Remember that hilarious Monty Python skit about the most deadly joke in the world, the one that literally slew everyone who heard it as they drowned in gales of uncontrollable laughter? Didja know there’s a reverse to that, a real life historic song that caused an outbreak of suicides? It’s true, and it’s weird. Hungarian pianist Reszo Seress, wrote “Gloomy Sunday” – also known as “Hungarian Suicide Song” - in a purple dudgeon over breaking up with his girlfriend. When she heard it, she poisoned herself. Her suicide note carried just two words: Gloomy Sunday. That initiated a long wave of many self-slayings, including that of…children. I ain’t joking one leetle bit, Jeeter. The rash of deaths got so bad that Budapest police in the 30s branded it Public Enemy #1, and, though it can’t be proven that it was the long term effect of his own crafting, Seress leaped to his own death many years later in 1968.

Spooked yet? Don’t be. I find it hard to think this rather nice but melancholy ditty created such mania. It’s actually beautiful and, under other circumstances, could have, looking to the first version by Vocal Sampling, been written by Palestrina in his modernistic cups, or perhaps even the Swingle Singers. Paul Robeson’s version debuted in America in ’35, but Billie Holiday immortalized it six years later, an odd companion in many ways to “Strange Fruit”. You’ll find that cut in the two-track bonus section here. Wazimbo endows a Brazilianic air while Matuto imports a very pleasantly dreary Euro-African atmosphere. There are three instrumental takes – Manolito Simonet y su Trabuco’s cover is Ides Of March / Chase / Blood, Sweat & Tears-y but as conducted by Chet Baker and Nelson Riddle.

My favorite version is Chango Spasiuk’s take – man, that accordion just NAILS the laconic intro until a Spanish guitar takes over and deepens the murk and despair, a quivering violin then at first assuming a ghostly third part until dominating the procession. To a cynical bastard like me, the trio does mourning up right, though Holiday’s no slouch, a combination of wistfulness and reproach. I doubt any vocal treatment will ever beat hers, though the very first recording of it in 1934 by Pal Kalmar is awfully good, though perhaps a tad too filmic. Many individuals and groups have tackled the famed number, but ya hafta hear Marianne Faithfull’s cut:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-IzqHjSFJkE

…to catch the full flavor of an inherent Marlene Deitrichy depressoidianism. Then skip over to Diamanda Galas’ Nico-esque dirge for what is probably the most riveting version ever done:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_qu7wdUPnas

Figgers it’d be that maniac Diamanda who put the alarming icing on the cake, doesn’t it? Then check out Hungarian Noir and come up a level or two from Galasian terminalism for your own sake. And I suggest brandy or bourbon as liquid accompaniment ‘cause absinthe…jus …might…not be…the…most…propitious…choice.

Oh, and for those who wish to circulate the Wiki allegation that it’s all just an urban legend, note Da Wik’s rhetoric: “most of the claims are unsubstantiated” does not mean they were disproven, and no “clear link” being drawn between the song and the deaths means 1) that someone was looking into the matter, and 2) they couldn’t disprove it either. It’s always best to watch Jimmy Wales, his Libertarians, and their Republican ways, but it’s even better to just ignore ‘em and sink into the Ophelian swamp, waving as you go under.