Speaker 1: Thinking Sideways is not brought to you by that tiny
Speaker 1: saw they used to cut toothpicks. Instead, it's supported by
Speaker 1: the generous donations of our listeners on Patreon. Visit patreon
Speaker 1: dot com slash Thinking Sideways to learn more and thanks
Speaker 1: Thinking Sideways. I don't understand it. You never know stories
Speaker 1: of things we simply don't know the answer too. Hey, guys,
Speaker 1: welcome to another episode of Thinking Sideways the podcast. I
Speaker 1: Am Devin, joined per usu By and Steve. Yeah, before
Speaker 1: we get into this mystery, this is part of our
Speaker 1: summer series. Basically, we're doing shorter kind of episodes to
Speaker 1: allow us to enjoy our summer a little bit because
Speaker 1: we've been doing this for a long time three years now,
Speaker 1: three years now out um, and also give us some
Speaker 1: Yeah really we thought we were dead after you know,
Speaker 1: six months. You guys just keep listening to us. Yeah really,
Speaker 1: just kidding, don't do that. But it's going to give
Speaker 1: us also time to work on some of those bigger
Speaker 1: cases that we've been hoping to work on, which is
Speaker 1: pretty good. Yeah, okay, so summer series. Yeah, tonight, we're
Speaker 1: going to talk about a mystery which has a few
Speaker 1: different names. We're going to call it Gloomy Sunday. This
Speaker 1: was a listener suggestion from Mariana. I think it's how
Speaker 1: you say it, So thank you, thanks Marianna. That was
Speaker 1: in like fifteen, It wasn't that long ago. Yeah, Gloomy
Speaker 1: Sunday has another name, doesn't it does. It's also known
Speaker 1: as the Hungarian suicide song Do Do Do Do. Gloomy
Speaker 1: Sunday is a rough translation of the original song, and
Speaker 1: it's actually the second incarnation of the song. It's a
Speaker 1: cover or a remix almost almost, it's just different lyrics.
Speaker 1: What what happened was in nineteen thirty two or thirty three,
Speaker 1: a Hungarian pianist by the name of Richau schirsch Is.
Speaker 1: I think how you say it. I listened to a
Speaker 1: lot of different pronunciations of it, and they all kind
Speaker 1: of sounded like so I'm just gonna say it like that,
Speaker 1: and this is the only time I'm going to say
Speaker 1: his name. It was probably the best pronunciation yet. Yeah. Um,
Speaker 1: And this is no offense to you know, the Hungarian
Speaker 1: language or anything. That's just what it sounded like to
Speaker 1: me on online, So sorry if I got that wrong anyway.
Speaker 1: He he composed the music for the song, and then
Speaker 1: he also wrote some original lyrics for the song Um,
Speaker 1: and he titled this this particular song the World is Ending.
Speaker 1: That's no. A few years after that, a poet decided
Speaker 1: that he could probably do better at the lyrics, so
Speaker 1: he rewrote them and retitled the song Gloomy Sunday. And
Speaker 1: sounds like the composer was kind of in on the
Speaker 1: whole thing. He was. He seemed to think, yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: these these are fine. Okay, so he didn't have a
Speaker 1: problem with somebody playing new lyrics to it. It didn't
Speaker 1: sound like it. I think what happened is he wrote
Speaker 1: the song and he really liked the composition, but he
Speaker 1: wrote lyrics even though he wasn't a lyricist, and then
Speaker 1: somebody heard it and said, hey, you know what, actually
Speaker 1: let me try and compose some good lyrics for this,
Speaker 1: and he was like, okay, fine. It was probably like, hey,
Speaker 1: maybe this version will make some money. Yeah, I mean, well,
Speaker 1: we'll talk about that in a little bit. Anyway. Gloomy Sunday,
Speaker 1: the updated UM lyrics, was recorded and released in ninety five,
Speaker 1: and as I said, it's kind of the more widely
Speaker 1: accepted version of the song. The song isn't really a mystery, right,
Speaker 1: very obvious. You can find on the net, you can
Speaker 1: listen to it can be careful. We'll play a little
Speaker 1: bit of it um in just a second. But the
Speaker 1: real mystery here is that apparently the song is responsible
Speaker 1: for at least nineteen suicides. So the mystery is does
Speaker 1: this song actually drive people to commit suicide? This a
Speaker 1: little depressing. It sounds like a dirge when you listen
Speaker 1: to it. It's pretty sad. Well, and you know, furthermore
Speaker 1: I want to know is that is it is it
Speaker 1: deadly and only the original language, or is it deadly
Speaker 1: in all languages? Well, and we'll talk about all those
Speaker 1: things in a minute. Sweet First, we'll talk a little
Speaker 1: bit more history of the song itself, and also listen
Speaker 1: to a little bit of the song and also do
Speaker 1: dramatic reading of the lyrics. Joe has to do the dramatic,
Speaker 1: so he's going to actually I've I've actually got William
Speaker 1: Shat to show up and do that. Oh thank god.
