Billie Holiday: Gloomy Sunday

Darling, I'd Die Without You, among the hoariest songwriting clichés, was never expressed with greater despondency than in this paean to self-destruction, as Billie Holiday contemplates joining a dead lover. The song's original unrelieved Hungarian pessimism was mitigated by an American stanza that contrived to soften the blow by claiming it was all a dream. It didn't work. The song spawned an urban legend about listeners rendered so melancholic they killed themselves. Figuratively, the casualties included Billie her- self, who committed artistic suicide by signing a long-term contract with Decca Records, which dispatched her on a fruitless quest for the almighty buck. Gloomy Money-day.