The long forgotten Vége a világnak (The world is ending)
The original lyrics were Vége a világnak (The world is
ending) but Poet László Jávor wrote his own lyrics to the song, titled Szomorú
vasárnap (Sad Sunday). The later became more popular and the former almost
forgotten. There are many urban legends about this suicidal song…
About some
80 years ago, a notorious yet bizarre case happened in the history of musical
industry: many people committed suicides after listening to this song.
A story was told that a Hungarian man was drinking wine while
listening to a life band in a Belgium bar. As soon as the band has completed
the tune “Gloomy Sunday”, this gentleman suddenly gave a hysterical shriek: “I
can’t stand it anymore!” and he immediately bottomed up and pulled a revolver
and aimed at his own temple and pulled the trigger. His body dropped onto the
ground following a bang!
A policewoman was assigned to investigate this case but
after much effort, she couldn’t find out what was wrong with the Hungarian
gentleman; so she bought a record of Gloomy Sunday to experience herself… and
she too had committed suicide. Her colleague found a letter addressed to police
chief:
“Chief, it is no need to further investigate this case, the
murderer is Gloomy Sunday. After I have listened to this song, I couldn’t
endure its sad melody so I have chosen to end my life.”
In a separate incident, a once cheerful lady typist in New
York, USA heard her colleague said that Gloomy Sunday can cause severe sadness
to its listener; she too borrowed the record to listen due to curiosity. She
didn’t turn up for duty the next day, her friends went to her apartment and
found that she had committed suicide; the record was still on her player playing
Gloomy Sunday! The typist wrote in her suicide note:
“I couldn’t endure its sad melody so let it be the melody of
my funeral…”
In Washington, a newly famed pianist was invited to a salon
reunion. He was invited to play piano. One audience suddenly received the news
of her mom’s death, so she requested the pianist to play Gloomy Sunday as condolence
since that day was coincidentally a Sunday.
Reluctantly the pianist played the song. As soon as the song
is finished playing, he suddenly suffered from heart attacked and succumbed onto
the piano.
A musician in Milan, Italy heard of this bizarre news and
was troubled. He too was not convinced that Gloomy Sunday can cause severe
damage, so he tried to play the tune on his own piano and he too was found dead
on his piano. However, he left a suicide note on the Gloomy Sunday music sheet:
“The melody of this music is too cruel. No human can endure
this tune! Destroy it or else many more lives will be lost!”
Gloomy Sunday is also known as “the invitation of Satan” of
that time. Legend has it that at least 100 people committed suicide after
listening to it. This song was banned for 13 years, and no psychologists could
find out a satisfactory to the seemingly magical power of Gloomy Sunday.
Due to the amount of suicides increased tremendously, radio
stations in USA, UK, France, Spain etc. held a meeting and they boycotted
Gloomy Sunday. And Gloomy Sunday was subsequently banned from shelf.
The song composer also committed suicide in 1986 and he
wrote:
“I couldn’t imagine this music can bring so many disasters
to mankind. Let the God punish my soul in another world!”
Sources:
No comments:
Post a Comment