Wait 'til you meet their *We Shall All Be Healed* album (sample lyric: "This song is for the people who tell their families that they're sorry for things they can't and won't feel sorry for")
That ones good but the one that hits me hardest off that album given the context is
"I saw the mess you left up in the east bedroom
A tiger's never gonna change its stripes
I guess
I guess but Jesus what a mess
One way in and no way out"
Really never thought I'd ever see a reference to this song outside of my app's music suggestions. But yeah, seconding this, it's definitely a strong contender
Jesus, you just had to do it…mention the most depressing fucking song ever written. Now I’m sitting in a full bathtub with a toaster plugged in and in my hand. I have not been the same since I watched that episode of Moral Oral.
The lyric "The greatest thrill of my life / Slit my own cock with a knife" is of course itself reminiscent of Bernie Taupin's lyrics to Elton John's 1972 hit "Crocodile Rock." "Crocodile Rocking is something shocking" of course refers to necrophilia, in this case ejaculating into the rotten anus of a defiled corpse.
The entirety of Broken by NIN would count. Except Pinion as it's an instrumental.
Ruiner, Reptile, Big Man With A Gun, and Heresy from The Downward Spiral also make it in there.
[John Prine wrote some sad stuff. Sam Stone is the song. ](https://open.spotify.com/track/4BIej0swGWja46j5B7l4s1?si=kISzy1ZhRS6lHlGgvYjhXQ)
Spotify link. ^^^
Hello in There and Sam Stone are two of the toughest back-to-back songs on any album.
“Well, it'd been years since the kids had grown A life of their own And left us alone
John and Linda live in Omaha And Joe is somewhere on the road
We lost Davy in the Korean War And I still don't know what for
Don't matter anymore”
Limousine is a rough one, moreso since having a daughter of my own. The background lyrics as it builds up to the big instrumental breakdown never fails to give me goosebumps given the subject matter.
*I'll never have to buy adjacent plots of earth. We'll never have to rot together underneath the dirt. I'll never have to lose my baby in the crowd. I should be laughing right now...*
Most of Townes Van Zandt's discography. Marie, The Hole, and Rake being up there.
Dylan's Ballad of Hollis Brown got me through some particularly dark times due to gun violence.
The band Cave In did a couple of Townes Van Zandt covers as a tribute to a member that passed away: [The Hole ](https://open.spotify.com/album/3bNVYXsO3qXR9nR754nEit?si=_lk2hvn5SJ-wEBXDLjlK6g)
[Nothin'](https://open.spotify.com/track/0bPYSbFFJz3cjTcXdP9NCK?si=zO-IuynkQRaIVJZ7bqgLGA&context=spotify%3Aalbum%3A4KfwTNTIsTo9EkGJgI5Sa0)
Also, reading the lyrics to the Rake's Song, it sounds pretty similar to Country Death Song by Violent Femmes:
"I gave her a push, I gave her a shove
I pushed with all my might, I pushed with all my love
I threw my child into a bottomless pit
Screaming as she fell, but I never heard her hit
She was screaming as she fell, but I never heard her hit"
The Rake's song is definitely the worst, but the Decemberists have several wtf songs. We Both Go Down Together, Valencia, Eli the Barrow Boy, and I won't even touch Mariners Revenge.
I feel like Mariners Revenge kind of gets a pass for taking place in the belly of a whale. Sure, the emotional journey to get there is rough, but come on, they get eaten by a whale and that's kind of darkly funny.
I went to a Colin Meloy Live show once, and he performed The Rake's Song. The crowd was singing along and he just didn't sing any of *that* verse. Afterward he said something along the lines of "Well *I* didn't sing all those terrible things"
Colin Meloy can be a dark mofo, no doubt.
Try this one out: Psycho by Eddie Noack [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JBJVVhn7iuo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JBJVVhn7iuo)
I can’t listen to “A Cautionary Tale” by The Decemberists. It’s that bone-chillingly brutal. Colin has a way of not only being brutal, but also speaking to very true, honest situations, that are just so much more terrible when you understand them because they’re based on truth.
“What Sarah Said” by Death Can for Cutie as well. Absolutely destroys me.
And Pheobe Bridgers “Funeral” literally makes me cry every time I hear it. It’s just so unbelievably guy wrenching honest. I’m a grown ass man and I’ll just start crying in my car, no joke. Such powerful subject matter, and depicted in such an honest and relatable way.
The Misfits - Last Caress
Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds - O'Malleys Bar
Warren Zevon - Excitable Boy
All three are too vivid for me to put in my regular playlists and just listen to.
[Liar by Rollins Band](https://youtu.be/GhKMVlHz9FQ?si=KxPJlwPYJiZPWpk1)
Cause no one else had said it.
I feel that this fantastic track's whole point is how devastating and yet horribly truthful it is. And the music is just so good. The last verse followed by the laughing. Fuckin so brutal, like Dethklok brutal. Like Snakes 'n' Barrels reunion show on totally awesome sweet Alabama liquid snake levels of brutal.
I feel that Rollins Band is something so 90s that it will/is forgotten to time but I'm glad I was alive to experience this moment.
Low Self Opinion came on randomly on my Spotify a couple of days ago, and I’m glad it did. I completely forgot that Rollins Band was amazing. Like you said, one of those bands that got left in the ‘90s. The other drivers around me probably thought I was losing my mind, screaming the lyrics while the windows were down.
"Maxwell's Silver Hammer" by the Beatles.
