Downer Ending/Music: Difference between revisions

* The video for [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z8Y1MalRrDc Luv Deluxe] by Cinnamon Chasers has '''[[Multiple Endings|THREE]]''' of them. All of them shot from the main character's [[Male Gaze|point of view]]. The [[Alternate History|point of divergence]] is when the main character and [[Femme Fatale|love interest]] are about to pay a restaurant bill:

** She tears up the check, gets the main character involved in [[Five-Finger Discount|pickpocketing]], but {{spoiler|they end up getting arrested}}.

** He pays for the check, things start off well, but we later learn that the love interest is just plain [[Bitch in Sheep's Clothing|crazy]]. He tries to leave her {{spoiler|only to get shot by her. She throws the gun on the ground, allowing the main character to [[Too Dumb to Live|shoot her too]]. His last sight is of [[Together in Death|her body next to his]] before the video fades to black.}}

* [[Pink Floyd]]'s last album of the Roger Waters era (or [[Your Mileage May Vary|Roger Waters' first solo album]]), ''The Final Cut'', ends with the song "Two Suns in the Sunset". One sun is the sun. The other 'sun' is a mushroom cloud. However, the soulful sax fade-out turns it from a wrist-slitting downer into a lingering melancholy.

* [[Tom Waits]]'s "Christmas Card from a Hooker in Minneanopolis" is an unnamed woman telling the reader of the card, a man named Charlie, how she's turned her life around by getting married and quit using drugs and that's she's finally happy. However, at the end of the card, she reveals she was lying about having a husband (and presumably everything else) and needs money to pay a lawyer since she's in jail.

* [[Queensryche]]'s ''[[Rock Opera|Operation: Mindcrime]]'' ends with Sister Mary killing herself(?), and Nikki on trial for murder and insane.

* [[Nirvana]] had two clear depressing album closers ("Something In The Way" and "All Apologies") and a borderline example ("Sifting" - though the mainstream reissue ends with one which ''is called'' [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sc67atweLKI&feature=related "Downer"] but it's not a [[Downer Ending]]).

** Nirvana itself considering [[Ate His Gun|what happened to Kurt...]]

** ''Never for Ever'' - "Breathing", a song about a fetus wanting to stay alive during a nuclear fallout.

** ''The Dreaming'' - "Get Out of My House", a song based on [[The Shining]], which according to Allmusic is "Part ghost story, part nervous breakdown, part rage in the face of violation."

** Or, to put it in an easier to understand way: It's a musical retelling of ''[[Johnny Got His Gun]]'' (which has already been mentioned in EXTREME detail in the book section, so just read that to see exactly why it's so sad).

* The story of the album ''The Downward Spiral'' by [[Nine Inch Nails]] ends with the protagonist's suicide, according to [[Wild Mass Guessing]].

** [[Word of God|Trent Reznor left the ending ambiguous.]] It doesn't make "Hurt" less depressing, though.

** ''The Fragile'' is supposed to have a story as well. Considering the song "Ripe (with Decay)"...

* Barry Manilow's ''Copacabana''. The plot? Lola's a showgirl at the titular nightclub and falls in love with Tony the barmaker...only for Rico to make advances on her, pressing Tony's [[Berserk Button]]. Cue a huge fight that ends in Rico shooting Tony and skip thirty years ahead to show Lola a wasted alcoholic.

* [[Opeth]]'s album ''Still Life'' is about a medieval atheist, exiled from his community, returning for his love who has become a nun. It doesn't end well for either of them.

* ''Green Green Grass of Home'' tells the story about a man returning home after a long period and meeting everyone he knows, only to wake up in prison about to face the executioner.

* ''Tell Laura I Love Her'' by Ray Peterson tells the story of a fatal automobile race.

* "Teen Angel by Mark Dinning.

* "Leader of the Pack" by the Shangri-Las ends with the guy dying in a motorcycle accident.

*** Probably why the original album ends with "I'm Gonna Crawl".

* [[The Beatles]]'s "Eleanor Rigby" is depressing all the way through, as it's about lonely people in the world who never meet up and end their loneliness. The titular character "dies in a church and was buried along with her name. Nobody came."

* A particularly notorious example was [[Michael Jackson]]'s music video/short film "Black or White", based on the hit single of the same name. It was shown on three basic cable channels simultaneously one night in the fall of 1991, so it was guaranteed to garner a huge audience with [[Hilarious in Hindsight|many children watching]]. The video, which included (among other things) African tribesmen, fur-capped Russian dancers, the Statue of Liberty, and [[Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking|Macaulay Culkin performing a rap]], seemingly concluded with a young black woman (who, in montage, had just been transformed into a variety of different people of various skin colors and body types, as well as of both sexes) miming to the end of the song. But then the camera cuts away to reveal that the girl is actually an actress in the studio where the video is being filmed, and pans away until it is following a black leopard as it stalks its way out of the studio and into the dark and rainy night. Once outside, the leopard transforms into Michael Jackson and begins to compulsively perform a dance that becomes more and more unnerving as it goes along, with a great deal of crotch-grabbing. Suddenly he begins smashing a car, shop windows, etc., screaming all the while. As this orgy of godlike destruction concludes, Michael's screams are mixed with the roars of his leopard alter ego. He finally rips off half his clothes and collapses into the rain-slicked street, whereupon he transforms back into the leopard, snarls, and stalks away. And ''then'' in a particularly egregious case of [[Mood Whiplash]], the scene cuts to an animated living room, where it is revealed that [[The Simpsons|Bart Simpson]] has been watching the entire time. His father bursts in and orders Bart to turn off the TV, prompting Bart to retort with one of his trademark wisecracks. Needless to say, this video left many in its television audience confused, traumatized, and angered. Jackson was forced to issue a public apology for the incident and the video was recut so that it ended just before the "black leopard" sequence. Later, the full-length version reappeared with CGI effects superimposing racist graffiti on the objects he smashed to provide justification for his rage.

