I find that a sad love ballad moves me more than anything. It could be due to my anhedonia which prevents me from experiencing pleasure. I find myself the most happy, although I don’t experience happiness when listening to the sad love song genre. In some strange way, I find some kind of happiness in feeling sad, since sadness is something I feel. Here are some of those songs that touch me the most.

Hello by Lionel Richie. The haunting lyrics and the minor key of the music stirs me. I appreciate, as a musician, the use of some “exotic” chords in the rich harmony that aren’t usually found in pop songs of the 1980s. That was the decade when I was alone in college and looked for love myself, a journey that, in a way, still continues.

Enjoy the official video by Richie. It is more than him merely singing a song, The visuals tell a unique story.

My first love of a sad love song was from a record I found in a stack of old 78s my parents bought at a household auction, Ella Fitzgerald singing Melancholy Me.

It is my go-to song if I’m feeling blue. When I’m down, the lyrics start playing in my head without my prompting. It has become a part of my DNA if that were possible. It certainly has become a part of my psyche. At the end, Ella sings, “Are you melancholy, too?” I know how Ella feels. That question lingers with me. Is there someone else out there who is sad and lonely, or is it only just me?

Another find in a bunch of old 78s is Tonight You Belong to Me, sung by Frankie Laine, which appears rare since I found difficulty locating a video. There a many terrible versions of this song primarilyy by female voices. The Patience and Prudence version makes me want to puke.

In Laine’s version, he rocks the melody and kicks up the lyrics, which speak of love that will be short-lived and lost the next morning. I am not aware why this song resonates with me. Perhaps it has been my desire to find love, any love really, even if it only lasts one day. Do I sound desperate? No, I see myself not as desperate but lonely, melancholy, a state of perpetual loneliness.

My favorite song in the melancholy vein is “I Will Wait for You,” from the French cinema musical masterpiece The Umbrellas of Cherbourg. Connie Francis made the English version a hit in the 1960s.

This song appears in a scene of my memoir, where I remember a moment with my wife. This was “our song” when we first fell in love. Moved with emotion, I start singing the song as I drive home.

Fans of Futurama will never forget this scene of Seymour with Connie Francis singing “I Will Wait for You” in the background. For the fans, it is a real tear-jerker.

My favorite version is sung by the Greek-born international singer George Perris who records songs in Greek, English, French, and Spanish.

A male voice singing this song rings with me, but I find the versions by Andy Williams and Tony Bennett lacking. Frank Sinatra’s version is unexplainably truncated and his second worse rendering, in my opinion, since he recorded Old Man River.

Perris is also an arranger, and he has made the song all his own. He adapts the song and does more than merely sing the notes off the sheet music. Like Francis, Perris takes liberties with the rhythm and beats, displaying his command of the music, which he sings with confidence.

Do you have a favorite sad love song? I would like to hear about it. Please comment below.

Here is the trailer of the film The Umbrellas of Cherbourg. Enjoy.