Gloomy sunday or “The suicide song”
Mentioning the “suicide song” in the last “tumbleebumbly” (are there any good name for a tumblr post?) I should probably give a little back story.
From Wikipedia:
“Gloomy Sunday” is a song composed by Hungarian pianist and composer Rezső Seress in 1933 to a Hungarian poem written by László Jávor (original Hungarian title of both song and poem “Szomorú vasárnap” (Hungarian pronunciation: [ˈsomoruː ˈvɒʃaːrnɒp]), in which the singer mourns the untimely death of a lover and contemplates suicide.
Though recorded and performed by many singers, “Gloomy Sunday” is closely associated with Billie Holiday, who scored a hit version of the song in 1941. Due to unsubstantiated urban legends about its inspiring hundreds of suicides, “Gloomy Sunday” was dubbed the “Hungarian suicide song” in the United States. Seress did commit suicide in 1968, but most other rumors of the song being banned from radio, or sparking suicides, are unsubstantiated, and were partly propagated as a deliberate marketing campaign.[1] Possibly due to the context of the Second World War, Billie Holiday’s version was, however, banned by the BBC.[2]
Personally I first heard about it as a friend introduced me to Venetian Snares (my posts tagged Venetian Snares). The album Rossz csillag alatt született has the song Öngyilkos vasárnap which contains samples of Billie Holiday’s Gloomy Sunday. A song I, ironically, fell in love with. Not sure if that’s a good thing or not :P
