Latest / Crime and Horror / His song will KILL you... - MrBallen

Transcript

His song will KILL you... - MrBallen · Crime and Horror

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Speaker 1: Both of today's stories are about people who actually achieved
0:03
Speaker 1: their big career ambitions, but at an extremely high cost.
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Speaker 1: But before we get into today's stories, if you're a
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Speaker 1: we do, and we upload two, three, even four times
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Speaker 1: let's get into today's stories. On the afternoon of June tenth,
0:55
Speaker 1: eighteen seventy one, a defense attorney named Clement Vallendinger sat
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Speaker 1: in a courtroom in Lebanon, Ohio, listening intently as a
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Speaker 1: prosecutor question to witness. And with each word that this
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Speaker 1: witness said on the stand, it made the knot in
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Speaker 1: Clement's stomach get tighter and tighter, because this testimony was
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Speaker 1: very bad for Clement's client, an accused murderer named Thomas mcgean.
1:20
Speaker 1: So the murder that mcgean was on trial for had
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Speaker 1: happened about six months earlier on Christmas Eve in the
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Speaker 1: nearby city of Hamilton. That night, mcgean had stormed into
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Speaker 1: a saloon with a group of men and attacked another
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Speaker 1: man named Tom Myers, and at some point during this attack,
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Speaker 1: a gun went off and tom Myers was shot and killed. Now,
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Speaker 1: there were at least thirty witnesses in the saloon at
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Speaker 1: the time, but the whole attack had happened so fast
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Speaker 1: and was so chaotic that no one had seen who
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Speaker 1: did the actual shooting. Despite that, everyone in town immediately
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Speaker 1: decided that mcgean had done it. However, even Clement had
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Speaker 1: to admit that that was a reasonable assumption. Mcgean and
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Speaker 1: the victim, tom Myers, had a long standing feud, and
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Speaker 1: everyone knew they hated each other. Also, mcgean was a
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Speaker 1: well known violent criminal who was said to have killed
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Speaker 1: at least four other people. So when tom Myers got killed,
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Speaker 1: the citizens of Hamilton didn't even wait for a trial.
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Speaker 1: They wanted to hang mcgean right now. Now, the police
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Speaker 1: had obviously intervened and arrested mcgean instead, but word had
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Speaker 1: spread all over Ohio about how messy and dramatic this
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Speaker 1: case was, and as a result, the trial itself had
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Speaker 1: become very high profile. Every Day journalists and important people
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Speaker 1: from all over the state came to sit in court
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Speaker 1: and listen to the testimony. And now all of these
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Speaker 1: important people were watching Clement's defense case get just obliterated
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Speaker 1: by this witness. The witness was one of the men
2:49
Speaker 1: who had been in the saloon at the time of
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Speaker 1: the murder, and he was making a very big claim.
2:54
Speaker 1: He was saying that even though no one in the
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Speaker 1: saloon saw mcgean fire the gunshot that killed tom Myers,
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Speaker 1: he must have because after the gun went off, this
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Speaker 1: witness saw smoke coming from mcgean's jacket pocket, like he
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Speaker 1: had been concealing his gun inside his jacket when he
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Speaker 1: had fired it. Clement looked around the courtroom while the
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Speaker 1: witness explained this and saw that everybody was nodding like
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Speaker 1: what the witness said made perfect sense. Clement could tell basically,
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Speaker 1: at this point, everybody thought his client was guilty, but
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Speaker 1: Clement he did not agree. He knew mcgean's case looked bad,
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Speaker 1: but Clement was absolutely certain that his client really was innocent.
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Speaker 1: Clement's theory was that the victim, Tom Myers, had shot
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Speaker 1: himself by accident when he pulled out his own gun
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Speaker 1: during the fight to defend himself. Unfortunately for Clement, though,
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Speaker 1: this was eighteen seventy one, so there was no forensic
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Speaker 1: evidence about gunshots except for some scorch marks on tom
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Speaker 1: Myers's shirt. So the whole entire case was really just
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Speaker 1: based on witness testimony, and of course this witness was
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Speaker 1: very convincing for the other side. The prosecutor finished up
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Speaker 1: his questioning and then walked back to a seat with
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Speaker 1: a smirk on his face like he knew what he
4:04
Speaker 1: had just done. They pretty much had just won the case.