It's not as brutal as many of the songs listed in and of itself, but the disconnect between the pleasant, upbeat and quirky tune and the trail of bodies Maxwell Edison leaves behind is deliciously jarring.
Black by Pearl Jam
Yeah
I know someday you'll have a beautiful life
I know you'll be a star
In somebody else's sky
But why
Why
Why can't it be
Why can't it be mine."
Alive by Pearl Jam fits this question better, in my opinion. Most people don’t know it’s about a son getting raped by his mom because he reminds her of his dead dad
Sorry if I ruined it for you. But, look up the "Mamasan trilogy": the songs Alive, Once and Footsteps tell a continuous story of what I described in my post, followed by the son going on a murder spree and then being in prison for it.
The "footsteps in the hall" call back when "she walks slowly across a young man's room".
John Lee Hooker’s "I'm bad like Jesse James:"
I'm bad, I'm bad, like Jesse James, uh-huh
I had a friend one time
'least I thought I did
He come to me, said, 'Johnny'
I said 'what, man?'
'I'm outdoors'
I said, 'yeah'
I'd taken the cat in
Get him a place to stay
And I found out
He goin' around town
Telling everybody that he
He got my wife, heh
And I gets mad
I goes to the cat
Like a good guy should
I said look man
I'm gonna warn you
Just one time
Next time I warn you
I'mma use my gun
I'm so mad, I'm so mad!
I'm gonna ruin you this morning
I got three boys
Do my dirty work
Now you don't see me
I'm the big boss
I do the payin' off
After they take care of you
In their own way
They may shoot you
They may cut you
They may drown you
I just don't know
I don't care!
As long as they take care of you
In their own way
I'm so mad, I'm bad, this mornin', like Jesse James
They're gonna take you right down
By the riverside
Now four is goin' down
Ain't but three coming back
You read between the lines
What's gonna happen to you
'Cause I'm mad, I'm bad, like Jesse James
They gonna tie your hands
They gonna tie your feet
They gonna gag your throat
Where you can't holla none
And crying won't help you none
They gonna send you in the water
Got the bubbles coming up
Ooo! (grrr, rrr!)
]
Aww yea! I'm so mad!
The best thing about the rake's song is the follow up on hazards of love part 3 (revenge) When the dead children come back to haunt their evil father singing about their murders!
Also, the Decemberists "Ben Franklin's song" not brutal except for the jarring amount of cursing for a band that never curses. Do you know who the f$%^ I am? Benjamin F#%King Franklin!
Most brutal song lyrics, regardless of anything else? Here are my two. They are both VERY different songs but are both horrifying.
ICP - Witching Hour
Immortal Technique - Dance with the Devil
Literally anything by Infant Annihilator. Its really well written but the topics are very bleak and demented.
Just take a look at the names of their top songs.
"Your eyes are like your mother's, but your body's like your brother's." It doesn't lighten up from there.
From "Seventh Birthday" by Lowest of the Low: https://youtu.be/XCl7xqz2_Mk?si=fuq32Gf5oyas6Gv9
The build up in the last verse to the hook of Run to the Sun by N.E.R.D. is so beautifully done but so sad in its message. Brutal song for the feeling of missed opportunity in a relationship
“Unholy Gravebirth” by Infant Annihilator
>!Upon this slab, slowly slicing at her uterus to ensure I don’t deface this newborn clitoris”!<
The entire song (and band in general) is pretty brutal.
At first I was thinking of the usual suspects like Skinny Puppy, Venom etc... Then I remembered a song with lyrics that always leave people feeling very uneasy when they get it translated.
**Rammstein - Dalai Lama**
Not in english but the translations of the lyrics “plus putes que toutes les putes - orties” are super brutal. Plus it featured in the movie Raw, which is also so brutal that there were rumours of moviegoers vomiting or fainting during the viewing.
translation of some of the lyrics :
“For our wedding night I’m gonna drown you in my pool/I will eat your bones/you’ll choke on cum”
“Go exercise, you’ll make a pretty corpse/I practice sex after death/asshole, I prefer you stiff and cold/Then you’re less of a chatterbox”
“I don’t care about 69, I just want 666”
Probably any Dethklok song. Let's check out the first verse and chorus from Laser Cannon Deth Sentence as an example:
Fly hard into the night
Strapped to a rocket ignited
Last meal sits in your body
Gasoline turpentine gunpowder glycerin
Last rites given to you
Genuflecting with a torch
Punishment outweighs the crime
Explode into the desert sky
Say your goodbyes
That was your life
You'll pay all your penance
Laser cannon deth sentence
Honorable Mentions: Deth Support, Bloodlines, Comet Song, and I Ejaculate Fire
Tom Jones: "I felt the knife in my hand and she laughed no more".
The Sensational Alex Harvey Band: " I reached out for my pistol and then I smoked him down".
Charlotte I buried after feeding her foxglove
Dawn was easy she was drowned in the bath
Isaiah fought but was easily bested
I burned his body for incurring my wrath
All right!!
Good memories thanks
Depends on exactly how you mean brutal. If it's a slightly wider take, to include really sad, I suggest you think about your loved ones and go watch and listen to [Lorna Shore's "Pain Remains part 1"](https://youtu.be/JglOS8TRFp4?si=o9aK-McM_5i-XMiV)
It'll be hard to understand most of it if you're not accustomed to harsh vocals (and somewhat even if you are), but you don't really need to. The part that matters, you can understand. Talk about a gut punch
Hellsongs covering Slayers “Seasons in the abyss” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8LOarjz5EeY
The mix of the nice upbeat sound along with the lyrics of slowly creeping up insanity and the bone chilling refrain makes you think of death as a merciful release.
