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1Music/ElectricLightOrchestra may be known for having some very happy sounding hits like "Mr. Blue Sky", "Don't Bring Me Down" and "Evil Woman", but a lot of their hits and lesser known works don't hold back from being sad.
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3* "Music/{{Eldorado}}" is about a man who decides to stay in a fantasy world because he can't take the real world anymore. To make matters worse, the lyrics could even be interpreted that the man '''committed suicide.'''
4** ''No eternal life is here for me. And now I found the key to the eternal dream. Then I will stay, I'll not be back, Eldorado. I will be free, of the world, Eldorado''
5** "Can't Get It Out of My Head", from the same album, can make the tears rain down as well. IJustWantToBeSpecial is TruthInTelevision indeed, and you really get the sense that our entirely ordinary protagonist wouldn't indeed be envied by the legends he lists.
6* "The Way Life's Meant to Be" is a song about change, the future, and letting go of the place you once called home. In fact, the entire ''Music/{{Time}}'' album (which is basically a story about a man taken to the future, being separated from all he loves, trying to cope with it and then being ''sent back'' so that he can make the world into a better place).
7** In spite of the futuristic premise, the entire theme of the album can hit very close to home if you have faced the all too real problem of being unable to forget about things that happened to you in the past. The album more or less serves as an allegorical journey to acceptance. While it's safe to say the average person today hasn't been transported to the present/future, ''Time'' can be quite sobering for those "stuck in the past", and can be a hell of a listen especially if you're dealing with loss like the narrator. The narrator is implied to never return to 1981, making the message that much more poignant.
8*** The implied multiple endings can further the allegory as well. "Julie Don't Live Here" can be interpreted to mean that even finding some acceptance will never give you back what you lost, and "When Time Stood Still" can be read as sinking into depression entirely, seeing everything as barren.
9** ''Though you ride on the wheels of tomorrow.../You still wander the fields of your sorrow...''
10* Tell me you don't cry when you hear "Wild West Hero". Go on, all of you, ''tell me''.
11* "Telephone Line" (which, admittedly, kind of straddles the line between being sad and lugubrious).
12* In A New World Record's final track, Shangri-La, the main character laments how he'll never see his loved one ever again, referring to her as his Shangri-La.
13** When the track fades out, [[FakeOutFadeOut a quiet keyboard arpeggio fades in]] and slowly crescendos into a loud and intense symphony as singer Jeff Lynne and operatic soprano Mary Thomas vow to return to each other. Whether it's an ode of optimism or further emphasizing the elegy, the final 90 seconds of this song are perhaps the most beautiful of ELO's catalogue and is a true testimony of Jeff Lynne's genius.''
14* [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J7xTurH6oLk "Whisper in the Night"]], from their first album.
15* Jeff Lynne composed the {{instrumental|s}} "The Whale" after watching a heart-wrenching documentary about whaling.
16* "Don't Walk Away", from the soundtrack to the film ''Xanadu''. The sound of a lover begging his girlfriend to stay with him. And also "Xanadu", the title track; not as overtly sad, but not particularly upbeat, either.
17** Similarly, "The Fall" is about the singer's shock and disbelief after a breakup.
18* "Kuiama", the closing track of the ELO 2 album is known for being the band's longest track, going at 11 minutes. It's a [[WarIsHell war song]] about a soldier talking to a war orphan, the title character whose parents died, while at the same time he tries to explain he killed her parents. After a desperate 4-minute bridge, the soldier can't hold up anymore and brutally tells Kuiama that he shot them, before a 2-minute long ending with a [[LastNoteNightmare Last Note Nightmare]].
19* ''And she said/"Mama, it's a hard life now you're gone..."''
20* Similarly to "Shangri-La", "Mr. Blue Sky" has a beautiful outro, though this one can result in TearsOfJoy.
21* ''Balance of Power'' is an album which consists entirely of things going wrong and {{Breakup Song}}s.

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