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Entry: Update: A26560361 Gloomy Sunday - Music to Die for? - A87994877
Author: Dmitri Gheorgheni - Not Banned in China - U1590784

Update of A26560361 Gloomy Sunday - Music to Die for?
Written by Seraphina
Edited by Icy North

We were watching the excellent German/Hungarian film about the song, and I decided to do a bit of research and update the Guide Entry, which really shouldn't be so enthusiastic about all those urban legends. (And should have more Hungarian in it.)

Thank you

Reading this makes me think of other songs - 'Paint it Black' and 'Keep Passing the Open Windows'

Well updated - good to include more about the composers and the context around the urban legends.

Thanks, Sasha! Reading Hungarian w*k* with machine translation is also a fun adventure.

Yes, that really sounds like an adventure! Good Entry, thanks!

I would like to know more about this particular sentence: 'During the Second World War, the BBC banned the Billie Holiday version of the song as bad for morale, but permitted instrumental renderings. (The ban wasn't lifted until 2002.)'

I know that between 1934 and 1980 the BBC had strict limits on needletime meaning they had a limit on how many hours' each week they were permitted to play records. Instead their standard policy was to use one of their many orchestras (even today the BBC still has 5 orchestras plus big bands, symphony chorus, chamber choir et cetera) to play well-known tunes in instrumental renditions, so 'Gloomy Sunday' is following the standard pattern in this regard. Songs likely to lower morale were naturally unlikely to attract much airtime, while performances of Beethoven's 5th Symphony skyrocketed. But what evidence outside Wikipedia is there for 'the ban wasn't lifted until 2002'?

<BB<

'It was, for example, banned by the BBC in England until 2002.'

Stack S, Krysinska K, Lester D. Gloomy Sunday: did the "Hungarian suicide song" really create a suicide epidemic? Omega (Westport). 2007-2008;56(4):349-58. doi: 10.2190/om.56.4.c. PMID: 18435326.

Widely stated, quoted in this review:

http://worldmusiccentral.org/2016/04/23/transnational-recreations-of-gloomy-sunday-song/

An NPR reporter made this statement in a radio piece about 'Gloomy Sunday':
http://www.npr.org/2014/09/05/346060222/gloomy-sunday

I can't find a primary source, but all the secondary sources I find agree.

Fair enough - just wanted to check.
As I said, the BBC only playing instrumental versions of the song before the mid-1960s is unsurprising (the same happened with Elvis' early hits) but for a ban to last as long as 2002 is definitely unusual and well worth mentioning.

<BB<

I can't find their take on it, unfortunately. I'd be curious to see if it was just an oversight that they left the ban until 2002.

I've found this old Sunday Times list, but alas, no reason.

http://web.archive.org/web/20110616140644/http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/article4465603.ece

Congratulations! The update has been applied today

Thanks!