This day in history: Hungarian pianist and composer Rezso Seress (aka Rudolf "Rudi" Spitzer) was born on this day in 1899. Rezso is mainly known for one song: Gloomy Sunday. "Gloomy Sunday", also known as the "Hungarian Suicide Song" was first recorded in 1935.
The song has a melancholy sound to it with suicidal lyrics of a loved one lost to death. A sample of it goes:
Sunday is gloomy,
My hours are slumberless
Dearest the shadows
I live with are numberless
Little white flowers
Will never awaken you
Not where the black coach of
Sorrow has taken you
Angels have no thought
Of ever returning you,
Would they be angry
If I thought of joining you?
It was reported in the 1930s that the song was associated with at least 100 suicides, both in Hungary and the United States, though many doubt the veracity of this claim. However, Gloomy Sunday was in the news again when Ozzy Osbourne was taken to court by the parents of a teen who shot himself while listening to the Ozzy's song “Suicide Solution.” It's not uncommon for certain works of art to lead to an increased in suicides. In fact, it's actually been named as 'The Werther Effect'. 'The Sorrows of Young Werther' is a novel by Goethe in which a young man commits suicide after being jilted. Following the publication of the book, there were a number of young men killing themselves in similar situations, in the same manner, and even dressed in the same clothes.
Because of the lyrics, Gloomy Sunday was banned in England in the 1940's. Only instrumental versions could be played on the radio because the song was "too upsetting."
Interestingly, Rezso Seress, in an example of life imitating art, would go on to commit suicide himself in 1968.
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