3 Sad Rock Songs From the 1990s That Are Even Sadder To Hear as Adults

Sad rock songs are not unique to the 1990s. Yet there was something to the misery themes common among Gen X bands that connected with listeners. Culture wasn’t entirely gloomy (see Friends and Seinfeld), but sadness certainly loomed over rock and roll’s biggest names. So if you were a 90s kid, you might find these melancholy classics even harder to bear emotionally today.

Videos by American Songwriter

“1979” by The Smashing Pumpkins

Anti-rock sentiments were high in the 1990s as alternative rock entered the mainstream. But nobody told Billy Corgan. He played heavy metal riffs, ripped screeching guitar solos, and his giant ambition reached its commercial peak with the sprawling 28-track epic, Mellon Collie And The Infinite Sadness. A fitting title for an LP housing one of Corgan’s best songs, “1979”. It’s a coming-of-age tune that describes fading youth as much as it speaks to the independence one feels during fleeting teen years. In many ways, this song hits me harder now than when I first heard it in 1995.

“My Friends” by Red Hot Chili Peppers

When Rick Rubin discovered a deeply vulnerable and heartrending poem in Anthony Kiedis’s notebook, it forever changed the trajectory of the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Thanks to the smash hit, “Under The Bridge”, the band crossed over into the mainstream and continues to sell out stadiums to this day. But it came with a steep cost. Guitarist John Frusciante seemed to cave beneath the weight of the band’s success and spiraled into near-death heroin addiction. He quit RHCP and was later replaced by Jane’s Addiction guitarist Dave Navarro, who was then struggling with his own addiction.

Kiedis wrote “My Friends” as he watched the lives of his bandmates descend into chaos. And seeing your friends in pain can be worse than trying to climb out from under the bridge yourself.

“Everybody Hurts” by R.E.M.

While most alt-rock bands in the 1990s turned up the volume, R.E.M. instead recorded a folk-rock masterpiece, Automatic For The People. And “Everybody Hurts” sounds more at home among the classic soul ballads of the 1960s than what was dominating MTV in 1993. Singer Michael Stipe is known for writing abstract lyrics, but here, he speaks plainly to depressed teenagers in his audience. Observing despairing teens is profoundly sad, and it’s even more heartbreaking to learn that some may never find happiness regardless of age, which makes Stipe’s lullaby no less moving today.

Photo by Tim Mosenfelder/Getty Images