Interesting answer, thanks!

Actually, I didn’t mean that this song, in this interpretation, isn’t sad, it is very sad!, but in the end you agreed with my description, and I just wanted, first, to give credit to the composer of this song and, second, to say that there are works intrinsically sad.

Now, you mentioned objectivity/subjectivity in music, and I agree with you about all the effects of subjectivity in music, but I don’t think objectivity undermines subjectivity, not at all: you say about context and how it matters for what it makes this song so sad to you, but *musical* context also makes us perceive beautiful things to which we were deaf at first.

For me it’s about context. So in this case this specific recording is what hits home, the fact that the song pre-dates the events of Jonestown means absolutely nothing. The original lyric’s meaning or intention does not somehow take away the impact of the feelings that this song creates in this context with these people.

Also, I would strongly disagree with the idea that beautiful and sad music will illicit the same feeling however, wherever played. I have favorite sad songs that have been covered in a hundred different ways in a dozen different genres and some sound so cheesy without passion that I have that sense of “this is off” and reach for the skip button.

I have no interest in the technicality of music, who wrote it, who sang it etc. It only matters how specific performances of music and the passion of those musicians sit with me. I think music is deeply deeply personal and never objective. Even the most simple of songs, even when instruments are out of tune or the singer is out of key, if there’s passion and emotion there it’s a different beast altogether.

I think people consider sad songs influenced by their lyrics, instrumentation and tone of the singer, but not music on itself in the simplest sense. Sad songs by any means: Mahler’s Kindertoten-lieder. It would still be sad even in a mambo rhythm.

https://strayghost1.bandcamp.com/album/october-songs – I like it.

Try “Radnoti I & II” from “October Songs”