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Nirvana - Something In The Way
Radiohead - How To Disappear Completely
Johnny Cash - Hurt
Good Charlotte - Hold On
The Smiths - There Is A Light That Never Goes Out
Snow Patrol - Set The Fire To The Third Bar
My Chemical Romance - Welcome To The Black Parade; and Interlude
Apocalyptica - Nothing Else Matters
Linkin Park - Given Up
Lou Reed - Perfect Day
Beth Gibbons - Show (Thanks KC)

I'd be interested in what others listen to when they feel unhappy.

I try to listen to exceptionally upbeat songs in such circumstances (like the album Person Pitch by Panda Bear - really recommended), but I tend to eventually resort to being a bit mopey with my music choices. These usually feature somewhere along the way - they're mostly instrumental tracks.

Mogwai - Tracy (Kid Loco's Playing With the Young Team Remix)
The Appleseed Cast - View of a Burning City
Four Tet - Unspoken
Boards of Canada - Peacock Tail
Snow Patrol - Velocity Girl
Fridge - Long Singing
Mogwai - Small Children in the Background
Godspeed You! Black Emperor - Storm
Death in Vegas - Girls
Elliott Smith - Kiwi Maddog 20/20
Interpol - Untitled
I Am Kloot - Proof

All By Myself - the original by Eric Carmen (it's based on Rachmaninoff's "Piano Concerto No. 2", which was also used to great effect in Brief Encounter)
Will You - Hazel O'Connor
Parisienne Walkways - Gary Moore
Without You - Nilsson

Cheesy country music by someone who puts every last drop of emotion into their singing like Tammy Wynette also works quite well, although of course I couldn't admit that on here.
I also had a CD box set bought me one birthday by my sister "Midnight Cryin' Time - Teen Angst Classics from the Rock 'n' Roll Era", so that must have some on it too.
Edit: Phil's right, instrumental tracks work very well too, but it's not so easy to remember the names of those.
Edit edit: Talking of Phil, this is one of those topics that cries out for Phil Reynolds. He'd probably have loads of good suggestions for these.

Elvis Costello's "It's Been a Good Year For The Roses"
David Bowie "Rock n Roll Suicide"

They're the ones I immediately thought of, but I might add some more later.

Jimmy Gough wrote:Johnny Cash - Hurt

As long as you don't think he wrote it, that's fine. Otherwise that's super sad.

Just a couple of mine that spring to mind, sometimes helping me get through bad times but more often making those bad times seem even more self-pityingly bad:

== The Tams - Be Young, Be Foolish, Be Happy (surely intended as a happy song but try it after your fiancée has gone on a girly holiday to Turkey for a week and slept with four greasy Turks)
== Cat Stevens - Father And Son (still can't listen to it without crying, pretty much encapsulates the feeling of my fear of growing old)
== Buffalo Springfield - I Am A Child (similar to above, super beautiful though)
== Gwen McRae - 90% Of Me Is You

If you want to hear any of them and can't find them, ask and I'll help.

Prendi, l'anel ti donno - duet from La Sonnambula by Bellini
Home Sweet Home
He stopped Loving her Today (George Jones)
I Won't Forget You (Jim Reeves)
The Sad in my Song (Charlie Louvin)

My list might look different tomorrow and (with a little more thinking time) a lot longer.
But these come to mind at the moment.

Matt Morrison wrote: == Cat Stevens - Father And Son

This too!

Also: The Libertines - Music When The Lights Go Out.

Thanks for the suggestions guys, I'll get round to listening to them all eventually.

Depends whether I just want to stew in my misery, in which case... I don't know... maybe I See A Darkness by Bonnie 'Prince' Billy (perhaps the whole album for which that's the title track). But if I feel I should just bloody well cheer up, which is obviously the more sensible approach to take, then it's most likely In the Aeroplane Over the Sea or something similarly life-affirming.

Phil Makepeace wrote:I try to listen to exceptionally upbeat songs in such circumstances (like the album Person Pitch by Panda Bear - really recommended), but I tend to eventually resort to being a bit mopey with my music choices. These usually feature somewhere along the way - they're mostly instrumental tracks.

Mogwai - Tracy (Kid Loco's Playing With the Young Team Remix)
The Appleseed Cast - View of a Burning City
Four Tet - Unspoken
Boards of Canada - Peacock Tail
Snow Patrol - Velocity Girl
Fridge - Long Singing
Mogwai - Small Children in the Background
Godspeed You! Black Emperor - Storm
Death in Vegas - Girls
Elliott Smith - Kiwi Maddog 20/20
Interpol - Untitled
I Am Kloot - Proof

Incidentally, Unspoken was the piano track used extensively in yesterday's Top Gear feature on road signage. In addition, you may know Untitled from when Joey kisses Rachel in Barbados in Friends. Girls is used in Lost in Translation. [edit]

Music can be so therapeutic.
By choice one can sink deeper into sadness, which can lead to catharsis.
It can also lift a good mood into an even higher state.
And one can knowlingly change one's mood with selective choice of music.
Wonderful.

Being a bit of an old folkie at heart, my favourites are:
'Last Thing on My Mind' - Tom Paxton
'There But For Fortune' - Joan Baez
'Four Strong Winds' - Written by Ian Tyson but my favourite version is by The Searchers - Neil Young did a good version too.
'When You Were Sweet 16' - The Fureys + Davey Arthur
'Brothers In Arms' - Dire Straits

Both sides now by Joni Mitchell
It's over by The Smiths
Honey by Bobby Goldsboro
Superstar The Carpenters
Iris The Goo Goo Dolls
Hurt NIN

Marc Meakin wrote:Hurt NIN

Thank. You.

Off the top of my head, Titanic Days by Kirsty MacColl.

Radiohead's In Rainbows and the Decemberists' Hazards of Love are the melancholy records of choice for me at present.

System Of A Down - Aerials springs to mind. Portishead too. Also, anything dark/heavy.

Ornament / The Last Wrongs by Oceansize and Quiet by This Will Destroy You are also stunning. Seriously, if you're lonely or seem to get to through a lot of girlfriends, pre-empt the misery by getting into post-rock. Or just get into post-rock anyway, using the album Happy Songs For Happy People by Mogwai as a starting point. For these purposes, ignore the title.