You need to be adept at psychological manipulation for this one. The writer and all associated parties take and accept no responsibility for the physical and mental health of those who partake in a Gloomy Sunday Séance or related event.

Gloomy Sunday, also known as the “Hungarian Suicide Song”, is a song composed by Hungarian pianist and composer Rezső Seress and published in 1933. The first lyrics were written in 1932 by László Jávor, in his melancholy love poem “Szomorú vasárnap” (“Sad Sunday”), after his beloved had left him. The song was first recorded in Hungarian by Pál Kalmár in 1935. During World War II Seress wrote alternate lyrics to the song, “Vége a világnak” (“End of the world”), published in 1946, which lamented the horrors of the war and the loss to all humanity. The song was first recorded, in Hungarian and using Jávor’s lyrics, by Pál Kalmár in 1935. His version immediately became popular in Hungary, but became associated with a high number of suicides, reportedly including that of Jávor’s ex-fiancee, and several people who jumped into the Danube holding copies of the sheet music. According to some sources, the Hungarian authorities then banned public performances of the song in response.

In January 1968, some thirty-five years after writing the song, its composer Rezső Seress did commit suicide. He survived jumping out of a window in Budapest, but later in the hospital choked himself to death with a wire.

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Includes audio files (six versions of Gloomy Sunday), instruction PDF and images you can print

1st edition 2020