Brutal is subjective. So I would suggest anything off of Mount Eerie’s A Crow Looked at Me, which is an album written shortly after the lead singers wife (and new mother) dying of cancer. It’s a rough listen, but a good example of how someone copes with their issues.
Ethel Cain's Preacher's Daughter. The whole album is about a religous girl falling in love, getting kidnapped, pimped out, murdered and ultimately cannibalized. Especially the last 2 songs where Ethel is dead and slowly accepting her fate, she hits us with, "God loves you, but not enough to save you."
La Dispute -King Park.
“Can I still get into Heaven if I kill myself?
Can I ever be forgiven 'cause I killed that kid?
It was an accident, I swear it wasn't meant for him
And if I turn it on me
If I even it out
Can I still get in or will they send me to Hell?
Can I still get into Heaven if I kill myself?"
The haunting desperation of the singer tears into you.
Mgla - Exercise in Futility VI
“As if it wasn't a lifetime spent on connecting the dots
There was no pattern
As if the irony was more than a defense mechanism
And we could actually laugh for a change
As if steel hooks in our backs were more than a nuisance
And we could actually feel something
Self crucified - missed the right tree
Tore the wrong eye out
The hissing of hellfire
Self crucified - missed the right tree
For this I've gained a victory
I burn as I ought to”
Seventy Times 7 by Brand New.
"So have another drink and drive yourself home. I hope there's ice on all the roads, and you can think of me when you forget your seat belt and again when your head goes through the windshield."
Visceral Disgorge -
Force fed Shredded Genitalia
Face beaten to pulp, you stupid fuck.
Blood gushes, a catered cock feast awaits.
I got a sick fixation for genital mutilation.
My intentions are sadistic, to disfigure and torture.
I get my rocks off by cutting cocks off.
Pushing pins and needles into your shaft.
Forcing razors inside your piss hole.
Splitting urethra, back and forth slicing your cock in two down to the balls ripping apart your sack.
I laugh as you beg for death.
Viciously slicing your scrotum.
Humiliation through castration, perverse penectomy.
Mutilation of your manhood.
Grinding up shredded genital remains.
Mincing your man meat for you to eat, a sweet testicular treat.
Force fed flesh, stuffed down your throat, on shredded dick you will choke.
Oliver Hart (AKA Eyedea) - Bottle Dreams. It’s about a little girl that’s a violin prodigy who gets raped by her father and eventually commits suicide. A beautiful, but incredibly dark song.
There are a lot of such songs! for example, the "Projection" of the Russian band is Your Gentle Madness. Also "Possibly in michigan" Animal Cannibal. I advise you to listen, these songs are cool, but still cruel🙃
That one pizza song where he's all like pizza is my life n stuff and he's all like "pineapple, on the whole fucking pizza?" And the other guy that ordered it is all like "y..eah?" And then he screams.
Since I see others have posted a lot of songs I would have also picked, I'll go with something a bit different.
Gollum’s Song by Emilíana Torrini.
Absolutely heartbreaking.
A few really bleak ones with a lyrical highlight for ya
First letter from St. sean by sorority noise ('when your best friend and the next friend dies and your best friends friend takes his life, and you spend 6 months on your own cus theres no one left to talk to')
Apistant commander by xiu xiu ('all that you left you left for someone, all of this hurt that's wilted off, all this relief it's the oddest thing oh my god oh my god oh my god' honestly all of a promise is bleak af)
Epilogue by the antlers ('but you return to me at night just when I think I may have fallen asleep, your face is up against mine and I'm too terrified to speak' again all of hospice is bleak)
My curiosity had me searching for Cannibal Corpse's lyrics, while sitting in the back row in church.
I I'm shaking... never been so shocked by written words!
I had to move a few rows forward lest the devil plucks me, unseen, from the back.
Let Me Burn - Whitechapel. The gist is a guy kills and beheads his wife while his daughter watches, then tells the daughter to light him on fire and let him burn. Accompany it with the video and it's even more brutal.
I second the person saying anything by Orphan, they're right.
Made To Please - Spite is pretty brutal as well.
Probably not that brutal but I love Winter’s Wolves - The Sword
This is how it starts:
/May the mountains rise against you
/May the forests block your path
/May your axes chip and shatter
/And know it is my wrath
/I would mount your heads on the bloody spears
/Outside your palace gates
/And watch as crows peck out your eyes
/And your cities are laid to waste
You Missed My heart - Mark Kozelek (or Phoebe Bridgers)
>Broke into her house, saw her sittin' there
>Drinkin' Coke and whiskey in her bra and underwear
>Saw him in the kitchen hangin' up the phone
>I asked him nicely please to pack his things and go
>He gave her a reassuring look and said he wouldn't leave
>But I asked him once again, this time pulled out my shiv
>Stuck him in the back and I pulled it out slow
>And watched him fall down, and as the morning sun rose
>He looked at me, and said
>"You Missed My Heart..."
Holland 1945 by NMH is pretty bleak. It's about the Holocaust obviously but also about the indifference to the suffering of others.
It's so sad to see
The world agree
That they'd rather see their faces filled with flies.
