Top Ten Self-Pity Songs (Volume 2)

Some guy on the net thinks I suck and he should know
He's got his own blog!

By popular demand, I'm back with another pathetic playlist of pity. Many thanks to everyone who suggested songs last time, some of which are included here, others will be featured in the future.

You know the drill by now... this is Radio I Hate Myself & Want To Die FM!

10. Skinny - Failure


"Why have I always been a failure?" asked Skinny in 1998. It must have been doubly galling for them when Moby was such a success.

9. Tom Jones - I (Who Have Nothing)


You know that Cee-Lo Green chart-topper I was raving about? Here's its 1970 predecessor courtesy of the Welsh warbler.

8.Superman Revenge Squad - Pupkin

This homage to Robert DeNiro's King of Comedy deserves a post all its own. I strongly urge you to read the lyrics below, and if they strike a chord, follow the link to Ben Parker's website and give him some money. He has a new record out now.

I've been looking through loads of books of old lyrics that I wrote,
I've been wondering if I have really developed at all,
I used to want to be Billy Corgan now I can't remember what I once saw in those sentimental, over-produced songs he used to sing to me,
I was at home and feeling lonely, he was out there making loads of cash...

Used to want to be a writer
But now I'd take a lighter to those stories
I thought I'd be changing people's lives
I thought I'd have the Booker Prize
Now I realise that they're just lies
People tell themselves because hey don't wanna get a job

What's the point of singing songs you don't believe in
Just 'cos people say they might make you money?
And is Robbie from Eastenders really sexy
Just 'cos people recognise him from the telly?
And if Newsnight Review look at everything you do
And they decide it's crap
Is it really time to pack it in?
And no matter how many times I do this thing
Will I still feel like Rupert Pupkin?

I used to wanna be in Iron Maiden
Now I can't imagine what I'd do
With the money that I'd come into
Just for playing shows and hanging out with Bruce
And spending my spare time with Mötley Crüe
I mean, would I really care
About the people that stare
And point at the spandex clothes that I wear
If it was something I really wanted to do?

What's the point of singing songs you don't believe in
Just 'cos people say they might make you money?
And is Robbie from Eastenders really sexy
Just 'cos people recognise him from the telly?
And if Newsnight Review look at everything you do
And they decide it's crap
Is it really time to pack it in?
And no matter how many times I do this thing
Will I still feel like Rupert Pupkin?

7. Bloodhound Gang - Why Is Everybody Always Picking On Me?

Juvenile in the extreme, like The Inbetweeners on record, yet I can't help but sympathise...

6. Gilbert O'Sullivan - Alone Again (Naturally)


A song that begins with Gilbert being jilted at the altar and ends with the death of both his parents - you can't really blame him for feeling sorry for himself.

See also Nothing Rhymed, a song so monumentally miserable that even Morrissey struggled to make it through to the end when covering it live.

5. Babybird - Unlovable


Speaking of Morrissey... there is, of course, a masterclass in self-pity from The Smiths that goes under the same title as this recent offering from Babybird - you know, it's the one where Moz declares "I wear black on the outside, black is how I feel on the inside". I'd have given my right arm for a T-shirt with that on the front when I was 15 (and it'd only have needed one sleeve).

Babybird's song isn't quite that tragic, but it is a fine example of the quality of work on Stephen Jones's 10th album, Ex-Maniac, released earlier this year. Plus the video was directed by Johnny Deep. Yes, that Johnny Depp.

4. Luxembourg - Single


"I wouldn't wish my life upon anyone else..." sings David Shah on this peerless ode to failing to bother the charts. "I can't spend another summer burning copies of my debut single in my bedroom," he continues, "I can't spend another Sunday crying on the sofa as another opportunity passes me by."

You can download the entire album free from their Last FM page. I'd highly recommend you do that. Now.

3. Nick Drake - Poor Boy

How did I get this far into an appreciation of supreme self-pity without any Nick Drake? Poor, poor Nick Drake - I'll weep for him forever.

2. Ben Folds / Nick Hornby - A Working Day

The opening track to the new Ben Folds / Nick Hornby collaboration. Seriously - Ben Folds and Nick Hornby made a record together. Ben on music and vocals, Nick on lyrics. Until Stephen King and Bruce Springsteen team up, or Morrissey and Douglas Coupland, this is my dream muso-author combo.

Some guy on the net thinks I suck and he should know
He's got his own blog!

I'm a loser
I'm a poser
Yeah really
It's over
I mean it and I quit
Everything I write is shit

Hey, hey
It's a working day
Hey, hey
It's a working day

Somehow it's reassuring to know that even Ben Folds and Nick Hornby have days like that.

1. Janis Ian - At Seventeen

A song I find almost too painful to listen to. And I'm a boy...

To those of us who knew the pain
Of valentines that never came
And those whose names were never called
When choosing sides for basketball
It was long ago and far away
The world was younger than today
And dreams were all they gave for free
To ugly duckling girls like me

Go on world - hurt each other, kill each other, do anything you want!

I just don't care any more.

