What it says.
Anything by Gary Glitter I guess.
All the ones about heroin. Except Heroin, which is about as dark as you’d expect.
I didn't realise Tom Jones kills Delilah until quite a long time after I first heard it.
Shatner by The Wedding Present
About domestic abuse. Obvious from the lyrics ('Look here's another bruise I didn't see') but still a very bold treatment of it.
Waltz #2 by Elliott Smith
At first it seems to be about the singer seeing his ex-girlfriend with her current boyfriend. When you learn that it's actually Smith's own mother he's singing about, it's a whole different level of heartbreak.
You Are My Sunshine is not the cheery lyric you might expect.
Chicken Bone by LK.
Possibly the darkest song I've ever heard.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sIPBLOTo0EI
The Beatles - Run for Your Life
About obsession. Not exactly subtle.
Can't Get You Out Of My Head - Kylie
Headlice apparently.
There are songs that are just creepy, like Every Breath You Take, which is quite clearly stalky but somehow it got taken up as a song about obsessive love, helped by an addictive riff.
Happy Old World by Barclay James Harvest
My mind's not on this song I sing/My heart's not in the lines/Guess I'll go and kill myself/So would you kindly close the blinds...
Tragically, 40 years after the song, Woolly Wolstenholme, who wrote and sang it, did indeed take his own life.
Great track for parties.
Kylie Minogue's 'I Should Be So Lucky' is really a bit stalky isn't it?
Rock-A-Bye Baby. When the bough breaks, not if.
I didn't realise Tom Jones kills Delilah until quite a long time after I first heard it
You thought she just stopped laughing because he was waving a knife about? I suppose one would, under those circumstances.
Luka by Suzanne Vega
Another one about domestic violence, child abuse in this case.
all the pretty horses by current 93
from wiki: The author Lyn Ellen Lacy is often quoted as the primary source for the theory that suggests the song was "originally sung by an African American slave who could not take care of her baby because she was too busy taking care of her master's child. She would sing this song to her master's child".
Down in the Hole by Springsteen. It’s about a man digging to find the bones of his partner in the ruins of the World Trade Centres.