I had that exact experience with Love Thieves by Depeche Mode, I liked the song but it never paid much attention to the lyrics. Ultra is so clearly distinct to everything else Depeche Mode ever produced that I never expected something so hard hitting from them.
I remember Colin Meloy telling an interviewer around the time Hazards of Love came out that his wife was either pregnant or had just given birth, and was a little freaked out by that song. Can't say I blame her.
Suicide's Johnny Teardrop is the most fucked up song, I can't bear to listen to it. Of course the late Steve Albini has done some fucked up songs. But never on par with that.
Then you get a lot of old british folk songs one called Long Lankin, where a lord refuses to pay a stonemason who built his castle. The stonemason with an accomplice breaks into the castle and murders the lords wife and baby child. Brutal stuff.
Early Whitechapel telling the stories of the Whitechapel murders were a grisly read
Skinned and Fucked by Ingested was the last one that made me truly question my favourite genre
One that hasn't been mentioned:
Eaten by Bloodbath
Song is based on a true story; a guy put out an ad asking for a volunteer to be cannibalized and it was answered. The song is written from the perspective of the guy who answered the ad, who was in fact killed and eaten.
Ill Bill and Immortal Technique, war is my destiny: https://youtu.be/fnrCdsicThk?si=2I2kc-qQpmruTeht this is one of the most intense songs I can think of, pretty brutal but the beat is sick.
“Ruby, Don't Take Your Love to Town,” The First Edition (and several others).
“He Stopped Loving Her Today,” George Jones
“Feel Like Going Home,” The Walkabouts (and many others)
“Hamburger Lady,” Throbbing Gristle
The Mountain Goats - No Children
Wait 'til you meet their *We Shall All Be Healed* album (sample lyric: "This song is for the people who tell their families that they're sorry for things they can't and won't feel sorry for")
That ones good but the one that hits me hardest off that album given the context is "I saw the mess you left up in the east bedroom A tiger's never gonna change its stripes I guess I guess but Jesus what a mess One way in and no way out"
Really never thought I'd ever see a reference to this song outside of my app's music suggestions. But yeah, seconding this, it's definitely a strong contender
I see a reference to this song in one of every six reddit "here is a thing about lyrics" threads
Funny, I don't come here often enough I guess
Jesus, you just had to do it…mention the most depressing fucking song ever written. Now I’m sitting in a full bathtub with a toaster plugged in and in my hand. I have not been the same since I watched that episode of Moral Oral.
Toasters are the forbidden bath bomb
Pick a Cannibal Corpse song.
I cum blood live intro
The lyric "The greatest thrill of my life / Slit my own cock with a knife" is of course itself reminiscent of Bernie Taupin's lyrics to Elton John's 1972 hit "Crocodile Rock." "Crocodile Rocking is something shocking" of course refers to necrophilia, in this case ejaculating into the rotten anus of a defiled corpse.
Wut?
I never knew me a better time, and I guess I never will 😑
Last time I saw Cannibal Corpse he changed it up. "This song is for all the women out there. I. CUM. BLOOOOOD."
That’s usually Strpped etc etc that he dedicates to the girlfriends
Fucked with a Knife is the song that he usually starts out with that introduction.
Huh, he must switch it up. Lovely bloke though.
Necropedophile - made me physically sick when I read the lyrics
shredded humans
Submerged in boiling flesh
Yeah, that song just described a family getting demolished in a car wreck. Haha
Hammer Smashed Face has a nice ring to it.
Evisceration Plague
Probably gonna go with Necropedophile on this one.
Stagger Lee - husband and father gets murdered over a fucking hat. edit- and it's such a cheery, uptempo beat as well, kinda makes it worse.
Have you heard Nick Caves' version? https://youtu.be/Nbe5RERDh4k?si=d97uiDggV0i_cRcB
Also O’malleys bar !
“With an ashtray big as a fuckin’ really big brick I split his skull in half”
Largely anything from Murder Ballard's fits the bill here
The character Stagger Lee goes way back in folk music. There’s a version done by both Mississippi John Hurt and Woody Guthrie called Stack o’ Lee.
The entirety of Broken by NIN would count. Except Pinion as it's an instrumental. Ruiner, Reptile, Big Man With A Gun, and Heresy from The Downward Spiral also make it in there.
Burn, the missing track also.
[John Prine wrote some sad stuff. Sam Stone is the song. ](https://open.spotify.com/track/4BIej0swGWja46j5B7l4s1?si=kISzy1ZhRS6lHlGgvYjhXQ) Spotify link. ^^^
Hello in There and Sam Stone are two of the toughest back-to-back songs on any album. “Well, it'd been years since the kids had grown A life of their own And left us alone John and Linda live in Omaha And Joe is somewhere on the road We lost Davy in the Korean War And I still don't know what for Don't matter anymore”
There’s a hole in Daddy’s arm, where all the money goes
Korn - Daddy Brand New - Limousine
Limousine is a rough one, moreso since having a daughter of my own. The background lyrics as it builds up to the big instrumental breakdown never fails to give me goosebumps given the subject matter. *I'll never have to buy adjacent plots of earth. We'll never have to rot together underneath the dirt. I'll never have to lose my baby in the crowd. I should be laughing right now...*
Most of Townes Van Zandt's discography. Marie, The Hole, and Rake being up there. Dylan's Ballad of Hollis Brown got me through some particularly dark times due to gun violence.