4:07
Speaker 1: It was now Clement's turn with the witness, and he
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Speaker 1: really didn't know how it was going to go. But
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Speaker 1: as Clement stood up and crossed the courtroom floor, he
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Speaker 1: felt a calm come over him because he was thinking
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Speaker 1: to himself, I don't have much to lose. I mean,
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Speaker 1: pretty much everybody thinks my client is guilty, and so
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Speaker 1: if he's found guilty, no one's going to be shocked.
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Speaker 1: But you know, maybe I can find a way to
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Speaker 1: prove his innocent and that would be just great. But
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Speaker 1: if I don't, it is what it is. So to
4:33
Speaker 1: be clear, Clement was a very controversial figure in Ohio.
4:38
Speaker 1: At this time, which was right after the Civil War,
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Speaker 1: he had been very vocally against the then president Abraham Lincoln,
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Speaker 1: and his viewpoints had gotten him banished from Ohio and
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Speaker 1: the other Northern states. And then after the war ended,
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Speaker 1: he had returned to his home state of Ohio and
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Speaker 1: had gone back to being an attorney, but he had
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Speaker 1: never really been able to fully rehabilitate his publicana image.
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Speaker 1: Even now six years later, a lot of people still
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Speaker 1: really hated him for behavior during the war. And so,
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Speaker 1: in essence, Clement knew that pretty much his public profile
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Speaker 1: was not about to change if he lost this case.
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Speaker 1: I mean, basically, nothing would change. He's the guy that
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Speaker 1: everybody hates and his client's the murderer. It is what
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Speaker 1: it is. But if he won, he could recreate himself
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Speaker 1: in the court of public opinion as a sensational criminal
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Speaker 1: defense lawyer who overturned impossible cases. And again he really
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Speaker 1: believed his client was innocent. So this would be like
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Speaker 1: a two pronged major victory for Clement. And so Clement
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Speaker 1: stepped up to the witness box and began firing off
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Speaker 1: questions to this witness. By the end of the day,
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Speaker 1: Clement had gotten that witness to admit he hadn't actually
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Speaker 1: seen a physical gun, and eventually Clement was able to
5:53
Speaker 1: completely destroy the jacket shooting theory when he showed the
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Speaker 1: court that the jacket that McGee had been wearing that
5:59
Speaker 1: night there was no hole anywhere on it. As the
6:02
Speaker 1: week went on and more witnesses took the stand, Clement
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Speaker 1: was pleased to find that none of them had any
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Speaker 1: actual proof that mcgeeann shot tom Myers. But he also
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Speaker 1: couldn't find any evidence that proved his client was innocent either.
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Speaker 1: So later that week, on Friday, June sixteenth, as the
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Speaker 1: trial came to a close, Clement was kind of worried.
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Speaker 1: I mean, he knew that he had not done enough
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Speaker 1: to get his client acquitted, and even though he knew
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Speaker 1: that the likelihood of success here was always going to
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Speaker 1: be slim, he felt like he had begun to make
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Speaker 1: some serious headway and they could win. Victory felt possible
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Speaker 1: and it was just slipping out of his hand. That afternoon,
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Speaker 1: Clement sat behind the defence table, sweating profusely as he
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Speaker 1: listened to the prosecutor's team deliver there just brutal closing arguments.
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Speaker 1: This was giving Clement a lot of anxiety. I mean,
6:50
Speaker 1: he was moments away from giving his own closing arguments,
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Speaker 1: and it was really his very last chance to convince
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Speaker 1: the jury that his client was innocent. But he just
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Speaker 1: did not feel like the speech he had prepared would
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Speaker 1: do that, especially after you know, the prosecutor is really
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Speaker 1: just very powerful speech that he was giving right now.
