The Deadliest Song
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What is the story behind the mysterious song Gloomy Sunday?
The record feels perfectly normal in your hands. A black vinyl disc about the size of a dinner plate. But when you set it on the turntable and the needle begins tracing the grooves, the music is curiously overwhelming. Music has never made you cry in the past, you're just not that type of person. And yet, there's a melancholy quality to this song that is so pure, so effective, that tears immediately rise in your eyes. A lump in your throat. The pain of the world almost seems reflected in the melody. Suddenly, you feel the urge to rise from your chair and cross to the window of your high-rise apartment. But you resist. You were warned that this song has a power unlike any other. In fact, for nearly a century, it's been banned by broadcasters across the world. Authorities have made desperate attempts to suppress the publication of its sheet music. Because when this song plays, people inexplicably die. The year is 1932. It's raining in Paris. Laszlo Jaber is taking a walk. He's an aspiring poet from Budapest struggling to make a living in post-war France.
He had thought the life of an artist would be easier in the city of love. But the only thing he found was a larger community of struggling artists. And now, after the love of his life left him, all he has are the gloomy streets of Paris. It's a quiet, wet morning. Most Parisians are clustered indoors. The buildings loom above him like melancholy tombstones as he walks. Passersby look like ghosts. Slowly, before his eyes, a familiar figure takes shape from the mist. Yavor's eyes light up with recognition. It's his good friend, Rezo Seres. They are kindred spirits in a way. Seres is a fellow Hungarian, a musician and songwriter, who came to Paris for much of the same reason. As the two men meet each other, Yavor notices that Seres is also downcast. The two of them start walking together.
Yavor tells Ceres about his broken heart, how his lover took a contract in Sicily, and how he has neither the funds nor prospects to follow her. Ceres understands his pain. His girlfriend has also left him. She'd long insisted that he get a stable job and quit pursuing his dream of becoming a successful musician. Ceres had hoped that she'd come around. For a while, it seemed like he would become a famous songwriter. He did write a hit song in 1925 and made a decent living as a live accompanist of silent films. But now that silent films have been replaced by talkies, picture houses have no need for a pianist anymore. That period of Ceres' life is over, and he has no idea what in the world is next for him.
Without much more to say, the men walk on in silence, each lost in their own thoughts, but grateful for the company. Ceres starts whistling. It's a melody that he wrote earlier that day, seized by inspiration. The tune catches Yavor's ear and he shivers. If he was emotional before, this tune caused the sadness to well up inside him. It makes him think of a poem he wrote not long ago. And so he begins to recite it alongside his friends whistling. Two stanzas long, the poem is a prayer to a loved one who has passed on. In it, the unnamed narrator is so tormented by the loss of his lover that he considers suicide. The piece's title is fitting for a day like this. In Hungarian, it's called Sommaru Vasarna, or in English, Gloomy Sunday.
Both Yavor and Ceres recognize something fortuitous about this meeting. Not only are they both pining for their lost loves, but the poem and the tune fit together almost perfectly. They work feverishly on the song for the rest of the afternoon, transcribing Ceres' tune into sheet music and adjusting Yavor's poem to fit the melody. Eager to get their song in front of an audience, they approach a band leader at the Shingi restaurant that evening. They ask him to play their tune, and the band obliges. Immediately, a hush falls over the restaurant. Everyone is enraptured. Interested murmurs wander from one person to another, but that's not the most telling sign. Yavor begins to notice shudders,
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