* "Strange Kind of Woman" by [[Deep Purple]]; guy tries to seduce a high class call girl and eventually succeeds...only for her to die not long after they wed.

* Finnis Schlager example: ''Yksinäinen'' ("Lonely"). The song name in itself is somewhat of a [[Spoiler Title]], but the listener might still be unpleasantly surprised. The song is about someone who leaves their home village to try their luck in the world and find happiness. After a few verses of the world generally pissing in in their face, they return home, realising the only true happiness for them is their true love who they left behind years ago. They finally arrive -- and cannot find their love -- only a grave.

* Everytime by [[Britney Spears]] finishing off her In The Zone record

* "Rock Collecting" by Pond is a nine minute song that plods at a snail's pace. The song is about a person who commits suicide by building a wall around himself, the final verse details about how he will simply decompose and disappear into the earth.

** ''The Number of the Beast'' finishes with "Hallowed Be Thy Name", about a man on death row.

** The closing songs of both ''Piece of Mind'' ("To Tame A Land") and ''Brave New World'' ("The Thin Line Between Love and Hate") end with a very unhappy sounding final part. (if you ignore Nicko's [[Studio Chatter]] in the latter)

* [[Garbage]] also likes to end their albums with a really depressing song (so far: "Milk", "You Look So Fine", "So Like a Rose", "Happy Home" and "Beloved Freak").

* "Big League" by Tom Cochrane. A little boy wants to grow up to be a famous hockey player and get out of the small town he lives in. His father tells everyone how his boy's going to play in the big league someday. The boy works hard on his game and gets a scholarship and school on a "big US team" when he's 18. Then he's out driving with his girlfriend and he gets killed in a car accident.

* [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M0LtrppDDkg All Systems Go] by Krypteria is an energetic, motivational song about overcoming one's fears and hesitations, boldly stepping up to the challenge, and seizing your moment of glory, yet ends with the [[BSOD Song|BSOD]] line:

{{quote| ''You might receive what you want and still end up with nothing''}}

* There is a ''whole genre'' of rock music known as ''[http://www.nyx.net/~anon52ea/DeadTeenSongs.html Dead Teen Songs]'', which are dedicated to death. Either the protagonist, or someone close to him or her, dies in those songs.

* The Ultimate Musical Downer Ending must be the Finnish remake of Uriah Heep ''Lady in Black'' named ''Nainen tummissa'' (Woman in Black). The Lady is actually the Angel of Death coming to visit the protagonist. [[It Gets Worse]]: {{spoiler|The protagonist falls in love with her and asks for a kiss, but she yields, telling him that his time has not yet come. The protagonist cannot find any happiness or consolation in this world anymore, as he has fallen in love with the Angel of Death, and he loves only the Death, waiting her to come.}}

* Although Steven Wilson has stated that the fate of the teenage protagonist in [[Porcupine Tree|Porcupine Tree's]] [[Concept Album]] ''Fear of a Blank Planet'' is open to listener interpretation, the increasingly desperate lyrics as the album progresses and [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NBKebb5NV78 bleak mood] of "Sleep Together", the album's final song, strongly imply that he is [[Driven to Suicide]].

* [[King Diamond]]'s albums all have downer endings, but The Puppet Master is exceedingly dark. A young couple is kidnapped and turned into living puppets. The main character's loved one is sent away to Germany and, {{spoiler|after embarrassing the eponymous villain at a show, the main character is sold to a shop and nailed to a wall. The album ends 18 years later with the main character still nailed the wall, aware the entire time, wishing to see his loved one last time and vowing to at least see her in the afterlife.}}

* "Xanadu" by [[Rush]], where the narrator searches for the secret of immortality once held in Kubla Khan's pleasure dome. He finds it and achieves immortality, but at the price of never leaving the dome, where he desperately waits for the world to come to an end.

* The final song on The Zombie EP by [[The Devil Wears Prada]] (the band, not the movie) is about a man who lost his wife to the zombies, and now has to face the undead alone. While the entire album could be considered a downer (it ''is'' about the [[Zombie Apocalypse]]), this song, which features lyrics like "I have watched the world die/All I know now is regret" tops them all.

* The song "Up The Junction" by Squeeze starts as a love story, with the singer meeting a girl, falling in love, then they have a daughter. Then, with no warning, it changes to "and now she (the daughter) 's two years older, her mother's with a soldier" and a lament on how the singers drinking caused the breakdown of his life.

* The Mamas And The Papas. Is there anything about their lives post break-up that isn't either depressing or horrifying?