Top Ten Self-Pity Songs (Volume 1)

Isn't self-pity great? I hereby declare it the most ace emotion ever! If I'm having a bad day, there's nothing more guaranteed to cheer me up than a good long bout of feeling sorry for myself.

You'd think that with all the money and groupies and cocaine and stuff, your average rock star wouldn't have much time for self-pity, yet they seem to get off on it almost as much as I do. Although to be fair, most of the anthems to self-loathing listed below come from early in the respective artist's career - by singing about how shit they felt, they made oodles of money and hence stopped feeling so shit about themselves... and then went on to stop writing such good songs, since happiness is rarely conducive to artistic greatness.

This is Volume 1 simply because there are so many great self-pity songs, I really couldn't narrow it down to just ten. I'll throw some more onto the fire the next time I'm feeling crappy. Do feel free to add your own suggestions in the comments box...


10. Wheatus - Teenage Dirtbag

I don't care, I love this song. It encapsulates how shit it is to be a teenager, listening to Iron Maiden, unable to get the girl you want because she's dating a dick. The video features perpetual loser Jason Biggs trying to cop off with Mena Suvari (from Amy Heckerling's underrated teen-com Loser). The band followed this supreme ode to woe with an Erasure cover. Yes, a fucking ERASURE cover. They deserved to self-destruct after that. But as one-hit wonders go... wow.

9. Eels - Dog Faced Boy

Coming home from the school today
Crying all along the way
Ain't no way for a boy to be
Begging ma to shave me please

You little punks think you own this town
Well someday someone's gonna bring you down
Life ain't pretty for a dog faced boy

E from the Eels has built a career on feeling sorry for himself, and understandly so when you consider some of the things that have happened to him. That said, he's always aware that things could be worse. He could always have a face like a shaggy mongrel.

8. Strangelove - Freak

If your name was Duff, you might expect your life to follow suit. So cheesed off that fate had robbed him by leaving that all-important 'y' off the end of his name - otherwise he might have been The Man From Atlantis or Bobby Ewing - Patrick Duff formed Strangelove and channeled all his negativity into this...

I walk the plastic streets
Just like a monkey
Just like a geek
My scraping knuckles bleed
I hear my Mummy crying out
He's a freak
I live a life alone
And all my friends are gone
It kind of turns me on
I hate them one by one by one
I'm a freak

7. Mansun - What It's Like To Be Hated

A song so utterly depressing, I can't even find it on youtube.

How are you feeling today, Paul Draper?

Ugly, scruffy, no one

Really?

Nasty, bitter, enraged

Right...

Hated, broken

Oh, come on now, cheer up - it can't be that bad.

Disturbed, unwanted at birth
The fucking joke that we are
I've never had any friends

Fair enough then.

6. Simon & Garfunkel - I Am A Rock

I've built walls,
A fortress deep and mighty,
That none may penetrate.
I have no need of friendship; friendship causes pain.
It's laughter and it's loving I disdain.
I am a rock,
I am an island.

See the genius of Paul Simon here is that, bad as he's feeling, he's actually convinced himself he's better off that way. There was a time in my life I lived by the following lines...

I have my books
And my poetry to protect me;
I am shielded in my armor,
Hiding in my room, safe within my womb.
I touch no one and no one touches me.

And if it all falls apart at sometime in the future, I'll live by them again.

5. Teddy Thompson - Turning The Gun On Myself

I really should do a list of suicide anthems. And this really should be on it. But as it's possibly the best song Richard Thompson Jr.'s ever written, it deserves its place on this list too.

4. Eric Carmen - All By Myself

When Eric Carmen was young, he never needed anyone. Making love? Making love was just for fun! Sadly, those days are gone. Now he's living alone, thinking of all the friends he's known... but when he dials the telephone... nobody's home.

I don't know about you, but I'm welling up.

3. Beck - Loser

For many years, I thought that Beck sang "So - open up the door - I'm a loser baby, so why don't you kill me?"

Only when it comes to writing this post do my investigations reveal he's actually singing "Soy un perdedor", which, according to the internet... is Spanish for "I'm a loser".

2. Radiohead - Creep

I wish I was special. Don't you?

1. The Smiths - I Know It's Over

Of course, I could have compiled an entire Self-Pity Top Ten just from Smiths songs. And I could have made a Top Hundred just from sticking pins at random in Morrissey's solo catalogue. But none of them would have been quite as majestically miserable as this. It begins with Morrissey climbing into an empty bed he equates with a grave... and goes rapidly downhill from there. He then imagines a relationship with a potential partner who turns round and says to him these immortal words...

"If you're so funny
Then why are you on your own tonight ?
And if you're so clever
Then why are you on your own tonight ?
If you're so very entertaining
Then why are you on your own tonight ?
If you're so very good-looking
Why do you sleep alone tonight ?
I know ...
'Cause tonight is just like any other night
That's why you're on your own tonight
With your triumphs and your charms
While they're in each other's arms..."

If you've never sat alone late at night and asked yourself these questions... count yourself very, very lucky.



There - don't you feel better now?