adventurous" by Rilo Kiley: Just listen to the lyrics. 

Movies:

First things first, if you haven't seen it, go see Blue Is the Warmest Color immediately if not sooner.

1. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

2. Lost in Translation

3. Broken English

4. Like Crazy

5. Blue Valentine

6. Hannah and Her Sisters

7. Closer

8. Melancholia

9. Before Sunrise/Before Sunset/Before Midnight

10. The Diving Bell and the Butterfly

11. Beginnings

12. It's Kind of A Funny Story

13. The Perks of Being a Wallflower

14. Girl, Interrupted

15. Elegy

16. American Beauty

17. The Hours

18. A Single Man: 

"A few times in my life I’ve had moments of absolute clarity. When for a few brief seconds the silence drowns out the noise and I can feel rather than think, and things seem so sharp and the world seems so fresh. It’s as though it had all just come into existence. I can never make these moments last. I cling to them, but like everything, they fade. I have lived my life on these moments. They pull me back to the present, and I realize that everything is exactly the way it was meant to be."

19. Away We Go

20. Atonement

"It's the great mystery of human life that old grief passes gradually into quiet tender joy." - Dostoevskii

“Only people who are capable of loving strongly can also suffer great sorrow, but this same necessity of loving serves to counteract their grief and heals them.” - Tolstoy

"She was a genius of sadness, immersing herself in it, separating its numerous strands, appreciating its subtle nuances. She was a prism through which sadness could be divided into its infinite spectrum.” - Jonathan Safran Foer

“The pain was quite extraordinary. And yet also weirdly welcome and restorative, bringing him news of his aliveness and his caughtness in a story larger than himself." - Jonathan Franzen