Tear Jerker / NOFX

Though they're mostly known for their sense of humor, NOFX also has their fair share of depressing songs.

• "Just the Flu" is a shockingly sobering song among the band's early albums, describing a future where mankind is on the brink of extinction.
  There's no lesson to be learned
  There's no one left to learn it
• "She's Gone", about the death of a young mother, possibly from suicide. It's never been confirmed if the song was inspired by a real person, but given the volatility of the California punk scene, it's highly likely.
• "All His Suits Are Torn" describe a man Driven to Suicide, with some responding with sympathy and confusion while others are purely apathetic at just another death.
• "Dad's Bad News" consists of a father telling his son that a vague ailment his grandfather is suffering from, likely dementia, will end up getting both of them, too.
• Politics aside, the narrator of "Franco Un-American" sounds pretty distraught about how his years of apathy allowed the world around him to become so much worse. The line "I don't wanna be another I-don't-care-ican" sounds like him reaching a sad epiphany, and a promise to himself that he's not going to sit by and let these things happen any longer.
• "Whoops, I OD'd," from the same album, is heartbreaking in its emotional intimacy; inviting the listening public at large into such an intensely private moment of personal tragedy. The fact that the question of whether or not the narrator actually survived is left open and unanswered, compounded by the ambiguity of us not knowing if he immediately woke up, or if he spent a year in a coma, before finally giving up, makes it all the more intensely personal for the narrator, and all the more luridly, Hitchcockianly voyeuristic for us, the listener.
• "Doornails" is already a touching tribute to many in the punk scene who died young, including Lagwagon's Derrick Plourde, Strung Out's Jim Cherry, Sublime's Bradley Nowell and Snot's Lynn Strait, but when the third verse switches subject to Fat Mike's mom, there isn't a dry eye in the house.
• Similarly, "My Orphan Year" describes the death of both of Mike's parents, and his complicated feelings to his father. It makes "Happy Father's Day" a hard pill to swallow as well, making it clear that Mike's feelings for his dad have only gotten worse.
• "She Didn't Lose Her Baby", about a single mother who's self-abuse results in her child being taken away. This only worsens her condition until she's committed, and by that point, she hardly has any reason to object.
  She never thought they’d take her baby
  She didn’t even know that anybody could
  And even though she was the only parent they
  Still took him from her arms for his own good
• "I Have One Jealous Again, Again" is a downer sequel to "We Have Two Jealous Agains". While the original song detailed Mike falling in love and the merging of two record collections, the sequel describes that relationship falling apart and the collection separating agian.
• First Ditch Effort is damn near a tearjerker album, including "California Drought" (about Mike's struggles with sobriety), "I Don't Like Me Anymore" (about his increasing self-loathing), "I'm So Sorry Tony" (a passionate tribute to No Use for a Name's Tony Sly), and "Generation Z" (about Mike's fears for the future and the world his daughter will grow up in).
• "I Love You More Than I Hate Me" is another song about Mike's divorce, this time through the lense of his own self-loathing.
  I love you more than I hate me
  'Cause you are everything I wish I could be
  I'm a friendless best friend
  A single bookend, "a walking dead ender"
  "I'm a return to sender"
• "Your Last Resort" is about his ex-wife's failures to make him a better person, and wondering if that was the only reason they were together in the first place.
  I'm still in detoxification and after all that I've been through
  Quitting drugs was the easiest part
  The hardest thing was detoxing from you