From Pearl Jam to Franco Battiato: songs about suicide

Suicide is a mental health issue and should not be faced alone. In case of need, it is possible to ask for help from professionals, family, friends or the emergency and listening services active in the area. For an initial dialogue, you can call the number 02 23272327 every day from 10am to midnight.

Some of the most beautiful songs about pain unfortunately speak of the anguish of those who no longer want to live. A magnificent song about suicide it is “The testament” by Appino from 2013 apparently dedicated only to Mario Monicelli, who threw himself from the window of the hospital where he was hospitalized due to a tumor, but which in reality is also crossed by some personal wounds of the voice of Zen Circus. The words “I chose everything, everything except my pain” shine in the darkness. In 1967, the lifeless body of Luigi Tenco was found in Sanremo, to whom his friend Fabrizio De André dedicated the courageous “Prayer in January” in which the greatness of the Genoese singer-songwriter lies in imagining a God who, unlike moralists, does not condemn suicides, but welcomes them among the stars.

“Suicidal Thoughts” from 1994 by Notorious B.I.G it’s a heartbreaking phone call in which the rapper, in a moment of total despair, explains why he despises himself and why he would like to end it. It won’t happen, on the contrary Kurt Cobain, who wrote “I Hate Myself and Want to Die,” later taking his own life in 1994. A piece about which a thousand conjectures have been made, but which in reality the voice of Nirvana defined as “a game”, and in fact it has various ironic parts. “Gloomy Sunday”, famous in Billie Holiday’s versionis known as “the song par excellence about suicide”: according to some urban legends and strange coincidences, compulsive listening would have led to an increase in cases.

There are also stories that have entered the songs and have been exorcised as follows: “Jeremy” by Pearl Jam inspired by Jeremy Delle, a boy who took his own life by shooting himself in front of his classmates in Texas in 1991, and “Adam’s Song” by Blink. A different piece compared to the light themes often covered by the Californian band. A dive into the depths of a mind that can no longer support the weight of existence is also the wonderful “Fade to Black” by Metallica released in the 80s. The words are blades: “No one but me can save me.” We close with “Brief invitation to postpone suicide” by Franco Battiatofrom 1995, in which the master, in an ascetic way, invites us to postpone that gesture indefinitely because a “semblance of life” always deserves a better one.