Gloomy Sunday: Part Two

Yves Klein with Harry Shunk and Janos Kender, Leap into the Void, 1960, © Yves Klein, Harry Shunk, gelatin silver print, photograph MoMA

June 2018

Before Gloomy Sunday became a hit it was already a scandal. The song had barely begun to get attention when an article appeared in an evening paper in Budapest on November 7, 1935. The title of the piece was “Murderous Song”. Rumour had it that several locals had committed suicide and a sheet of bloodied music had been found by their sides. Among these terrible deaths was the head of a radio station who took his life the very day before Rez was due to play his new song, Gloomy Sunday, at the radio station. Another was an advisor to the Treasury, a bullet to the heart in the back of a taxi. The third death was allegedly that of an impoverished maid who’d done away with herself by drinking caustic soda. To all this Rez’s reply was:

“I’ve become the suicides’ singer? I’m devastated that this has become the song’s fate. At this price I don’t need success.”

László Jávor, the poet who wrote the second version of Gloomy Sunday said:

“Between my own nerves and the attacks in the press, I began to believe that I was a murderer.”

Music travels, but rumours travel further. In Switzerland, Italy, France, Germany and Denmark dozens of articles began to appear about Gloomy Sunday. The song was variously dubbed “The Suicide Hymn” and “The Death Song”. It was attention-grabbing stuff. People became curious to hear this song that supposedly had such dark power. It was also the winter of 1935, gloom was in the air. Arms races and shifting international alliances were destabilising the battered continent once more. Talk of another world war loomed.

 The sheet music of Gloomy Sunday eventually found its way to Paris where Ray Ventura - the famous French bandleader who popularised jazz in France in the ‘30s - began to play the song. But Ventura didn’t just play the song, he hammed up the ghoulish reputation of the song with unabashed theatrics. Before even playing a single bar of music, Ventura would stand before the audience and read out “statistics” about how many people had died from hearing the infamous song, how they'd died and where. Then the band would begin to play, but at the first chorus the drummer would get up, take a revolver from his pocket and “shoot” himself in the head. Then the trumpet player would “stab” himself in the chest. After that a waiter would bring the sax player a “cup of poison” which he would drink. Eventually it was just Ray on the stage. A noose would be lowered from the ceiling, Ray would stick his head into it, the song would end. Wow! With a show like that, in not-so-gai-Paris, no wonder the song caught on. Music travels, but rumours travel further.

Gloomy Sunday became a global hit. It was translated into 28 languages, in Europe, Asia and Africa. Eventually the Yanks translated it too. Building on the momentum begun in Europe, they sold Gloomy Sunday as the “Hungarian Suicide Song”. It became a hit in the States too. The biggest names in music recorded the song: Louis Armstrong, Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra, Ray Charles, Sarah Vaughn, to name a few. Google the words “hungarian suicide song” and 179,000 hits come up, including, of course, the much-maligned song.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IzKkBYXZS58

Sarah Vaughn’s gorgeous recording of Gloomy Sunday from her 1960 album “The Divine One”, © Estate of Sarah Vaughn

Gloomy Sunday continues to be recorded and listened to today. There is something seductive about giving voice to our bleakest thoughts. There is a dark freedom in letting go of hope, in not having to perpetually search for silver linings. Gloomy Sunday is not concerned with restraint, not musically, not lyrically, not thematically. It is perhaps in this extravagance of emotion that its enduring appeal lives. Dying for love is tragic, most of us never will, but most of us do know something about how love hurts. Does that stop any of us, ever? No. Because love, even the unhappy kind, still makes us feel more alive than anything else in this world. ◊

Next month I'll tell you what I know about the man behind the legends, myths and lies. In the meantime, should you be game, try Billie Holiday's Gloomy Sunday, or my other favourite, Portishead’s version. The opening bars of violin give it an unmistakable touch of Klezmer which feels so right here. For something jazzy, brassy and OTT, try Bjork's take on the song... Happy listening!