SONG'S FATAL INFLUENCE

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22389, 8 April 1936, Page 13

SONG'S FATAL INFLUENCE

CAUSE OF 18 SUICIDES FORBIDDEN ON RADIO LONDON, April 6 The Sun-Herald news service says the song "Gloomiest Sunday" was dubbed "Suicide Song" in Hungary, where it was written, because it was said to have been responsible for 18 suicides. Now at Michigan, an American lad, aged 13, has been found hanged with the words of the song in his coat pocket. Gipsy orchestras in Budapest are not allowed to play the song, and the British Broadcasting Corporation has also forbidden it, but Parisians endure it without rushing to gas ovens. The song is tuneful and the words concern an unhappy man who warns his unfaithful sweetheart of the "last Sunday" when she would see him cold and lifeless.

The words of the song "Gloomiest Sunday" were written by Laszlo Javor, a young poet, who declares that he was disappointed in love and for days was on the verge of suicide. Instead ho banished his sorrow by writing the lyric. A series of tragedies resulted. For a time the tune was the most popular "hit" in Hungary. Then, in a small Budapest tavern, a young workman named John Boros, fatally wounded himself with a pistol after crooning the song to the accompaniment of a gipsy baud. The words of the first verse are as follows: O gloomiest Sunday! I waited and waited. Hundred white blossoms drearily faded. Out' went my dream-coach with fringes and Without you it turned, a aad Btory to tell ... , j Since, love, all Sundays are dreary and sad, . , . . . My tears are my wine and griel is my bread, 0 gloomiest Sunday! According to a farewell letter found in the wounded man's pocket his sweetheart had quarrelled with him, and he could not bear the lonely Sundays he had to spend without her. Subsequently 18 people who had been jilted or otherwise disappointed in love committed suicide after listening to " Gloomiest Sunday." ~ As a result the composer, Kezse Seress, and tho author, Laszlo Javor, asked the Union of Hungarian Musicians, to which every band in the country belongs, to prohibit further performances of "Gloomiest Sunday for the time being.