Gloomy Sunday.......
Urban legends
There have been several
urban legends regarding the song over the years, mostly involving it being allegedly connected with various numbers of suicides, and
radio networksreacting by purportedly
banning the song.
However, most of these claims are unsubstantiated.
Press reports in the 1930s associated at least nineteen suicides, both in Hungary and the United States, with "Gloomy Sunday", but most of the deaths supposedly linked to it are difficult to verify.
The urban legend appears to be, for the most part, simply an embellishment of the high number of Hungarian suicides that occurred in the decade when the song was composed due to other factors such as
famine and
poverty, as well as the rise of
Nazi Germany's influence in Europe.
No studies have drawn a clear link between the song and suicide.
In January 1968, some thirty-five years after writing the song, its composer did commit suicide.
The BBC banned Billie Holiday's version of the song from being broadcast, as being detrimental to wartime morale, but allowed performances of instrumental versions.
However, there is little evidence of any other radio bans; the BBC's ban was lifted by 2002.