7:08
Speaker 1: And so as the prosecutor very eloquently and beautifully wrapped
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Speaker 1: up his speech, Clement was busy furiously crossing out lines
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Speaker 1: on his speech and rewriting things and trying to make
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Speaker 1: it better, but he just couldn't. So he just sat
7:20
Speaker 1: there racking his brain on what to say. But as
7:23
Speaker 1: he was sitting there in silence, and like the prosecutors
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Speaker 1: sat down and everybody's waiting for Clement to stand up
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Speaker 1: and deliver his speech, here an idea suddenly hit Clement.
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Speaker 1: It hit him so hard that he actually just dropped
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Speaker 1: his pen. He didn't know why this idea hadn't occurred
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Speaker 1: to him earlier, but he suddenly realized there was a
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Speaker 1: way he could prove mcgeean was innocent. It was so obvious,
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Speaker 1: and if he was right, he would go down in
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Speaker 1: history as probably the greatest defense attorney Ohio had ever seen,
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Speaker 1: and so Clement he lunged for his pen again. Then
7:54
Speaker 1: he frantically scribbled down what he was thinking. And then
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Speaker 1: a minute later he heard the judge call his name
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Speaker 1: and tell him, come on, it's your turn to speak,
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Speaker 1: and so clemente He shot to his feet and he
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Speaker 1: cleared his throat, and instead of launching into the speech
8:06
Speaker 1: he had prepared for this moment, he asked the judge
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Speaker 1: to to let him do it instead on Monday. The
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Speaker 1: judge was a little apprehensive, but eventually they agreed, and
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Speaker 1: when they did, Clement felt a surge of excitement rushed
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Speaker 1: through his body, and after the court proceedings officially ended
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Speaker 1: for the day, Clement could not get out of there
8:24
Speaker 1: fast enough. Clement waited until nightfall to act. He needed
8:29
Speaker 1: to run a test to make sure his theory he
8:31
Speaker 1: was going to employ on Monday was correct, but he
8:34
Speaker 1: didn't want anybody from the prosecution team to see him
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Speaker 1: doing it. So after dinner, Clement slipped out of his
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Speaker 1: hotel and into the quiet streets of Lebanon. He'd spent
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Speaker 1: the last few hours having dinner with some friends, and
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Speaker 1: while he was pretty vague about what he actually planned
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Speaker 1: to do tonight. He did tell them that they really
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Speaker 1: needed to stay in town long enough to hear his
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Speaker 1: big final argument on Monday. He was so confident in
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Speaker 1: what he'd uncover tonight doing this test that he was
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Speaker 1: sure his speech on Monday would be like the greatest
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Speaker 1: legal moment in the history of Ohio. And so now,
9:06
Speaker 1: as Clement made his way to the edge of town,
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Speaker 1: he was filled with adrenaline and kept increasing his speed
9:12
Speaker 1: until he was basically running. And then he finally arrived
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Speaker 1: at a quiet, isolated part of Lebanon, and as soon
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Speaker 1: as he got there, he set up for this test
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Speaker 1: he had planned and then ran through it. And after
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Speaker 1: he finished, Clement smiled because he knew he had just
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Speaker 1: found a way to prove that his client was innocent.
