Why we love songs sung blue

When it comes to popular music, heartbreak has been a bestseller through the ages

Sam Smith poses with his Grammy awards. (Mike Blake / Reuters)

Sam Smith was a very happy man yesterday after winning four Grammys, including the best new artist and best pop album awards. But as its title suggests, his debut album In The Lonely Hour is anything but an upbeat affair. Much of his material is about heartbreak. That includes the single, Stay With Me, which he performed at the Grammys ceremony in a duet with Mary J Blige.

Sad songs have long been popular, across continents, cultures and traditions. You don’t have to understand the lyrics of the operatic aria Nessun dorma, Edith Piaf’s Non, je ne regrette rien or the love songs of Umm Kulthum to know that the singer is in pain.

Most sad music is written in a minor key, which is to say that the scale on which it is based has a minor third – C major to E flat, say – from the starting note. That’s how music communicates sadness – in the delicious melancholy of the minor key.