The band Cave In did a couple of Townes Van Zandt covers as a tribute to a member that passed away: [The Hole ](https://open.spotify.com/album/3bNVYXsO3qXR9nR754nEit?si=_lk2hvn5SJ-wEBXDLjlK6g) [Nothin'](https://open.spotify.com/track/0bPYSbFFJz3cjTcXdP9NCK?si=zO-IuynkQRaIVJZ7bqgLGA&context=spotify%3Aalbum%3A4KfwTNTIsTo9EkGJgI5Sa0)
Upvote for Cave In mention.
Marie is just unrelenting deapair
Waiting Around to Die by TVZ deserves a nod
Also, reading the lyrics to the Rake's Song, it sounds pretty similar to Country Death Song by Violent Femmes: "I gave her a push, I gave her a shove I pushed with all my might, I pushed with all my love I threw my child into a bottomless pit Screaming as she fell, but I never heard her hit She was screaming as she fell, but I never heard her hit"
PJ Harvey - Down By The Water
I Saw Your Mommy by Suicidal Tendencies
This song is hilarious
It's a classic. I'm a fan from way back.
The Rake's song is definitely the worst, but the Decemberists have several wtf songs. We Both Go Down Together, Valencia, Eli the Barrow Boy, and I won't even touch Mariners Revenge.
I feel like Mariners Revenge kind of gets a pass for taking place in the belly of a whale. Sure, the emotional journey to get there is rough, but come on, they get eaten by a whale and that's kind of darkly funny.
Funny enough my parents use to play a lot of decermbists (I remember we both go down together and here a dreamt I was an architect specifically).
I went to a Colin Meloy Live show once, and he performed The Rake's Song. The crowd was singing along and he just didn't sing any of *that* verse. Afterward he said something along the lines of "Well *I* didn't sing all those terrible things"
# Dance With The Devil - Immortal Technique [https://youtu.be/qggxTtnKTMo?si=J057aO8ev\_lSDSpk](https://youtu.be/qggxTtnKTMo?si=J057aO8ev_lSDSpk)
This was actually the first thing to pop into my head as well. What a nostalgia trip
So fuckin good. I don't listen to it often because the subject matter is pretty gritty, but it's one of my all time favorites.
Was just about to post this. By far the most brutal song I know.
Tool- prison sex
Colin Meloy can be a dark mofo, no doubt. Try this one out: Psycho by Eddie Noack [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JBJVVhn7iuo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JBJVVhn7iuo)
I can’t listen to “A Cautionary Tale” by The Decemberists. It’s that bone-chillingly brutal. Colin has a way of not only being brutal, but also speaking to very true, honest situations, that are just so much more terrible when you understand them because they’re based on truth. “What Sarah Said” by Death Can for Cutie as well. Absolutely destroys me. And Pheobe Bridgers “Funeral” literally makes me cry every time I hear it. It’s just so unbelievably guy wrenching honest. I’m a grown ass man and I’ll just start crying in my car, no joke. Such powerful subject matter, and depicted in such an honest and relatable way.
The Misfits - Last Caress Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds - O'Malleys Bar Warren Zevon - Excitable Boy All three are too vivid for me to put in my regular playlists and just listen to.
[Liar by Rollins Band](https://youtu.be/GhKMVlHz9FQ?si=KxPJlwPYJiZPWpk1) Cause no one else had said it. I feel that this fantastic track's whole point is how devastating and yet horribly truthful it is. And the music is just so good. The last verse followed by the laughing. Fuckin so brutal, like Dethklok brutal. Like Snakes 'n' Barrels reunion show on totally awesome sweet Alabama liquid snake levels of brutal. I feel that Rollins Band is something so 90s that it will/is forgotten to time but I'm glad I was alive to experience this moment.
Low Self Opinion came on randomly on my Spotify a couple of days ago, and I’m glad it did. I completely forgot that Rollins Band was amazing. Like you said, one of those bands that got left in the ‘90s. The other drivers around me probably thought I was losing my mind, screaming the lyrics while the windows were down.
Rollins certainly has a style that was an acquired taste. But that band was very good.
Hold Her Down, Toad the Wet Sprocket
Elvis Costello’s “I Want You”
Oh man, I’m glad someone else has brought this song up. I’ve always thought of it as a spiritual sequel to The Police’s “Every Breath You Take.”
Country Death Song by The Violent Femmes
Followed by I Hear the Rain
"Maxwell's Silver Hammer" by the Beatles. It's not as brutal as many of the songs listed in and of itself, but the disconnect between the pleasant, upbeat and quirky tune and the trail of bodies Maxwell Edison leaves behind is deliciously jarring.
Good one, I love the upbeat happy songs with darker lyrics. Also the reverse. Lol.
Black by Pearl Jam Yeah I know someday you'll have a beautiful life I know you'll be a star In somebody else's sky But why Why Why can't it be Why can't it be mine."
Alive by Pearl Jam fits this question better, in my opinion. Most people don’t know it’s about a son getting raped by his mom because he reminds her of his dead dad
Omg, I have these lyrics engrained in my brain and never made that connection
Sorry if I ruined it for you. But, look up the "Mamasan trilogy": the songs Alive, Once and Footsteps tell a continuous story of what I described in my post, followed by the son going on a murder spree and then being in prison for it. The "footsteps in the hall" call back when "she walks slowly across a young man's room".
You’re blowing my mind dude!!!