Speaker 1: I've been wanting the shot in studio for so long.
Speaker 1: So I wait for that knock. We're going to play
Speaker 1: a little bit of the song, probably about fifteen seconds.
Speaker 1: I guess skip it. If you're scared, if you're a
Speaker 1: little stitious, skip it. Yeah, you know, I'm not superstitious,
Speaker 1: but I'm a little stitious. Okay, you kids in your
Speaker 1: new fangled words. Anyway, here we go. Here's fifteen seconds
Speaker 1: of the very beginning of this song. You're back, good,
Speaker 1: you made it out the other side. He congratulations, out
Speaker 1: of the oven. I don't know if you can say
Speaker 1: that or not, but we'll just keep going. So the
Speaker 1: song that we've been talking about is actually kind of
Speaker 1: two different songs. And that's not just the little bit
Speaker 1: that we talked about a second ago. This goes further
Speaker 1: than that. So the original song, we're just gonna say
Speaker 1: gloomy one day, the five version original song. Fine will
Speaker 1: ignore the old lyrics that. We'll ignore that for just
Speaker 1: a minute. Okay, people to suicide, right, Well, I don't know.
Speaker 1: In ninety six, Hal Kemp, he's an American jazz musician.
Speaker 1: If you don't know who he has, look I'm up.
Speaker 1: Awesome awesome artist recorded a new kind of americanized version
Speaker 1: of the song. Um and the lyrics were by Desmond Carter,
Speaker 1: who was worked often with Gershwin and Um. It was
Speaker 1: really just a staple of American music at the time.
Speaker 1: A few years later, Billy Holliday recorded the same version,
Speaker 1: the same americanized version, Yeah, exactly, and it became a
Speaker 1: huge hit. A lot of people really covered this thing that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there have been a ton of versions. I would encourage you,
Speaker 1: if you are curious, to go out to the Wikipedia page,
Speaker 1: which I know is everybody's favorite thing that I say,
Speaker 1: But go out to the Wikipedia page and just look.
Speaker 1: I there were more than I bothered to count. I
Speaker 1: actually have a feeling that this is the go to
Speaker 1: we need a tenth track on the record, so hey,
Speaker 1: just record this and sticking in there. Yeah, like it's
Speaker 1: just it's a filler. I gotta tell you, though, I did. Really,
Speaker 1: I'm not I have. I've never really appreciated Billy Holiday
Speaker 1: that much, and I really liked her version of it.
Speaker 1: I loved Billy Holiday what I expected of it from her.
Speaker 1: Having listened to some of her stuff before, I was like, oh, gosh,
Speaker 1: it's actually she actually did a good job. I should
Speaker 1: listening to it. I haven't. I haven't heard it. So
Speaker 1: of note, you know, Billy Holiday did a did a
Speaker 1: version of it. Um Rach Charles did a version of it.
Speaker 1: Eda Jones, Elvis Costello did a version of it, did
Speaker 1: a version of it. Peter Wolfe did a cop a
Speaker 1: cover of it. I think Shad O'Connor did a version
Speaker 1: of it. Sarah McLaughlin did a cover of it, of course,
Speaker 1: Sarah mcla course she did. I think even Um York
Speaker 1: might have even done. She did a version of that's
Speaker 1: actually the only version that I'm I'm not a fan
Speaker 1: of York. How do you say it? By the way,
Speaker 1: I know I'm screwing it up every time I want
Speaker 1: to say York, Is that correct? I just I think
Speaker 1: that's wrong. Yeah. I actually really liked her version. It
Speaker 1: was and I'm not a fan of her work either.
Speaker 1: She actually she recorded it for do you guys know who?
Speaker 1: Do you guys know who? Alexander McQueen is not Steve McQueen, No, No,
Speaker 1: Alexander McQueen. He's like one of my favorite fashion designers
Speaker 1: of all times ever died in a two thousand ten
Speaker 1: and that's Byork performed it recorded that the gloomy Sunday
Speaker 1: for his funeral or his commemoration. Got it? Uh, you
Speaker 1: know it's funny, is I didn't know it was. It
Speaker 1: was in the soundtrack of Wrist Cutters. Have you guys
Speaker 1: seen that movie. It's just a I mean, it's a
Speaker 1: pretty prolific song. Yeah, it's it's rist Cutters colon a
Speaker 1: love Stories. It's a great movie. That's where I learned
Speaker 1: the phrase the p i C the people in charge. Oh,
Speaker 1: I like it every now and again. You'll hear me.
