Gloomy Sundays

Three versions of the song made famous by Billie Holiday - all three covers released within three years of each otherLydia Lunch was firstThen Billy Mackenzie (personally I always found it a rather lumpy obtrusion in Sulk)Then Marc AlmondActually there was a fourth cover within that timespan: Elvis Costello recorded a version in 1981 (but twas only released much later as part of a Trust reissue)The original was composed by Rezső Seress in 1933 as "Vége a Világnak" which translates as "The World Is Ending". Which made me think of this pop classic of teen heartbreakWhich in turn made me of a song about the world really ending "Gloomy Sunday' was widely known as the "Hungarian Suicide Song" and in its initial incarnation was apparently inspired by political doom more than amorous apocalypse (the Depression, rather than depression... Fascism ascendant also)Later lyrics by poet László Jávor shifted it to heartbreak. Rezső Seress did actually kill himself, in 1968During WW2 the BBC banned…