The original version of ‘Nothing Compares 2 U’, tossed off by Prince in the mid-’80s and released by the purple ’un’s protégés The Family, is a straight-up (and pretty forgettable) break-up song. But O’Connor’s version dialled the sad factor to 11, channeling the singer’s very real grief from the death of her mother five years previously. A superb vocal performance – the sound of naked sorrow – plus layers of weeping synth strings and an iconic, tear-streaked music video added up to one of the most successful sad songs in musical history. Pop music doesn’t get much closer to the bone.
On paper the idea of a country music legend covering Nine Inch Nails sounds absolutely ghastly – even Trent Reznor thought so. But ‘Hurt’ was Johnny Cash’s final triumph, recorded less than a year before his death. Bad health had worn down Cash’s scowling baritone, but the cracks in his voice helped the Man in Black turn Reznor’s petulant angstfest into his own all-American epitaph. The video ramped up the heartache: shots of the frail but dignified Cash were intercut with shots of his wife June, footage of his past glories and pictures of the crumbling, derelict House of Cash museum in Tennessee. ‘Hurt’ is a man singing in the face of death, channelling a lifetime of memory, pain, hard-won success and thwarted ambition
Yes, dance-pop troupe Saint Etienne made a jauntier version in 1991, and yes, it kind of overshadowed the enigmatic Canadian songwriter’s 1970 original. But it shouldn’t have. Young’s beaten-down folky ballad is the sound of someone resigned not just to momentary heartbreak but to a lifetime of sadness – yet somehow there’s still a hint of a ghostly, golden melody in there. It’s also been covered by Natalie Imbruglia, The Corrs, Psychic TV and Jackie De Shannon, to name a few from a very long list. Apparently misery is something that a lot of people relate to. Who knew?
Trip hop provided the tasteful music fan’s weepy soundtrack of choice for much of the ’90s, with tracks like Portishead’s ‘Roads’ inspiring plenty of late-night bedroom sob-alongs. ‘Teardrop’ stands above the pack — despite a plague of horrendous cover versions and a weird afterlife as the title song for ‘House’ — because of the haunting vocals by Elizabeth Fraser of Cocteau Twins. The song became deeply personal for her when, on the day of recording, she heard that her ex-lover Jeff Buckley had drowned in Memphis.
Morrissey hates being pigeonholed as miserable, but he really did bring it upon himself sometimes. In the ’80s and in cahoots with Johnny Marr he contributed a whole series of wry studies in gloom and pain to the canon. ‘I Know It’s Over’ may be The Smiths’ deepest journey into despair, with only the subtlest black humour (‘I know it’s over… and it never really began’) to light the way. By the time we get to the relentless questioning at the centre of the song – ‘If you’re so clever/Then why are you on your own tonight?’ – we are naked in front of the mirror with no-one to blame for our sorrow but ourselves.