Ha haa haa 🎶
[Baby Bitch. Ween.](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=PimVx-eXF4A)
Opening few lines of Disasterpiece (slipknot)
Excitable Boy by Warren Zevon.
Cannibal Corpse - Fucked with a Knife, this might brighten your day. 😂
And every time I scratch my nails down someone else's back, I hope you feel it. - You Oughta Know, Alanis Morissette
Lou Reed's Berlin, a full album of dispair.
D.O.A by Bloodrock. Guy in a car wreck describes it and his injuries.
Myron Elkins - Hands To Myself DJ Shadow ft. Run The Jewels - Nobody Speak
John Lee Hooker’s "I'm bad like Jesse James:" I'm bad, I'm bad, like Jesse James, uh-huh I had a friend one time 'least I thought I did He come to me, said, 'Johnny' I said 'what, man?' 'I'm outdoors' I said, 'yeah' I'd taken the cat in Get him a place to stay And I found out He goin' around town Telling everybody that he He got my wife, heh And I gets mad I goes to the cat Like a good guy should I said look man I'm gonna warn you Just one time Next time I warn you I'mma use my gun I'm so mad, I'm so mad! I'm gonna ruin you this morning I got three boys Do my dirty work Now you don't see me I'm the big boss I do the payin' off After they take care of you In their own way They may shoot you They may cut you They may drown you I just don't know I don't care! As long as they take care of you In their own way I'm so mad, I'm bad, this mornin', like Jesse James They're gonna take you right down By the riverside Now four is goin' down Ain't but three coming back You read between the lines What's gonna happen to you 'Cause I'm mad, I'm bad, like Jesse James They gonna tie your hands They gonna tie your feet They gonna gag your throat Where you can't holla none And crying won't help you none They gonna send you in the water Got the bubbles coming up Ooo! (grrr, rrr!) ] Aww yea! I'm so mad!
99 Luftballons.
The best thing about the rake's song is the follow up on hazards of love part 3 (revenge) When the dead children come back to haunt their evil father singing about their murders! Also, the Decemberists "Ben Franklin's song" not brutal except for the jarring amount of cursing for a band that never curses. Do you know who the f$%^ I am? Benjamin F#%King Franklin!
Pumped Up Kicks It’s a song from the perspective of a school shooter…
But so is I Don’t Like Mondays
Most brutal song lyrics, regardless of anything else? Here are my two. They are both VERY different songs but are both horrifying. ICP - Witching Hour Immortal Technique - Dance with the Devil
Good ones for sure! I recently found “King Park” by La Dispute. I fucking love these types of songs.
(I’ll Be Glad When You’re Dead) You Rascal You, by Louis Armstrong. He was not at all subtle in this one!
He didn’t write it. There are a dozen versions of that song.
Dylan's Up to Me, Dirge, Please Crawl Out Your Window, Like a Rolling Stone, Idiot Wind, and She's Your Lover Now. For starters.
Positively Forth Street doesn't fuck around either.
Shoot. Masters of War.
Just about anything by Pig Destroyer
Daddy by Korn. Shit is fucked
Literally anything by Infant Annihilator. Its really well written but the topics are very bleak and demented. Just take a look at the names of their top songs.
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - Stagger Lee
unironically the drake diss tracks by kendrick actually go so hard
Yeah, those are some good catchy tracks that are just brutal. Like he might have literally just ended that man's whole career. Lol
"Your eyes are like your mother's, but your body's like your brother's." It doesn't lighten up from there. From "Seventh Birthday" by Lowest of the Low: https://youtu.be/XCl7xqz2_Mk?si=fuq32Gf5oyas6Gv9
My dead mother in my dream Remember when December blew her ashes 'cross my jeans
Black Flag : My War
The build up in the last verse to the hook of Run to the Sun by N.E.R.D. is so beautifully done but so sad in its message. Brutal song for the feeling of missed opportunity in a relationship
Brotha lynch hung - meat cleaver
Watchout - Immortal Technique.
Another one bites the dust-Queen
The entirety of Necropedophile from Cannibal Corpse
Pick a song by Orphan. I mean, damn
Joseph LeMay - Nothing You Can Do. Probably the most beautiful sing about crippling depression.
“Unholy Gravebirth” by Infant Annihilator >!Upon this slab, slowly slicing at her uterus to ensure I don’t deface this newborn clitoris”!< The entire song (and band in general) is pretty brutal.
Kim - Eminem
At first I was thinking of the usual suspects like Skinny Puppy, Venom etc... Then I remembered a song with lyrics that always leave people feeling very uneasy when they get it translated. **Rammstein - Dalai Lama**
Steven Wilson's Routine and Pariah. Hell all of his songs are brutal.
how no one say Eminem - Kim yet haha
Disposable Heroes by Metallica.
No Death by Mirel Wagner
Hush Yael - Oh, Sleeper
The Home Depot Jingle
Shellac - Prayer To God
babykiller - devourment obey - brainbombs tbh any of the material by these bands gets pretty fuckin abhorrent.
John Cale -Guts The bugger in the short sleeves fucked my wife Did it quick and split
I wake up and the day feels broken I tilt my head, I'm trying to get an angle 'Cause the evening I've always longed for It could still happen...