9:33
Speaker 1: Just a few minutes later, around nine pm, and Clement
9:36
Speaker 1: was back inside of his hotel room. He was so
9:38
Speaker 1: excited about the results of his test that he couldn't
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Speaker 1: even sit down, and so he just kept pacing around
9:43
Speaker 1: and around and trying to get his thoughts together. But
9:46
Speaker 1: he was just so excited. His hotel room door was
9:48
Speaker 1: cracked open, and as he paced around, he saw his
9:51
Speaker 1: co counsul, who was another lawyer on the defense team,
9:54
Speaker 1: walk by. So this hotel was sort of like the
9:56
Speaker 1: home base of everyone who was in town for the trial,
9:59
Speaker 1: and so most of the prosecution and the defense teams
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Speaker 1: were staying there. When Clement saw his co council, he
10:04
Speaker 1: immediately waved him inside and tried to tell him what
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Speaker 1: he'd figured out, but the words just kind of tumbled out,
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Speaker 1: and all he really got across was that the prosecution
10:14
Speaker 1: had it all wrong, but he Clement had figured it out,
10:17
Speaker 1: but his co council was just looking at him like he
10:19
Speaker 1: really didn't understand what he was saying. And so at
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Speaker 1: some point Clement realized he really needed to do a
10:24
Speaker 1: physical demonstration here. He really needed to repeat the test
10:27
Speaker 1: he had just done to show actually show the co
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Speaker 1: council exactly what he was talking about. So, without a
10:34
Speaker 1: whole lot of explanation to his co counsel, Clement got up,
10:38
Speaker 1: he set up the test, and then he turned and
10:41
Speaker 1: he told his co council to watch carefully, and then
10:44
Speaker 1: Clement began to perform the test. But this time, during
10:48
Speaker 1: the test, there was a sudden explosion and Clement collapsed
10:54
Speaker 1: to the ground. It would turn out that Clement's test
10:57
Speaker 1: did prove, without a shadow of a doubt that his
11:00
Speaker 1: client really was innocent. His theory was that tom Myers
11:05
Speaker 1: shot himself by fumbling with his own gun, but in
11:07
Speaker 1: order to make sure his theory held weight with the jury,
11:10
Speaker 1: he wanted to show everyone that it was definitely physically
11:15
Speaker 1: possible to do that. So when Clement had gone to
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Speaker 1: the edge of town to do this test by himself
11:20
Speaker 1: for the first time, he took a gun with him
11:23
Speaker 1: and he basically experimented with ways it could have actually happened,
11:26
Speaker 1: by shooting the gun through fabric from different angles and
11:30
Speaker 1: looking at the resulting scorch marks. And when he did this,
11:33
Speaker 1: he realized that the scorch marks that had been left on
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Speaker 1: the victim's clothes the only forensic evidence they had. They
11:39
Speaker 1: could have only been made if the victim was shot
11:43
Speaker 1: at point blank range, which meant that McGeehan was standing
11:47
Speaker 1: too far away to be the shooter. But it was
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Speaker 1: not until later, when Clement acted out the shooting again
11:53
Speaker 1: for his co counsul that his discovery went from great
11:57
Speaker 1: to perfect because completely by by accident, he did exactly
12:03
Speaker 1: what tom Myers had done. He fumbled with the gun
12:07
Speaker 1: and shot himself. Clement died from his self inflicted wound
12:12
Speaker 1: twelve hours later, but his death made his argument so
12:17
Speaker 1: convincing that his client was eventually acquitted. So Clement had
12:21
Speaker 1: been right. This was the greatest case of his life.
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Speaker 2: It was also his last.
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Speaker 1: Our second and final story is about a song. But
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Speaker 1: we're not going to be playing this song during the episode,
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Speaker 1: and when you get to the end of this story
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Speaker 1: you'll see why. On an overcast, chilly sunday in the
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Speaker 1: fall of nineteen thirty two, thirty two year old composer
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Speaker 1: Resh Sharesh sat in his apartment in Paris trying to
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Speaker 1: write a new melody. He'd been at it for hours,
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Speaker 1: and it was not going well at all. Each time
13:08
Speaker 1: he jotted down a new combination of notes, he'd just
13:11
Speaker 1: tear it up and toss it into his trash bin,
13:13
Speaker 1: where there was already a pile of other discarded drafts.
13:16
Speaker 1: So Rezo was used to this kind of messy creative process.
13:20
Speaker 1: He had made a name for himself as a musician
13:22
Speaker 1: in his home country of Hungary. Over the last decade.
