Did Billie Holiday Ever Record Gloomy Sunday And When?

I still get a little chill thinking about the original version of 'Gloomy Sunday'. The tune actually began life in Hungarian — the song's original title is 'Szomorú vasárnap' and it was composed in 1933 by Rezső Seress, with the Hungarian lyrics usually credited to the poet László Jávor. Hearing the Hungarian lyrics for the first time hit me differently than the English renditions; there's a kind of raw, cultural melancholy in the phrasing and phrasing cadence that doesn't always survive translation. Sam M. Lewis later wrote the best-known English lyrics, and those are the words most English-speaking listeners know, especially from Billie Holiday's version. But if you want the original emotional colors, try finding a recording or a translation of 'Szomorú vasárnap' — it's like reading a different chapter of the same story.

There’s something almost cinematic about tackling 'Gloomy Sunday' as a beginner — its melody demands mood more than speed. I’d start by breaking the song into tiny, digestible chunks: pick the main vocal melody and learn it with your right hand first, one phrase at a time. Hum it, sing it, and then find those notes slowly on the keyboard. Don’t try to play the whole form at once. Once the melody feels comfortable, add a very simple left-hand pattern: play single bass notes on beats one and three, or try an easy Alberti-bass (low–high–middle–high) to give it motion. Work hands separately at a slow tempo with a metronome, then gradually bring them together. If you want some harmonic grounding, stick to a small set of chords (the song sits naturally in a minor key) and practice switching between them smoothly. I also recommend listening to a few different renditions of 'Gloomy Sunday' to catch phrasing and rubato, and using slow-down features on videos or MIDI files so you can copy details. Practice in short daily sessions, and don’t forget to experiment with sustaining pedal and dynamics — the song lives in those tiny expressive choices. After a few weeks of steady, patient work, the haunting vibe will start to come through, and that’s the fun part.

There’s a small, tragic legend behind 'Gloomy Sunday' that I find endlessly fascinating. The music was written by Rezső Seress, a Hungarian pianist and composer, in the early 1930s. The original Hungarian lyrics, titled 'Szomorú vasárnap', were penned by poet László Jávor; those words are the ones most tied to the song’s dark reputation. Later, an English set of lyrics was written by Sam M. Lewis, which softened some of the more morbid extremes for international audiences. People often ask what inspired the lyrics. The short, honest version is heartbreak and despair—Jávor’s poem reads like someone facing unbearable loss. Over the years many stories grew around it: rumors of multiple suicides linked to the tune, a BBC ban in Britain, and a sense that the melody and words fed off each other’s gloom. I like to think of the song as a product of its time—interwar Europe, personal grief, and a composer who was already attuned to melancholy. It’s haunting, yes, but also a powerful example of how music and myth can amplify one another.

On quiet evenings when I fall into rabbit holes of soundtrack trivia, 'Gloomy Sunday' always pulls me down a moodier lane. The most obvious place it shows up is the 1999 film literally called 'Gloomy Sunday' (German title 'Ein Lied von Liebe und Tod – Gloomy Sunday'), which revolves around the song’s history and the mythos surrounding it. That movie uses the tune both as a plot device and as atmospheric music, so if you want a direct cinematic take on the song’s story, that’s the one to watch. Beyond that, Billie Holiday’s haunting 1941 recording of 'Gloomy Sunday' has been licensed for numerous period pieces, documentaries, and atmospheric crime dramas—especially whenever directors want a smoky, melancholic backdrop. I’ve noticed the track turning up in documentary montages about wartime Europe or in scenes where a character’s loneliness needs to be felt rather than told. If you’re hunting down exact placements, checking soundtrack credits on IMDb or using Tunefind/Discogs usually reveals which version was used and in which episode or scene. It’s one of those songs that filmmakers keep reaching for when they want a very specific, unsettled vibe.

There’s a weird little thrill I get when I dig into cultural myths, and the 'Gloomy Sunday' story is one of my favorite rabbit holes. If you want a starting place that treats the song as folklore/urban legend rather than pure fact, Jan Harold Brunvand’s collections are incredibly useful: check out 'The Vanishing Hitchhiker' and his 'Encyclopedia of Urban Legends' for good, skeptical overviews that put the suicides stories into the broader context of how urban legends form and spread. For the music-history angle, I like pairing that folklorist perspective with biographies and cultural studies. Billie Holiday’s autobiography 'Lady Sings the Blues' gives flavor about the song’s place in jazz/popular music circles, while books about censorship, moral panic and media reaction like 'Folk Devils and Moral Panics' are great for understanding why newspapers and authorities amplified the myth. And don’t forget the original title 'Szomorú vasárnap'—searching that term in Hungarian archives or music journals turns up a lot of primary material about Rezső Seress and contemporary press coverage.

On a rainy evening I found myself staring at the window and the first few chords of 'Gloomy Sunday' came up on a playlist — it felt like walking into a ghost story you half-remembered from childhood. There’s a romantic, gothic aura to the whole legend: a melancholy Hungarian tune from the 1930s, stories of listeners reportedly killing themselves, and even tales of radio bans and scandalized newspapers. That mix of sorrowful music plus sensational reporting is the perfect soil for an urban myth to grow. I lean toward calling the curse a myth with some tragic kernels. The song was written by Rezső Seress in the early 1930s and lyrics commonly credited to László Jávor; it was popularized internationally later, especially by Billie Holiday. Over the decades journalists and storytellers connected unrelated suicides to the song, and anxieties about contagion made the claims louder. There’s no solid scientific proof the song literally causes people to kill themselves — but there is real evidence that media can create imitation effects in vulnerable people. For me, the lesson is twofold: appreciate the haunting beauty of 'Gloomy Sunday' as art, and be careful about romanticizing sorrow, because people really do get hurt when melancholy becomes a performance rather than something we tend to with care.

On slow, grey afternoons I catch myself replaying the original 'Gloomy Sunday' melody and feeling something like a soft, relentless ache. The mood it gives off is not sudden terror or melodrama, but a slow, intimate sorrow — the kind that settles into your chest and makes ordinary sounds feel distant. The sparse piano, the downward-loping phrases, and the hushed vocal line all conspire to create a sense of resigned loneliness, as if the music is telling you a secret that can't be fixed. It’s elegiac more than theatrical: funeral candles rather than thunder. There’s also an odd tenderness hidden in that sadness, a paradox where the song comforts by mirroring your melancholy. I usually put it on when I want to feel seen rather than cheered up — and somehow that recognition can be quietly consoling.

I get that feeling when I want the "real" treat — the original phrasing, the little tempo marks, the exact voicings — so my first port of call is always libraries and archives. If you want authentic, try searching the major digital sheet collections: IMSLP can sometimes have older songs if they’re in the public domain, and the British Library or Library of Congress digitized catalogs occasionally hold scans of early 20th-century popular sheet music. Also search Hungarian resources under the original title 'Szomorú vasárnap kottája' or by composer Rezső Seress; the National Széchényi Library (Magyar Nemzeti Könyvtár) has a decent digital catalog. If those don’t pan out, I look for vintage print scans on sites like eBay or Etsy — sellers often post photos of original covers and measures so you can eyeball authenticity. For clean, playable editions, Musicnotes, Sheet Music Plus, and SheetMusicDirect sell licensed piano/vocal/guitar arrangements. When you check a listing, verify composer credit (Rezso Seress) and compare the melody line to recordings — differences in lyrics or surprising reharmonizations are red flags. I’ve spent afternoons cross-referencing a dusty 1930s scan with a modern transcription; it’s oddly satisfying when they line up.