He also committed suicide: Almost every emotion in our lives has an equivalent in music. The history of music is full of unforgettable songs that millions of people know by heart and have precious stories behind them.
However, the story of some songs is not encouraging. Here, the song composed by Hungarian composer Rezso Seress has a dark story…
Gloomy Sunday is a work composed by Hungarian composer Rezso Seress in 1933. Hungarian poet Laszlo Javor wrote lyrics for Seress' composition. The work was dedicated by Seress to his ex-girlfriend. The work was quickly adopted by European audiences who had not yet gotten over the emotional devastation caused by World War I. Gloomy Sunday caused suicides because of the gloom in its lyrics and melody. Gloomy Sunday went down in music history as the "Hungarian suicide song"!
This composition was the product of intense depression following a traumatic breakup. According to some rumors, it emerged under the influence of Seress's long-standing pessimistic feelings about life and the world and the striking political developments in Europe at the time.
Rezső Seress (3 November 1889 – 12 January 1968) was a Hungarian pianist and composer. Some sources give his birth name as Rudolf ("Rudi") Spitzer. Rezső Seress lived most of his life in poverty in Budapest, from where, being Jewish, he was taken to a labor camp by the Nazis during the Second World War. He survived the camp and after employment in the theatre and the circus, where he was a trapeze artist, he concentrated on songwriting and singing after an injury.
Berlin, Vienna, London, and New York were among the cities with the highest number of people committing suicide with this song. Like the Hungarian government, Britain also banned the song. The song was banned on the BBC for years, but the ban was lifted in 2002. The song did not achieve significant success in its early years of release.
At first, Rezso Seress couldn't even find a record company to release his song. Pal Kalmar, one of the popular singers in Hungary, decided to perform the song in 1935. This decision changed the fate of both the song and its composer forever... After the song was performed by Pal Kalmar, there were a number of suicide cases in Hungary. One of those who committed suicide was Seress's ex-boyfriend! The unfortunate woman ended her life by drinking a bottle of poison.
The woman included the lyrics of the song in the note she left behind. News of the tragic suicide caused the song to be described as “ominous”. In 1936, a British songwriter named Sam M Lewis translated the lyrics of the song into English. The song spread throughout Europe under the name "Gloomy Sunday".
The fact that Gloomy Sunday became the most listened-to song in all of Europe caused suicide cases to increase significantly. In many cities from New York to Rome, from London to Vienna, the stories of people who committed suicide after listening to the song Gloomy Sunday were talked about. So much so that some European countries, including Hungary and England, decided to ban the song in order to prevent suicide cases...
Rezso Seress spent the years of World War II in a Nazi concentration camp. However, Seress managed to survive and worked in various theaters and circuses after the war. During this period, he continued to compose. Later, Seress could not produce a work as "impressive" as Gloomy Sunday. This "sinister" song not only caused the death of thousands of people but also turned the life of its composer into a nightmare...
Hungarian composer, about the fame gained by Gloomy Sunday and the suicide cases, said: “As an accused man, I stand in the middle of this deadly success. This deadly fame hurts me. "I poured all the frustrations in my heart into this song, and it seems like others with feelings like mine have found their pain in this song as well."
Seress, who was indirectly responsible for the deaths of many people, ended his life by jumping from a high building in Budapest in 1968...