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Speaker 1: He'd written more than forty musical compositions for various singers
13:28
Speaker 1: and artists, and a few had been really successful, so
13:31
Speaker 1: Reso knew he had the talent to be a huge
13:33
Speaker 1: star and to change people's lives with his music. But recently,
13:37
Speaker 1: despite trying many different iterations and just allowing the messy
13:42
Speaker 1: creative process to take hold and just kind of letting
13:44
Speaker 1: it run its course, Rezzo still just could not come
13:48
Speaker 1: up with any new good work, mainly because he was
13:52
Speaker 1: incredibly stressed out. So at this point in nineteen thirty two,
13:56
Speaker 1: Rezzo and many other people were very nervous about the
13:59
Speaker 1: state the world and their future because there were really
14:03
Speaker 1: violent political views spreading across Europe, especially in Germany. This
14:07
Speaker 1: was still seven years before the start of World War Two,
14:10
Speaker 1: but Hitler and his Nazi party were already starting to
14:13
Speaker 1: gain power, and Resso, who was Jewish, was worried about
14:17
Speaker 1: all the anti Jewish rhetoric that the Nazis were spreading.
14:20
Speaker 1: And while that was terrifying and kept Reso up at night,
14:24
Speaker 1: the more urgent worry he had on a daily basis
14:26
Speaker 1: that was really impeding his creativity was how to literally
14:31
Speaker 1: afford food, because the world was also in the middle
14:34
Speaker 1: of the Great Depression, which was a period of time
14:37
Speaker 1: in the nineteen twenties and thirties, when multiple countries were
14:40
Speaker 1: dealing with terrible economies and mass unemployment. Back in Reso's
14:44
Speaker 1: home country of Hungary, things were especially bad and getting worse.
14:49
Speaker 1: Banks and businesses were closing almost every day, and more
14:52
Speaker 1: than a quarter of the population was unemployed living in
14:55
Speaker 1: extreme poverty. Resso had moved to Paris so we could
14:58
Speaker 1: find more opportunities. Paris, after all, was the art mecca
15:03
Speaker 1: of Europe, and even though the state of the world
15:05
Speaker 1: felt depressing, Rezzo thought that the creative energy there would
15:09
Speaker 1: inspire him to create something beautiful amid all the darkness.
15:12
Speaker 1: But now Rezo sighed and lean back to look around
15:15
Speaker 1: the tiny, drafty Parisian apartment of his He'd been here
15:19
Speaker 1: for months, and his fortunes certainly had not changed. He
15:22
Speaker 1: still didn't have any work, and he still could not
15:25
Speaker 1: seem to write anything good. But you know, Rezzo, he
15:27
Speaker 1: kept leaning back over and trying to write, but it
15:31
Speaker 1: was like immediately he would tear it up, and he
15:33
Speaker 1: was just getting more and more frustrated, until finally he
15:36
Speaker 1: just did give up and put his head in his
15:38
Speaker 1: hands and basically said, I can't do this. It seemed
15:41
Speaker 1: like the harder he worked and the harder he tried
15:43
Speaker 1: to ignore all the despair and sadness and awful things
15:46
Speaker 1: going on in the world, the worse he felt, and
15:49
Speaker 1: obviously the worse his work was. Like right now, he
15:52
Speaker 1: actually almost felt physically ill from kind of bottling up
15:55
Speaker 1: all these competing terrible feelings and thoughts. But as he
15:58
Speaker 1: thought about the fact that he was doing that, he
16:01
Speaker 1: suddenly decided, he just can't do that anymore. He can't
16:05
Speaker 1: continue to keep that stuff in. It was at that
16:07
Speaker 1: moment that Rezo exhaled and let in all the anguish
16:11
Speaker 1: he'd been trying to push away. Sadness and fear and
16:14
Speaker 1: quiet desperation just washed over him and into him, and
16:18
Speaker 1: he didn't fight it anymore. He just suddenly started writing.