Speaker 1: It's got to be the p i C. It's people
Speaker 1: in charge. We've just always glossed over that. Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: you two ignored because you didn't get my reference, got it? Well? Okay,
Speaker 1: So the interesting thing about Billie Holliday's version of this
Speaker 1: song is that reportedly the BBC actually banned it from
Speaker 1: being played on any of their radio stations. They banned
Speaker 1: music in general, didn't they know, I mean the love
Speaker 1: band thing. Yeah, don't worry, I mean okay, so they
Speaker 1: said that it was they cited detriment. It was detrim
Speaker 1: detrimental to um morale. Yeah, morale like wartime morale. But
Speaker 1: I'm don't worry. They have lifted the band. Um, they
Speaker 1: lifted it in um. So you know, just just when
Speaker 1: Gland was really recovering from the war, the wheels of
Speaker 1: bureaucracy grind slowly. Well, apparently they didn't grind so slowly
Speaker 1: when they were banning the thing, because they happen pretty Yeah,
Speaker 1: let's go ahead and just take a moment to listen
Speaker 1: to Joe dramatically read the lyrics. Okay, we gotta wait
Speaker 1: for Shot to show up. Didn't show up. I'm going
Speaker 1: to do it, but I'm going to use his voice,
Speaker 1: his voice. Okay, this so for everyone. This is the original, original, original,
Speaker 1: if the one that's actually called The World is ending? Yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: autumn is slipping and the yellowing leaves. He died in
Speaker 1: the land of human love. Who was in the autumn wind?
Speaker 1: Crying tears? My eye has a new spring. Does not
Speaker 1: expect our hope in vain. I cry and suffer in vain, heartless,
Speaker 1: greedy and bad people. He died of love. End of
Speaker 1: the world, the end of hope. Cities are destroyed, shrapnel
Speaker 1: is making music. People's blood and meadows are colored red.
Speaker 1: They're people on the streets everywhere. Once again, I said
Speaker 1: another quiet prayer, sir. People are fallible and make mistakes.
Speaker 1: It's the end of the world. That wasn't too melodramatic there, Yeah,
Speaker 1: you went from Shatner to a bit irish to then
Speaker 1: just reading that was that was the complete and total,
Speaker 1: full range of Joe. That's why I'm not an actor.
Speaker 1: That I mean, so the lyrics are for what was
Speaker 1: going on in the time. It totally makes sense what
Speaker 1: was going on in the world in general and thirty Yeah,
Speaker 1: and as I understand it, actually the composer and his
Speaker 1: girlfriend had just broken up and he was pretty cut
Speaker 1: up about it. Was it the composer or the second
Speaker 1: composer who had broken up with his girlfriend? I think
Speaker 1: it was the composer. I thought it was the second
Speaker 1: one who had just gone through a breakup, you know. Frankly,
Speaker 1: I don't know. They may have both happened. Stranger things
Speaker 1: have happened. I mean, this composer did seem to be
Speaker 1: a pretty unhappy guy in general. He was They called
Speaker 1: him just like a staunch nationalist. He you know. So
Speaker 1: this song made it big in America, so he had
Speaker 1: the rights to a lot of royalties in America, but
Speaker 1: he had to go claim them and he just refused.
Speaker 1: He said, no, um, I'm only going to make money
Speaker 1: of this in Hungary. It's he only play. I'm going
Speaker 1: to make money off this, and the royalties there were
Speaker 1: like pretty beautiful. He actually he was kind of you know,
Speaker 1: Van go Esque in his in his time because people
Speaker 1: kind of liked what he was doing. But he wasn't
Speaker 1: really collecting royalties, and he basically died in poverty, so
Speaker 1: too bad. He seemed like he was not the happiest
Speaker 1: of guys anyway. The lyrics that were rewritten so that
Speaker 1: it became the official gloomy Sunday version of the song, Um,
Speaker 1: we should probably listen to those two because that's the
Speaker 1: one that was getting played every Yeah, so Joe, do
Speaker 1: you want to do the owners again? Still was in here,
Speaker 1: damn on a sad Sunday with a hundred white flowers.
Speaker 1: I was waiting for you, not just kidding. He's doing
Speaker 1: it in reverse this time he's eating a monotone, then irish.
Speaker 1: Then yeah, on a sad Sunday with a hundred white flowers.
Speaker 1: I was waiting for you, my dear, with the church
Speaker 1: prayer that dream chasing Sunday morning, the charity of my
Speaker 1: sadness returned without you. Ever since then, Sundays are always sad.
