Britpop’s saddest song, according to science
At our core, we love pop music because it makes us feel. A song is a little explosion of emotion that allows us to express feelings that we may not even realise we have. Joy, rage, calm, love, fear, all that good stuff. However, there’s quite possibly no emotion that a pop song can unlock with such ferocity as sadness. Who among us doesn’t love the feeling of a sad song reaching into our souls and turning on the waterworks?
The best part of it is that it’s almost a completely different experience depending on who you speak to. Some beloved weepies leave me utterly unmoved, but put on ‘Piece Of My Heart’ by Big Brother and the Holding Company (or, let’s be real here, Janis Joplin) and I’ll be a gibbering wreck in no time. Ed Sheeran? No ta. Coldplay? Crickets. Lewis Capaldi? Stick to jokes, lad. ‘Rainbow’ by Kacey Musgraves, though? Floods. Every single time.
With that in mind, Dr Harry Witchell teamed up with Nokia a few years back to do something really interesting. By analysing people’s biological responses, he sought to find a song that could stand as, scientifically, the saddest song ever written. By finding a sample selection of people, having them listen to a list of songs and measuring things like their heart rate, respiratory rate and skin temperature.
These responses were collated together to find what was called their “tune trigger quotient”, and the list of songs used in the trial was a pretty powerful one. ‘Fake Plastic Trees’ by Radiohead. Sinead O’Connor’s ‘Nothing Compares 2 U’. ‘Angels’ by Robbie Williams came in second. However, the song that was found to give the highest quotient of sad feelings is a number that one probably wouldn’t have expected.
What is, scientifically, the saddest song ever written?
Of each song used, ‘The Drugs Don’t Work’ by The Verve was found to cause the highest rate of sad responses in the surveyed listeners. Now, to be clear, when you survey a number of English people in the mid-2000s on anything to do with music, you’re guaranteed to have an oversized Britpop representation. Hence, Blur’s ‘Song 2’ was found to be the most exhilarating song ever written for most likely the same reason.
However, it’s difficult to argue against the Verve’s classic lament as an all-timer of a tear-jerker. Richard Ashcroft’s tender ballad conflated his own drug addiction, failing to make his life better, with his father-in-law’s cancer treatment failing to alleviate his condition. It hit number one on release in the wake of the stratospheric success of Urban Hymns and captured the mood of the nation as it mourned the death of Princess Diana.
Is this enough to label it scientifically the saddest song ever written? That’s debatable. After all, if you want to talk about the scientific method, then this data was hardly sourced from a random sample. However, as the saddest moment of Britpop, even with the aforementioned Robbie track nipping at its heels, it’s hard to deny that the science doesn’t have it bang on the money.
If only because Blur’s ‘No Distance Left To Run’ probably isn’t a Britpop song.