16:22
Speaker 1: His pen flew across the page as wave after wave
16:25
Speaker 1: of terrible emotion hit him, and when he was done,
16:29
Speaker 1: he ran over to his piano to play the notes
16:32
Speaker 1: that he had just written, and as his fingers moved
16:34
Speaker 1: across the keys, a very slow, sad melody began to
16:38
Speaker 1: fill the air, and it was so beautiful and so
16:41
Speaker 1: sad that he actually felt like crying as he heard it.
16:44
Speaker 1: When he was done playing, He just sat back in
16:47
Speaker 1: his chair, and now tears filled his eyes and his
16:50
Speaker 1: heart was pounding so fast that he knew he needed
16:52
Speaker 1: to get some air fast, or he might actually just
16:55
Speaker 1: pass out. And so Resso went outside to take a
16:57
Speaker 1: walk and hope the fresh air would help them snap
17:00
Speaker 1: out of the wild emotional fog that had just come
17:03
Speaker 1: over him. But the Paris streets were gray and cold,
17:06
Speaker 1: and this new melody continued to ring in his ears.
17:10
Speaker 1: He was thrilled that he'd actually written something, something real
17:13
Speaker 1: and powerful, for the first time in what felt like
17:15
Speaker 1: a long time, but it was such an intense expression
17:19
Speaker 1: of his own sadness that it almost hurt. Shortly into
17:22
Speaker 1: his walk, he heard somebody call his name. When he
17:24
Speaker 1: looked up, he saw it was his good friend, a
17:26
Speaker 1: poet named Loslow Yevor, who rushed right up to him.
17:29
Speaker 1: And right away, when Rezo saw his friend, he felt
17:31
Speaker 1: himself lightening up a little bit. He liked Laslow. They
17:35
Speaker 1: were both Hungarians in Paris, trying to make good art
17:37
Speaker 1: and a name for themselves, but neither of them had
17:40
Speaker 1: really done it yet. But as soon as Laslow reached Resso,
17:44
Speaker 1: Resou could tell that his friend seemed really upset about
17:47
Speaker 1: something too, and his friend told him that his fiance
17:50
Speaker 1: had just ended things with him and he was completely heartbroken.
17:53
Speaker 1: After Reso said that he was terribly sorry, the men
17:56
Speaker 1: just walked together in silence. They were both lost in
17:59
Speaker 1: their life own sad, heavy feelings, and neither of them
18:02
Speaker 1: could think of anything to say, and without even meaning to,
18:06
Speaker 1: Reso just began whistling the song that he had just written.
18:09
Speaker 1: And when he did this, it was like the tune
18:11
Speaker 1: had an immediate effect on Laslow. His eyes welled up
18:15
Speaker 1: and he sort of began to cry, And also he
18:18
Speaker 1: began to sing along, using words from a very sad
18:22
Speaker 1: poem that he had recently written. Resso couldn't believe it, because,
18:25
Speaker 1: without even trying, Laslow's words were perfectly fit for his melody.
18:30
Speaker 1: And so as this sort of impromptu collaboration has begun,
18:34
Speaker 1: the men went from this really dark, gloomy mood to
18:38
Speaker 1: a purely excited one. They were so inspired that they
18:41
Speaker 1: rushed into a nearby restaurant to sit and work out
18:44
Speaker 1: the rest of the song, and before they knew it,
18:46
Speaker 1: Rezzo had written an entire composition with Laslow's lyrics, and
18:51
Speaker 1: the song was about someone whose lover had just died
18:54
Speaker 1: and their desire to be reunited with them. When the
18:56
Speaker 1: men finished, they wanted to hear their song out loud,
19:00
Speaker 1: so they asked the restaurant's resident musicians to play it,
19:03
Speaker 1: and pretty soon their song, something that hadn't even existed
19:07
Speaker 1: a few hours ago, was blaring around the crowded restaurant,
19:11
Speaker 1: and as far as Reso and Laslow could tell, everybody
19:14
Speaker 1: inside was loving this song. Some of the restaurant patrons
19:18
Speaker 1: actually cried, and others closed their eyes and just kind
19:21
Speaker 1: of swayed to the sound. It was what Rezo had
19:24
Speaker 1: always hoped his music would do, which was truly affect
19:27
Speaker 1: those who heard it. Resu and Laslow looked at each other,
19:30
Speaker 1: and for the first time in days, they smiled. Rezzo
19:33
Speaker 1: and Laslow decided to call their song Gloomy Sunday, since
19:36
Speaker 1: it had been created on that hazy fall Sunday. They
19:39
Speaker 1: both had a feeling that this tune was very special
19:42
Speaker 1: and that it would finally be the thing that changed
19:44
Speaker 1: both of their lives. So over the next few months,
19:47
Speaker 1: they took the song around to producers and tried to
19:49
Speaker 1: get somebody to buy it, and finally someone did a
19:53
Speaker 1: company agreed to publish the sheet music and record it.