Speaker 1: Tears in my drink, and sorrow was my bread. Sad Sunday,
Speaker 1: Last Sunday, My dear, please come along. They were leaving
Speaker 1: me priest coffin catalfac herst cloth. Even then, flowers will
Speaker 1: be awaiting you, flowers and coffin under blossoming trees. My
Speaker 1: journey be the last. My eyes will be open so
Speaker 1: that I can see you one more time. Do not
Speaker 1: be afraid of my eyes, as I'm blessing you, even
Speaker 1: in my death. Last Sunday. Also super happy. This is
Speaker 1: such a cheery song. What I love is in the
Speaker 1: in the in the song is that not just the
Speaker 1: whole moping, that's the whole thing. But they have to
Speaker 1: have the church bell in there, which is super creepy
Speaker 1: and again very few real Yeah, yeah, yeah I can.
Speaker 1: Did you guys ever watch that that internet cartoon Happy
Speaker 1: Tree Friends? Remember that? Yeah? We started watching that reason this.
Speaker 1: This is the kind of thing that I could see them. Actually,
Speaker 1: the guys who make that are the folks that make
Speaker 1: that making this into an episode which would just be
Speaker 1: another gore fest as all of their things. Absolutely, Okay,
Speaker 1: you've seen it before, you just don't remember it. I've
Speaker 1: showed them to you. I watched all of Oh no,
Speaker 1: I do remember that that was that was like three
Speaker 1: or four or five years. All bunnies and squirrels get
Speaker 1: cut in half, remember that. Yeah, this is that sort
Speaker 1: of thing. Yeah, and it's probably worth just briefly reading
Speaker 1: the Billy Holiday lyrics as well, because apparently we're padding
Speaker 1: episodes these days. Well they added, they added, it's different.
Speaker 1: It's not any fourth um they well, no, the I
Speaker 1: thought it was that the second version was added to.
Speaker 1: In other words, they took at the end, they added
Speaker 1: another is it a stanza? Is that correct? They added
Speaker 1: a fourth stanza, which essentially made the whole thing sound
Speaker 1: as if it was a dream the singer was having
Speaker 1: instead of actually committing suicide or killing themselves. Well, this
Speaker 1: is all alluding to, well, why don't I read the
Speaker 1: Billy Holiday version because you know, these back past two
Speaker 1: lyrics that we've read are obviously just translated from Hungarian,
Speaker 1: so they're not written to be a song in English necessarily,
Speaker 1: which is why we have this americanized version which was
Speaker 1: meant to be sung in English, so it has a
Speaker 1: different tone to it a little bit. So why don't
Speaker 1: we just read this real quick and I'll read it,
Speaker 1: because you know it's Billy Holliday so check me. I'm
Speaker 1: not gonna change my voice at all. Please do your
Speaker 1: best chat. No, Sunday is gloomy. My hours, uh sorry,
Speaker 1: Sunday is gloomy. My hours are slumberless. Dearest, the shadows
Speaker 1: I live with, our numberless little white flowers will never
Speaker 1: waken you, not where the black coach of sorrow has
Speaker 1: taken you. Angels have no thought of ever returning you.
Speaker 1: Why would they be angry if I thought of joining you?
Speaker 1: Gloomy Sunday. Gloomy is Sunday with shadows. I spend it
Speaker 1: all my heart, and I have decided to end it all. Soon.
Speaker 1: There will be candles and prayers that are said I know.
Speaker 1: Let them not weep, let them know that I'm glad
Speaker 1: to go. Death is no dream, for in death, I'm
Speaker 1: caressing you with the last breath of my soul. I'll
Speaker 1: be blessing you, Gloomy Sunday dreaming I was only dreaming.
Speaker 1: I wake up to find you asleep in the deep
Speaker 1: of my heart. Dear darling, I hope that my dream
Speaker 1: has never haunted you. My heart is telling you how
Speaker 1: much I wanted you. Gloomy Sunday. So yeah, they added
Speaker 1: the stands of like it was just a dream. But
Speaker 1: that's for takeing real dark. Oh yeah, it's definitely about suicide,
Speaker 1: as are these other two versions of the song. And
Speaker 1: I think in every language the song is about killing yourself. Well,
Speaker 1: and I think I personally this is my personal opinion,
Speaker 1: and I am pretty sure that that that last stands
Speaker 1: about making it into a dream is added because if
Speaker 1: you remember the way censorship was when like the when
Speaker 1: Billy Holliday did her version, is that they couldn't just
Speaker 1: push that through the sensors. I mean it's like, um,
Speaker 1: there is This was ten or fifteen years later. There's
Speaker 1: the Roy Orbison song. I want to say it's it's
Speaker 1: not Layla, but the one where he's he's getting oysters
Speaker 1: and he's swimming down with you know, it's it's the
Speaker 1: free dive and he gets his hands stuck in a
Speaker 1: clam and it bites down on him, and the whole
Speaker 1: song at the end is that it's him. It's everything's
Speaker 1: getting dark, it's getting cold, Like I'm amazed that got
Speaker 1: through the sensors because they were so they were so
Speaker 1: stern at the time. Yeah, exactly, remember that actually so
Speaker 1: not happy in any any version of it. Definitely referencing
Speaker 1: suicide versions of it. So let's talk about the deaths
Speaker 1: that this song is supposedly responsible for. Thank you for
Speaker 1: getting supposedly, Yeah, no problem, What do you mean supposedly? Well,
Speaker 1: apparently eighteen suicides in Hungary had quote unquote close links
Speaker 1: with Gloomy Sunday. Uh. There was a Time magazine article
Speaker 1: called music calling the Suicide Song that was published in
Speaker 1: UM March of nineteen thirty six. I read part of
Speaker 1: this article, but you can't get past two paragraphs without
Speaker 1: having subscription at Time, and I don't have a subscription
Speaker 1: at time broke, so um I did not purchase said subscription.
