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A Place to Go and Weep: Songs About Loneliness

In a sequel to last week’s episode on friendship, we’re listening to songs about loneliness this week. Note: I make a fairly big error by saying that I'm playing nothing but artists…
Michial Farmer
January 12, 2026

In a sequel to last week’s episode on friendship, we’re listening to songs about loneliness this week. Note: I make a fairly big error by saying that I’m playing nothing but artists I haven’t played before, then immediately playing Frank Sinatra, whom I played on the Christmas episode. Mea maxima culpa. Send your song recommendations to symposiumofsongs@gmail.com!

  • 0:00

    Yes, “Owner of a Lonely Heart” (90125, 1983)
  • 5:39

    Frank Sinatra, “Only the Lonely” (Frank Sinatra Sings for Only the Lonely, 1958)
  • 9:39

    Roy Orbison, “Only the Lonely” (Roy Orbison Sings Lonely and Blue, 1961)
  • 12:03

    Reading: Robert Lowell, “Skunk Hour”
  • 16:16

    Muggsy Spanier and His Ragtime Band, “Lonely Road” (single, 1940)
  • 19:12

    Patsy Cline, “Lonely Street” (Sentimentally Yours, 1962)
  • 21:44

    Ray Charles, “Lonely Avenue” (single, 1956)
  • 24:42

    Reading: Robert Frost, “The Most of It”
  • 26:38

    Roger Miller, “The Last Word in Lonesome Is Me” (The 3rd Time Around, 1965)
  • 29:24

    Faron Young, “Hello Walls” (Hello Walls, 1961)
  • 31:49

    Linda Ronstadt, “Desperado” (Don’t Cry Now, 1973)
  • 37:16

    The Mountain Goats, “Southwestern Territory” (Beat the Champ, 2015)
  • 41:26

    Charles Brown, “Black Night” (single, 1951)
  • 45:27

    Reading: Ella Wheeler Wilcox, “Solitude”
  • 46:38

    Four Tops, “Ask the Lonely” (Four Tops, 1965)
  • 49:22

    Maria McKee, “I Can’t Make It Alone” (You Gotta Sin to Get Saved, 1993)
  • 52:53

    MxPx, “Cold and All Alone” (Slowly Going the Way of the Buffalo, 1998)
  • 56:16

    The Jayhawks, “Blue” (Tomorrow the Green Grass, 1995)

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A stack of three Local Culture journals and the book 'Localism in the Mass Age'

Michial Farmer

Michial Farmer is a poet, essayist, and history teacher. He is the author of Imagination and Idealism in John Updike’s Fiction (Camden House, 2017) and the translator of Gabriel Marcel’s Thirst (Cluny, 2021). He lives in Atlanta.

1 comment

  • Rob G
    2 months ago Reply

    Wait — no Dwight Yoakam, ‘A Thousand Miles from Nowhere’? Would have thought that that one was a slam dunk!

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