Gloomy Sunday.

Seress was born in 1889. He was a self-taught musician; he learnt to play piano fairly well, although he wasn’t a virtuoso. In early 1930s he searched for luck in Paris. His aim was to become a songs composer. His first attempts were not successful. All the compositions he sent to the French publishers were returned. They weren’t received well. His girlfriend tried to persuade him to find a normal job. She even presented him with several employment opportunities, which she had managed to find through friends and acquaintances. Her mission was not successful – Seress wasn’t willing to give up his dreams.

The lack of recognition caused his general mood to become low. One morning in December 1932 he sat down in front of the piano and started to play a strange, melancholic melody. Looking out of the window, he saw dark clouds gathering in the sky, and after a while the rain came down, accompanied by strong wind. 'What a gloomy Sunday', he said to himself. After playing some more he decided, that 'Gloomy Sunday will be the title of my new song'. Half an hour later the job was done – both the music and lyrics. Seress was very pleased with it.

He took a blank sheet of paper and wrote down neatly the notes and the text of his new song, and posted it to a well-known publisher. This time he felt confident it would be a success. After a few days he received the song back with a note, stating that the composition was quite good, but the melody and rhythm were too depressing for publication. Seress sent his work to another company. This time it worked. The song was published in the biggest cities of France in 1933.

Soon after that Seress was paid a visit by Laszlo Javor, who showed him his own version of lyrics in Hungarian. Javor had just been dumped by his fiancée, which left him in great despair. Seress’s own lyrics seem not to have been particularly good, as they were quickly forgotten. The words written by Javor turned out to be incredibly powerful. His version of the song was recorded in Hungary in 1935 by Pal Kalmar. The results were unexpected.

During the following several months there were 17 suicides, which were committed either after listening to the song, or were directly related to it. This number cannot be verified now, as the Hungarian are notorious for the higher number of suicides than in other countries, however, the situation must have been extraordinary, since the Hungarian authorities banned performing of the song, titled Szomorú vasárnap, in public. It is said that before it happened, the number of suicides had reached 100. One of the victims was supposed to be Javor’s ex-fiancee. In a bar in Berlin one of the guests requested the performing band to play Szomorú vasárnap for him and when it ended, he immediately went outside and shot himself in the head.