Speaker 1: But luckily there are enough articles around the internet that
Speaker 1: have just totally you know, copy pasted from that article
Speaker 1: that I have the information In this article in from
Speaker 1: you know nineteen thirty six, they talk about Hungarian shoemaker
Speaker 1: by the name of Joseph Keller, and police were reportedly
Speaker 1: investigating his death and thinking that Gloomy Sunday was responsible
Speaker 1: for it because he left a note in which he
Speaker 1: quoted some of the lyrics from Gloomy Sunday. Okay, quote unquote.
Speaker 1: Several bodies were found clutching the songs sheet music upon
Speaker 1: their suicides or upon their discovery they were floating in
Speaker 1: the river right in the Danube. Yeah that yeah, this
Speaker 1: this makes me wonder if maybe somebody was trying to
Speaker 1: it was actually murdering people, trying to frame the composer,
Speaker 1: and and it's like, imagine this frustration. He keeps killing
Speaker 1: people and planning this on them, and they keep saying,
Speaker 1: oh my god, another suicide. Yeah, this is insane, it's crazy. Um.
Speaker 1: Two people reportedly shot themselves while listening to different bands
Speaker 1: play the song. There's some songs that that really do
Speaker 1: make you one. I know of plenty these that makes
Speaker 1: me want to stick my head in the oven. Is
Speaker 1: apparently at least one other person, but maybe more, had
Speaker 1: been found to have taken their own life while listening
Speaker 1: to Gloomy Sunday So Hungry band the song right rational Yeah.
Speaker 1: And then you know, in the n eighteen thirties there
Speaker 1: were apparently attempted suicides and actual suicides that we were
Speaker 1: being reported in conjunction with Gloomy Sunday. As we said,
Speaker 1: the BBC did bann the song entirely and reportedly although
Speaker 1: I've never seen anything to corroborate this Reportedly, certain outlets
Speaker 1: in the US refused to play the song. That seems
Speaker 1: silly to me. Also, it was such a big hit,
Speaker 1: like Billy It's It's on one of Bill Holidays, like
Speaker 1: Greatest Hits things. It was a huge song for her,
Speaker 1: and it's silly to assume that outlets were not playing
Speaker 1: the song. It not as though it's you know, two
Speaker 1: thousand and sixteen. People are downloading and like getting it anyway,
Speaker 1: even if the radio is not playing, that's not happening.
Speaker 1: Then the radio is playing it or people are pretty
Speaker 1: much not hearing it. Yeah, because records and a gramophone,
Speaker 1: we're not a cheap purchase. So it's not as if
Speaker 1: music was easy to get, not as easy as not
Speaker 1: at all. Apparently, reportedly, there are more than a hundred
Speaker 1: deaths connected to Gloomy Sunday. This is a air quotes,
Speaker 1: yes death according to the Internet at this point. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's all according to the Internet. Okay. So I was
Speaker 1: gonna ask because I couldn't find any of the easily,
Speaker 1: and I admittedly just kind of thought about it earlier
Speaker 1: today and started trying to find uh, you know, you
Speaker 1: can find in Google sometimes copies and newspapers, but The
Speaker 1: problem is is that I don't know how to read Hungarian,
Speaker 1: so I was trying to find something that translated that.
Speaker 1: So it was it was just it was utter a
Speaker 1: crap show of my research process here. But it does
Speaker 1: have either of you seen anything that actually points to
Speaker 1: actual reports or newspaper accounts. Now? Is it all just
Speaker 1: summations on the internet. Um, for the most part. I
Speaker 1: mean they reference, you know, in a blah blah blah
Speaker 1: article in you know, this year a woman named Lauren
Speaker 1: drowned herself in the river clutching you know, I'm I'm
Speaker 1: making that one up. I'm just pulling that from pieces.
