Gloomy Sunday - the notorious 'Hungarian Suicide Song' - was written in 1933. Its melody and original lyrics were the creation of Rezső Seress, a self-taught pianist and composer born in Hungary in 1899. The crushing hopelessness and bitter despair which characterised the two stanza penned by Seress were superseded by the more mournful, melancholic verses of Hungarian poet László Jávor.
When the song came to public attention it quickly earned its reputation as a 'suicide song'. Reports from Hungary alleged individuals had taken their lives after listening to the haunting melody, or that the lyrics had been left with their last letters. The lyricists Sam M. Lewis and Desmond Carter each penned an English translatation of the song. It was Lewis's version, first recorded by Hal Kemp and his Orchestra, with Bob Allen on vocals (1936), that was to become the most widely covered.
The popularity of Gloomy Sunday increased greatly through its interpretation by Billie Holiday (1941). In an attempt to alleviate the pessemistic tone a third stanza was added to this version, giving the song a dreamy twist, yet still the suicide reputation remained. Gloomy Sunday was banned from the playlists of major radio broadcasters around the world. The B.B.C. deemed it too depressing for the airwaves. Despite all such bans, Gloomy Sunday continued to be recorded and sold. People continued to buy the recordings; some committed suicide. Rezső Seress jumped to his death from his flat in 1968.
On to the legends:
1. Up to seventeen suicides were purportedly linked in some way to the song "Gloomy Sunday" in Hungary before the song was (allegedly) banned. These "links" included people who reportedly killed themselves after listening to the song (either from a recording or performed by a band), or who were said to have been found dead with references to "Gloomy Sunday" (and/or its lyrics) in their suicide notes, with "Gloomy Sunday" sheet music in their hands, or with "Gloomy Sunday" playing on gramophones.
I don't know how any of these claims could be verified short of paging through old Hungarian newspapers; even then, it would be difficult at this late date to separate exaggerated and fabricated reports from true ones. I suspect that this portion of the legend is trivially true, a combination of Hungary's historically high suicide rate and the assumption of a causal ? rather than a coincidental ? relationship between the song and suicides that caused rumors and media reports to be greatly exaggerated.
Hungary has had the highest suicide rate of any country for many years (as high as 45.9 per 100,000 people in 1984), so a few dozen suicides there over a year's time certainly wouldn't have been unusual, even in 1936. Nor is it at all uncommon for suicides to work something from popular songs or books or films into their deaths. Only when one particular song was coincidentally linked to a sufficient number of suicides to draw attention to _all_ the suicides in which it played a part did people start to claim that it was somehow the cause of these deaths.
2. Many claims are made about the reaction to "Gloomy Sunday" by Hungarian authorities, from "discouraging" public performance of the song to an outright ban on it. I have found no reliable information about when, where, or by whom this song might have been banned in one form or another. My guess, based on similar legends (such as the claim that Donald Duck was banned in /insert Scandinavian country of choice/), would be that some Hungarian municipalities may have instituted some types of (possibly voluntary) restrictions on the song, but that there was no nation-wide ban on "Gloomy Sunday."
3. The claims about American reaction to the song are even wilder. Some sources claim that no "Gloomy Sunday"-inspired suicides were reported in the USA at all, while others attribute cases of suicide (up to "200 worldwide") in both the USA and Britain to the English-language version of "Gloomy Sunday" (including "young jazz fans" who became depressed after hearing Billie Holiday's version of the song). Likewise, while some sources say that there were no restrictions whatsoever placed on the song in the USA, others claim that it was "banned from the airwaves." (Sometimes the ban is said to have been directed at a particular version of the song, such as Billie Holiday's recording of it.) Some sources even claim that a sort of "compromise" ban was enacted as many radio stations played only the instrumental version of the song.
4. The "girlfriend who inspired the song committed suicide" claims sounds like an embellishment of the basic legend, as I only found one source that mentioned it. It claimed that Javor "wrote the song for a former girlfriend," and that shortly after its release she committed suicide and left behind a note reading simply "Gloomy Sunday."
5. Rezso Seress did indeed commit suicide, jumping from a Budapest building in 1968. This portion of the legend also appears to have been embellished, with some sources claiming that he was depressed because he'd never been able to produce another hit after "Gloomy Sunday."
| Szomorú Vasárnap |
|---|
Szomorú vasárnap száz fehér virággal Vártalak kedvesem templomi imával Álmokat kergető vasárnap délelőtt Bánatom hintaja nélküled visszajött Azóta szomorú mindig a vasárnap Könny csak az italom kenyerem a bánat... Szomorú vasárnap |
| — László Jávor original Hungarian version |
| Gloomy Sunday |
|---|
Gloomy Sunday with a hundred white flowers I was waiting for you my dearest with a prayer A Sunday morning, chasing after my dreams The carriage of my sorrow returned to me without you It is since then that my Sundays have been forever sad Tears my only drink, the sorrow my bread... Gloomy Sunday |
| literal English translation |