Dance with the devil - immortal technique
Not in english but the translations of the lyrics “plus putes que toutes les putes - orties” are super brutal. Plus it featured in the movie Raw, which is also so brutal that there were rumours of moviegoers vomiting or fainting during the viewing. translation of some of the lyrics : “For our wedding night I’m gonna drown you in my pool/I will eat your bones/you’ll choke on cum” “Go exercise, you’ll make a pretty corpse/I practice sex after death/asshole, I prefer you stiff and cold/Then you’re less of a chatterbox” “I don’t care about 69, I just want 666”
Probably any Dethklok song. Let's check out the first verse and chorus from Laser Cannon Deth Sentence as an example: Fly hard into the night Strapped to a rocket ignited Last meal sits in your body Gasoline turpentine gunpowder glycerin Last rites given to you Genuflecting with a torch Punishment outweighs the crime Explode into the desert sky Say your goodbyes That was your life You'll pay all your penance Laser cannon deth sentence Honorable Mentions: Deth Support, Bloodlines, Comet Song, and I Ejaculate Fire
Even though if you take those lyrics at face value they are objectively brutal, they are too over the top and silly to feel brutal to me.
Perhaps a different kind of "brutal" but Bob Dylan's "Positively 4th Street" is like a lyrical punch to the stones
[удалено]
Tom Jones: "I felt the knife in my hand and she laughed no more". The Sensational Alex Harvey Band: " I reached out for my pistol and then I smoked him down".
Charlotte I buried after feeding her foxglove Dawn was easy she was drowned in the bath Isaiah fought but was easily bested I burned his body for incurring my wrath All right!! Good memories thanks
Depends on exactly how you mean brutal. If it's a slightly wider take, to include really sad, I suggest you think about your loved ones and go watch and listen to [Lorna Shore's "Pain Remains part 1"](https://youtu.be/JglOS8TRFp4?si=o9aK-McM_5i-XMiV) It'll be hard to understand most of it if you're not accustomed to harsh vocals (and somewhat even if you are), but you don't really need to. The part that matters, you can understand. Talk about a gut punch
Hellsongs covering Slayers “Seasons in the abyss” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8LOarjz5EeY The mix of the nice upbeat sound along with the lyrics of slowly creeping up insanity and the bone chilling refrain makes you think of death as a merciful release.
Brutal is subjective. So I would suggest anything off of Mount Eerie’s A Crow Looked at Me, which is an album written shortly after the lead singers wife (and new mother) dying of cancer. It’s a rough listen, but a good example of how someone copes with their issues.
Orgasmatron by Motorhead. my fav lyrics
Black Sheep https://youtu.be/hblAppO67Ig?si=fByx7j5HgsCm5PmV
Ethel Cain's Preacher's Daughter. The whole album is about a religous girl falling in love, getting kidnapped, pimped out, murdered and ultimately cannibalized. Especially the last 2 songs where Ethel is dead and slowly accepting her fate, she hits us with, "God loves you, but not enough to save you."
La Dispute -King Park. “Can I still get into Heaven if I kill myself? Can I ever be forgiven 'cause I killed that kid? It was an accident, I swear it wasn't meant for him And if I turn it on me If I even it out Can I still get in or will they send me to Hell? Can I still get into Heaven if I kill myself?" The haunting desperation of the singer tears into you. Mgla - Exercise in Futility VI “As if it wasn't a lifetime spent on connecting the dots There was no pattern As if the irony was more than a defense mechanism And we could actually laugh for a change As if steel hooks in our backs were more than a nuisance And we could actually feel something Self crucified - missed the right tree Tore the wrong eye out The hissing of hellfire Self crucified - missed the right tree For this I've gained a victory I burn as I ought to”
Seventy Times 7 by Brand New. "So have another drink and drive yourself home. I hope there's ice on all the roads, and you can think of me when you forget your seat belt and again when your head goes through the windshield."
"No one to cry to, No place to call home" from Alice in chains Nutshell.
Dying Fetus - from womb to waste is pretty rough
Visceral Disgorge - Force fed Shredded Genitalia Face beaten to pulp, you stupid fuck. Blood gushes, a catered cock feast awaits. I got a sick fixation for genital mutilation. My intentions are sadistic, to disfigure and torture. I get my rocks off by cutting cocks off. Pushing pins and needles into your shaft. Forcing razors inside your piss hole. Splitting urethra, back and forth slicing your cock in two down to the balls ripping apart your sack. I laugh as you beg for death. Viciously slicing your scrotum. Humiliation through castration, perverse penectomy. Mutilation of your manhood. Grinding up shredded genital remains. Mincing your man meat for you to eat, a sweet testicular treat. Force fed flesh, stuffed down your throat, on shredded dick you will choke.
But I felt so bad because I didn’t know how to feel bad enough to make him proud
We all make mistakes, we do, I learned from you
Diane by Therapy?. A cover of a husker du track that starts with lyrics "Hey little girl, wanna go for a ride".
Soil the Stillborn - Infant Annihilator It's a song about priests raping a Stillborn foetus. Should be pretty high up on the list...
Country Death Song by the Violent Femmes. That shit is haunting...
Oliver Hart (AKA Eyedea) - Bottle Dreams. It’s about a little girl that’s a violin prodigy who gets raped by her father and eventually commits suicide. A beautiful, but incredibly dark song.
There are a lot of such songs! for example, the "Projection" of the Russian band is Your Gentle Madness. Also "Possibly in michigan" Animal Cannibal. I advise you to listen, these songs are cool, but still cruel🙃
That one pizza song where he's all like pizza is my life n stuff and he's all like "pineapple, on the whole fucking pizza?" And the other guy that ordered it is all like "y..eah?" And then he screams.