Speaker 1: But they'll say they'll cite their sources, but you know,
Speaker 1: you always fall the link in there. It's like link
Speaker 1: not found and it's you know, to a PDF that
Speaker 1: was scanned at one point of an article in Hungarian
Speaker 1: and you just have to take people's word for it. Um,
Speaker 1: I'm disinclined to believe most of the stories. Well. Yeah.
Speaker 1: The thing about it is too is this if there's
Speaker 1: a connection, and there might be in a sense, but
Speaker 1: it's a reverse connection. Because people who are depressed tanty
Speaker 1: like they like to pressing music, you know, they will
Speaker 1: seek that stuff out. Yeah, totally, So not it necessarily
Speaker 1: cause of it. No, there's definitely there's definitely bands that
Speaker 1: you know, there's rough times in all of our lives
Speaker 1: where you've you look back through your your music collection.
Speaker 1: I was about to say CD collection. You look back
Speaker 1: through your music collection and you're like, wow, I have
Speaker 1: like five albums from this one bad and that is
Speaker 1: such a melancholy batch. Well, I even have it from
Speaker 1: I've had the what is it it's Deathcat for Cutie.
Speaker 1: Remember all of their stuff was That's all A lot
Speaker 1: of that is the same vein. I was a teenage
Speaker 1: girl in the early two thousands, so yes, I remember that.
Speaker 1: I listened to it all the time, and you know,
Speaker 1: I thought it was great, and then they did other stuff.
Speaker 1: But after now I look back and like, oh, it
Speaker 1: comes up on what I'll listen to my stuff on randomly,
Speaker 1: like that that one about We'll go together in the dark. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that I'll follow you into the dark. I've that's real
Speaker 1: and h it's uh. There's another one that they cover
Speaker 1: that's by um Iron and Wine, who is also it's
Speaker 1: not Iron and Wine, that's the album name. Who is
Speaker 1: it that has the album is called Iron and Wine.
Speaker 1: No it is. It is Iron and Wine. I'm I'm
Speaker 1: getting it all mixed up with the actual artist's name.
Speaker 1: But anyway, you know they he's saying something which I
Speaker 1: know was then to cover. So it's the same thing.
Speaker 1: It's like one of those things that just hopscotches backthrough time.
Speaker 1: So why don't we talk about theories we are? It's
Speaker 1: pretty easy, Jay, I don't know where they already. There's
Speaker 1: kind of like two, three, maybe four. I think there's two. Okay,
Speaker 1: I don't see your Little Black Book anywhere, so I'm
Speaker 1: gonna go ahead and solidly say there's two. Well, no,
Speaker 1: I all I remembered about the stories was York and
Speaker 1: then I was done. Yeah, I'll in a third. Okay.
Speaker 1: So the first theory is that, yeah, this song has
Speaker 1: some kind of supernatural ability to drive people to kill themselves.
Speaker 1: I don't have any evidence to backing up putting it
Speaker 1: out there. Yea there. I listened to it and I
Speaker 1: didn't see I didn't feel my suicide quotient rising personally. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I would think that if this was true in ninety
Speaker 1: five and thirty six, when it was on when the
Speaker 1: Billie Holiday version was playing, there would be droves of
Speaker 1: people falling out of buildings as they were compelled to
Speaker 1: end their lives. I mean that there's not a whole
Speaker 1: lot of support. This is um This is one of
Speaker 1: those anecdotal stories to me, well full of I knew
Speaker 1: this person and they were listening to this gloomy music
Speaker 1: all the time, and I saw this record in their
Speaker 1: house after they had taken their own life. I mean
Speaker 1: to add to that, if we're just gonna sit and
Speaker 1: debunk the latest recording of this song is like two
Speaker 1: thousand fifteen. It's been popularized in the modern era in
Speaker 1: the two thousand's, in the nineties, there have been recordings
Speaker 1: that have been popular and it's not as though we're
Speaker 1: seeing a huge uptick in suicides in the demographic that's
Speaker 1: listening to those songs. Well yeah, but they're saying, I
Speaker 1: think the theory was that the original nineteen thirty five
Speaker 1: version the originals. I mean, it's is the one that's
Speaker 1: got the special you know note Senate that make But
Speaker 1: I think there are a lot of people who listen
Speaker 1: to this song because of this mystery. And uh wait,
Speaker 1: I figured out how we can we can verify this.
Speaker 1: All we have to do is get Usher to to
Speaker 1: re sample the original version and do his own track
Speaker 1: over the top and see if if it has any power.
