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Weeping At The Wheel: Crushingly Sad Songs

Not every road trip is a symbol of celebration and freedom; sometimes you're just wallowing in grief, or perhaps fleeing the soul-shrapnelizing ruin you've created back home. Regardless of your misery's root cause — and, let's face it, it's probably your own dumb fault — there's no better place to mourn ostentatiously than alone in a car late at night, when no one's around to witness your pitiful, spluttering sobs.

These five songs all come from a bountiful crop of mid-'00s miserablism, with no shortage of guilt, disappointment, regret and even death in their grim words. But they're all beautiful, cathartic and useful in their own way — kind of like ipecac for your tear glands. Once they're over, when you've come back and are safely nestled beneath the damp covers of your musty futon, be sure to grab your laptop, click here and cry yourself to sleep.

For more entries in this summer's weekly Road Trip: Songs to Drive By series, click here.

Copyright 2024 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Stephen Thompson
Stephen Thompson is a host, writer and reviewer for NPR Music, where he speaks into any microphone that will have him and appears as a frequent panelist and guest host on All Songs Considered. Thompson also co-hosts the daily NPR roundtable podcast Pop Culture Happy Hour, which he created with NPR's Linda Holmes in 2010. In 2008, he and Bob Boilen created the NPR Music video series Tiny Desk concerts, in which musicians perform at Boilen's desk. (To be more specific, Thompson had the idea, which took seconds, while Boilen created the series, which took years. Thompson will insist upon equal billing until the day he dies.)