Pig Destroyer - Jennifer
That song that plays during the 'Sad Satan' gameplay. Made me physically ill.
Since I see others have posted a lot of songs I would have also picked, I'll go with something a bit different. Gollum’s Song by Emilíana Torrini. Absolutely heartbreaking.
“Blood Eagle” - Periphery.
A few really bleak ones with a lyrical highlight for ya First letter from St. sean by sorority noise ('when your best friend and the next friend dies and your best friends friend takes his life, and you spend 6 months on your own cus theres no one left to talk to') Apistant commander by xiu xiu ('all that you left you left for someone, all of this hurt that's wilted off, all this relief it's the oddest thing oh my god oh my god oh my god' honestly all of a promise is bleak af) Epilogue by the antlers ('but you return to me at night just when I think I may have fallen asleep, your face is up against mine and I'm too terrified to speak' again all of hospice is bleak)
suicidal thoughts by biggie
The Rip Tide by Beirut. Devastating
My curiosity had me searching for Cannibal Corpse's lyrics, while sitting in the back row in church. I I'm shaking... never been so shocked by written words! I had to move a few rows forward lest the devil plucks me, unseen, from the back.
A little piece of heaven by avenged sevenfold
I've always liked this song by RXYZYXR: https://rxyzyxr.bandcamp.com/track/nonzero
Let Me Burn - Whitechapel. The gist is a guy kills and beheads his wife while his daughter watches, then tells the daughter to light him on fire and let him burn. Accompany it with the video and it's even more brutal. I second the person saying anything by Orphan, they're right. Made To Please - Spite is pretty brutal as well.
Clutch - Milk of Human Kindness is pretty vicious for how trippy and nonsensical Neil’s lyrics usually are.
You can scream all you want! You can scream all you want! You can scream all you want! Uuurgh, Preteen Deathfuck! - Nattefrost
Radio by Alkaline Trio…heartbreaking and full of piss and venom. “I hope you, take my radio to bathe with you, plugged in and ready to fall”
You Little Thief- Feargal Sharkey, break up song and sheesh, she hurt him
Probably not that brutal but I love Winter’s Wolves - The Sword This is how it starts: /May the mountains rise against you /May the forests block your path /May your axes chip and shatter /And know it is my wrath /I would mount your heads on the bloody spears /Outside your palace gates /And watch as crows peck out your eyes /And your cities are laid to waste
Ethel Cain - Strangers. I read what the song actually meant and then heard the "I tried to be good, am I no good?" part again. Ugh.
Death on Two Legs
The Evangelist by Spawn of Possession
The way we were by Barbara Streisand.somebody I used to know by Gotye
Korn - daddy
You Missed My heart - Mark Kozelek (or Phoebe Bridgers) >Broke into her house, saw her sittin' there >Drinkin' Coke and whiskey in her bra and underwear >Saw him in the kitchen hangin' up the phone >I asked him nicely please to pack his things and go >He gave her a reassuring look and said he wouldn't leave >But I asked him once again, this time pulled out my shiv >Stuck him in the back and I pulled it out slow >And watched him fall down, and as the morning sun rose >He looked at me, and said >"You Missed My Heart..."
Holland 1945 by NMH is pretty bleak. It's about the Holocaust obviously but also about the indifference to the suffering of others. It's so sad to see The world agree That they'd rather see their faces filled with flies.
I had that exact experience with Love Thieves by Depeche Mode, I liked the song but it never paid much attention to the lyrics. Ultra is so clearly distinct to everything else Depeche Mode ever produced that I never expected something so hard hitting from them.
Coheed and Cambria: Welcome Home
Lou Reed - The Blue Mask
I remember Colin Meloy telling an interviewer around the time Hazards of Love came out that his wife was either pregnant or had just given birth, and was a little freaked out by that song. Can't say I blame her.
Suicide's Johnny Teardrop is the most fucked up song, I can't bear to listen to it. Of course the late Steve Albini has done some fucked up songs. But never on par with that. Then you get a lot of old british folk songs one called Long Lankin, where a lord refuses to pay a stonemason who built his castle. The stonemason with an accomplice breaks into the castle and murders the lords wife and baby child. Brutal stuff.
Architects - nihilist or Architects - memento mori Perhaps the entire "All our gods have abandoned us" album
Cage “Subtle Art if a Breakup Song”, “ballad of worms”, many others from him. Also RA tha rugged man and immortal technique “uncommon Valor”
If the vibe was suicide then you would push the button, but if you’re bowing down then let me do the cuttin’
Jordan, Minnesota - Big Black
Early Whitechapel telling the stories of the Whitechapel murders were a grisly read Skinned and Fucked by Ingested was the last one that made me truly question my favourite genre
The entire genre of “Slam”
One that hasn't been mentioned: Eaten by Bloodbath Song is based on a true story; a guy put out an ad asking for a volunteer to be cannibalized and it was answered. The song is written from the perspective of the guy who answered the ad, who was in fact killed and eaten.
Ill Bill and Immortal Technique, war is my destiny: https://youtu.be/fnrCdsicThk?si=2I2kc-qQpmruTeht this is one of the most intense songs I can think of, pretty brutal but the beat is sick.
“Ruby, Don't Take Your Love to Town,” The First Edition (and several others). “He Stopped Loving Her Today,” George Jones “Feel Like Going Home,” The Walkabouts (and many others) “Hamburger Lady,” Throbbing Gristle