Speaker 1: I feel like we need to have a conversation about
Speaker 1: the last time that Usher had a song that was
Speaker 1: even played on the radio. That's to have a lot
Speaker 1: of conversation about that, because his music is so good,
Speaker 1: so he will be the nail in the coffin no
Speaker 1: pun intended. I think that probably we need to get
Speaker 1: a government grant. We need to like put together studies,
Speaker 1: sample size about a hundred thousand people who will force
Speaker 1: to listen to the song over and over again. We'll
Speaker 1: see how many kill themselves. Yeah, this is not what
Speaker 1: we're doing. And by the way, if anybody has taken
Speaker 1: it that way, we are not making light of suicide now.
Speaker 1: We are making light of the story itself. If anything,
Speaker 1: we are making heavy of the fact that there's a
Speaker 1: lot that goes into one's decision to kill themselves and
Speaker 1: the fact that listening to a song once or twice
Speaker 1: could drive someone to suicide is absurd. Well it is.
Speaker 1: And like and like I said earlier, I think that
Speaker 1: when you're depressed, do you want to listen to depressing music.
Speaker 1: I agree, yeah, and that is usually the depression itself
Speaker 1: is one of the key factors, not the music that
Speaker 1: you listen to. So hey, actually, while we're talking about
Speaker 1: the depression, let's talk about the second where you are
Speaker 1: what else is happening. Let's think about what else is
Speaker 1: happening societally around the world. In the thirties, it's the
Speaker 1: Great Depression. People were killing themselves at a higher rate
Speaker 1: and reporting being you know, sad and having nothing to
Speaker 1: live for, and also starving and being really depressed about
Speaker 1: the state of the world. And I just I think
Speaker 1: it's silly to think that because somebody had the lyrics
Speaker 1: to a song in their note, that that song should
Speaker 1: be responsible for their suicide. Yeah, I think so. I
Speaker 1: think those are good lyrics, man, Like they express a
Speaker 1: really horrible, painful sentiment in a beautifully eloquent way. I
Speaker 1: say that about the first version in terms of what
Speaker 1: was going on globally time for the second version, Like
Speaker 1: the second version, I feel is it's almost a selfish
Speaker 1: set of lyrics. I have this pain, so I'm going
Speaker 1: to write not that having pain is selfish, but like
Speaker 1: taking and rewriting something just so you can have your
Speaker 1: own bit go over something that is obviously aimed at
Speaker 1: a much larger problem. So that's why I feel the
Speaker 1: first one is actually very applicable for the timely Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: well no, there's not the third theory yet because there's
Speaker 1: something else about the time that we need to talk about,
Speaker 1: which is initially a lot of the suicides were happening
Speaker 1: in Hungary, uh and in in a general sense, in
Speaker 1: the Germanic States and where the suicide rates are higher,
Speaker 1: where the suicide rates are naturally higher, and the act
Speaker 1: of suicide at the at that time and at that time,
Speaker 1: and also within the culture, the act, you know, taking
Speaker 1: your own life is not frowned upon. It's not looked
Speaker 1: down upon as why did you do this? This is
Speaker 1: such a you know, in in Western culture there is
Speaker 1: kind of that you're doing something to yourself and everybody
Speaker 1: else is paying the price, whereas in that culture it
Speaker 1: was more of a noble act. It's almost like seppuku.
Speaker 1: In Japanese culture, it was it was very it was
Speaker 1: very honorable to into a degree, so that that plays
Speaker 1: a huge role in well, there's a huge suicide rate
Speaker 1: and by the way or not, but there's a larger
Speaker 1: suicide rate in the culture in general. So oh, by
Speaker 1: the way, then the song comes out, let's just put
Speaker 1: A and D together and call it a pair. Yeah. So,
Speaker 1: I mean, that's that's the theories. A third one that
Speaker 1: was not theory, and that is it was a serial
Speaker 1: killer who was planting copies of the lyrics on his body,
Speaker 1: on the bodies, and and because maybe they've been maybe
Speaker 1: there actually had been a few stories. Maybe there were
Speaker 1: stories out about how this song came out and this
Speaker 1: by my friend bought this record and listened to it
Speaker 1: a lot, that it killed himself and if you have
Speaker 1: to tell the stories like that, making another Hungarian press.
Speaker 1: And then a serial coler decides, well, what the hell
Speaker 1: you know, I'll just plant records and copies of lyrics
Speaker 1: on people and after I had murdered them drowning in
Speaker 1: the Danube. Yeah, so okay, that's the third one, absolutely
Speaker 1: unsupported by facts. So wait, by the way, but where
Speaker 1: the bodies were expected to have gone into the Danube?
