Saddest songs ever?....I'll start,

[Omaha Steve]

29. American City Suite (Full Version)-Cashman & West (HQ) part 4 "A Friend Is Dying"

I think of her
I think of life's own music
At least that's the way
It used to be

I think of her and I
See the children laughing
But it's only on the streets
Of my memory

And I never felt so lonely
And so helpless
Wishing that I didn't
Know the truth

But they tell me
That a friend is dying
And there's nothing
In this world I can do

When she was good
It was, oh, so good
You were blessed
If she smiled on you

You could be king
If she believed your story
When it was over
If she laughed at you

Now I've never felt so lonely
And so helpless
I'm wishing that I
Didn't know the truth

They tell me
That a friend is dying
And there is nothing
In this world that I can do

The hands that used to
Reach out to everybody
Now they're lying by her side

And her eyes are closed
No one really knows
If she can make it through
Another night

Still most of what I love
Is locked inside her
Everything I thought
I'd ever need

My heart keeps crying
You've got to hold on
A little bit longer
But my head is sure
That it's time to leave

And I've never felt so lonely
And so helpless
I'm wishing that I
Didn't know the truth

And they tell me that
My friend is dying
And there's nothing
In this world that I can do

I've never felt so lonely
And so helpless
I'm wishing that I
Didn't know the truth

They tell me that
A friend, a friend is dying

Oh, New York City
Can you say it ain't true
Can you tell me now
Before I'm leaving you

I'd give anything I own
Just to believe in you again
Written by:
Terry Cashman and Tommy West

http://www.songfacts.com/detail.php?id=14870

Cashman & West were Terry Cashman and Tommy West. Cashman wrote it about his home town of New York City. In our interview with Terry Cashman, he told us: "It was actually four songs strung together as a suite. Tommy and I signed as an act, Cashman & West, with ABC Dunhill. We had written a number of songs, but I really wanted to do something that would be special for the album. And it was a very sad time for me. A lot of my friends were leaving the city and going off, getting married, and you know, things were changing. I was 30 years old, and New York where I had grown up all my life was really deteriorating. It was a very bad time financially, and it was a time of turmoil and of racial strife. It looked like the city was gonna collapse. This great place where I had grown up and enjoyed so many friendships and so many good times - the city that I love - was actually dying. I was going into our office the next day, and I said to Tommy, 'I had this thought about New York in particular, but it's really happening to all the Eastern cities. They're decaying and white people are moving out of the cities and going to the suburbs. There are only very rich people and very poor people in the cities, and homelessness.' We started talking about the whole phenomenon, and we came up with this idea to do a song about how it was, which was the first movement of the first song of the suite was called, 'Sweet City Song,' and it was very happy, it was about growing up in a city where everyone got along and it was fun to be there - rock and roll was in the air. And then tracing that through, going away to school and coming back and seeing that things had changed, and then the third movement is an up-tempo song about how things were at that particular time as opposed to ten years before. And then it goes into 'A Friend Is Dying,' which is the last movement of 'American City Suite,' which is about the city dying. And that's the way it seemed to us at the time. That it was not only New York City, but all the Eastern industrial cities were having the same problems."
The four songs that make up the Suite are:

"Sweet City Song," "Hello Jack," "All Around The Town," "A Friend Is Dying."

Cashman and West were Jim Croce's producers they had recorded his album You Don't Mess Around With Jim, but couldn't get any record companies to sign Croce and release it. This song changed all that. Says Cashman: "When we started recording 'American City Suite,' ABC out in California became so excited about Cashman & West as an act that they listened to us about Jim Croce. They started playing 'You Don't Mess Around With Jim' and 'Operator (That's Not the Way It Feels)' for various people out there, and all of a sudden they said, 'Hey, this is really good.' (laughs) And you know, without all that happening, nobody would have ever heard of Jim Croce."

This is an unusually long song, and there was some concern about getting radio stations to play it. Says Cashman: "At that time there was 'Nights in White Satin' and 'Papa Was A Rollin' Stone,' there were other records that were being played by AM radio, because they were trying to be like FM. FM had become so popular that AM was loosening the restrictions on only playing 3-minute records. But I think the full version is almost 12 minutes, and when they put out the single it was about 7 minutes."

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