Speaker 1: Was there a smiley face painted anywhere in the area? No, stop, no,
Speaker 1: we're not going to go there. Um, just as a
Speaker 1: final fun factum, is this really a fun fact It's
Speaker 1: not a fun fact, okay, Roschos our composer. I'm sorry,
Speaker 1: I'm really sorry, you guys. He actually killed himself. Um,
Speaker 1: he tried to do so by jumping out a window,
Speaker 1: but he survived. So he strangled himself with a wire
Speaker 1: in the hospital a few days later. And he I
Speaker 1: mean it was he was pretty young. It was I
Speaker 1: think in thirty six or thirty seven, maybe definitely before forty.
Speaker 1: Well the person who I thought, the guy who rewrote
Speaker 1: the lyrics, also committed suicide by throwing himself out of window.
Speaker 1: But he was at age sixty three year sixty eight
Speaker 1: something like. He was a very old man, remember, ye,
Speaker 1: very old. I guess maybe for that maybe for that
Speaker 1: at maybe that's very old, you know, sixties seven sixty eight.
Speaker 1: Joe says, wait, that's not that's not that's not old. Um. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so that's the whole story. I think. I think it's
Speaker 1: just situational and it's stilly to blame us song anecdotal
Speaker 1: and yeah, yeah, but yeah, don't listen to the song
Speaker 1: whatever you do, or the other one that Joe didn't
Speaker 1: want you to listen to, yeah, whichever with that one
Speaker 1: by Royal Orbison. Yeah, Okay, so if you want to
Speaker 1: see some of the research that we've done. Um, or
Speaker 1: if you, I guess need a way to listen to episodes,
Speaker 1: you're listening to it, so I figured you know how
Speaker 1: to listen to it. But yeah, I think actually, if
Speaker 1: you want to, like, if you want to read do
Speaker 1: any research on this one, go watch cat videos instead,
Speaker 1: because you know pretty much everything there is to be
Speaker 1: No you officially do, and we've literally said, um, anyways,
Speaker 1: our website where there's some research. If you want to
Speaker 1: figure out where we found this stuff, or if you
Speaker 1: want to see that list, maybe we'll post the Wikipedia.
Speaker 1: We usually don't, but maybe you will this time. The
Speaker 1: website is thinking sideways podcast dot com. You are probably
Speaker 1: listening to us on iTunes. If you are, leave a
Speaker 1: comment and leave a review and a rating, not a
Speaker 1: comment and a rating. Um. If you haven't already, UM,
Speaker 1: you can also subscribe if you haven't already, I think
Speaker 1: that we're getting some more people who are just finding
Speaker 1: us randomly. Yeah, more and more. UM, so subscribe because
Speaker 1: we've got some good stuff. UM. You are streaming if
Speaker 1: you're not on iTunes, you're streaming anywhere, or you're on
Speaker 1: Google Play. If you can on any of those services also, um,
Speaker 1: you know, rate and review, um and subscribe. We're on Facebook.
Speaker 1: We've got a group in a page, so find the
Speaker 1: group and join it. Like the page. UM. We've got
Speaker 1: a Twitter we're Thinking Sideways. I post a lot of
Speaker 1: really dumb stuff on there. It's genuinely dumb stuff, it
Speaker 1: really is. Yeah, mostly just like really dank memes. We're
Speaker 1: on Reddit as well, UM, so we have our own Subwreddit.
Speaker 1: It's Thinking Sideways, it's not Thinking Sideways pod. Um. You
Speaker 1: can email us if you have some constructive criticism of
Speaker 1: the show, or you have some questions or just general
Speaker 1: you know, praise, yeah, anything, Yeah, if you suggestions for episodes,
Speaker 1: anything like that, you can email us. Our email address
Speaker 1: is Thinking Sideway podcast at gmail dot com. And finally,
Speaker 1: if you would like to support the show in some
Speaker 1: monetary way, you can buy some merch We've got links
Speaker 1: to both the Zazzle and the red Bubble on the website.
Speaker 1: UM you can make a one time donation on PayPal
Speaker 1: if you would, or you can set up a reoccurring
Speaker 1: donation on Patreon. UM it's patreon dot com slash Thinking Sideways.
Speaker 1: That is clearly a reoccurring donation. You donate per episode. Um,
Speaker 1: and it's just the normal episodes, all those special ones
Speaker 1: that we release, we don't charge for it. That's that's
Speaker 1: what keeps this from working for the man. Yeah, exactly, Um,
Speaker 1: what is it? Poc I no I was talking about
Speaker 1: the boss man's daughter. Okay anyway, Um, Steve's trying to
Speaker 1: make relevant references that none of you are going to
Speaker 1: get because he's okay, fine, just in the episode. Okay, anyway,
Speaker 1: So we're going to get out of here before Steve
Speaker 1: kills me and play some weird music on my body's
Speaker 1: so strange. I don't understand what's happening. Bye, guys, don't
Speaker 1: listen to that song. You'll kill yourself.