19:55
Speaker 1: After that, Rezo went back to his shabby Parisian apartment
19:59
Speaker 1: and waited for the song to take hold and the
20:01
Speaker 1: money to start pouring in. But that's not what happened.
20:05
Speaker 1: As the months passed by, Rezzo didn't hear Gloomy Sunday
20:08
Speaker 1: on the radio, or see it on any charts, or
20:11
Speaker 1: hear it in restaurants or performed in theaters. It was
20:15
Speaker 1: like it really had never existed at all. And this
20:17
Speaker 1: crushed Rezso he was even more upset and defeated than
20:21
Speaker 1: he had been before he had written it, because he'd
20:24
Speaker 1: gotten a taste of hope and it felt even worse
20:27
Speaker 1: to fail. After that, the rest of Resso's life and
20:29
Speaker 1: the state of the world got worse too. The Great
20:32
Speaker 1: Depression was still going strong, and as Hitler got more
20:35
Speaker 1: and more popular, people started to wonder if there was
20:38
Speaker 1: going to be a war. So Rezzo and pretty much
20:41
Speaker 1: everyone else around him just sank further into their fears
20:44
Speaker 1: and worries and kept praying for something to change. Three
20:58
Speaker 1: years later, on a spring evening in nineteen thirty five,
21:02
Speaker 1: Rezo was back in Hungary, walking down a street in
21:04
Speaker 1: the country's capital city, Budapest. He was on his way
21:07
Speaker 1: to a friend's house, but as he strode down the sidewalk,
21:11
Speaker 1: he heard a song coming from an open window. He
21:13
Speaker 1: stopped cold and his heart began to pound because he
21:16
Speaker 1: knew that song. It was his. It was Gloomy Sunday.
21:20
Speaker 1: Rezo had no idea how or why he was hearing
21:23
Speaker 1: his song, which as far as he knew, no one
21:25
Speaker 1: had really been that interested in. But it was completely shocking.
21:28
Speaker 1: I mean, someone he didn't know was listening to his
21:31
Speaker 1: song on the radio. That meant it was being put
21:35
Speaker 1: out on the airwaves and being consumed by the public.
21:37
Speaker 1: This was incredible, and so Rezo just stood there, letting
21:39
Speaker 1: his own notes wash over him for the first time,
21:42
Speaker 1: you know, hearing this out in public. And then when
21:44
Speaker 1: it was done, he just stood there and just absolutely beamed.
21:48
Speaker 1: And after that, for months, Gloomy Sunday was everywhere. Reso
21:54
Speaker 1: heard it played at social gatherings, streaming from people's windows,
21:58
Speaker 1: street performers sang at the passer, and it was even
22:01
Speaker 1: performed at concert venues all over the city. And so
22:03
Speaker 1: by the end of the year it seemed like there
22:05
Speaker 1: was hardly anyone in Hungary who hadn't heard and loved
22:09
Speaker 1: his song. Rezzo even read in the papers that his
22:12
Speaker 1: song was being played in England, in France, and as
22:15
Speaker 1: far away as the United States, so Rezo knew that
22:18
Speaker 1: he had actually done it. He had realized his dream
22:22
Speaker 1: of being a successful, internationally recognized composer with a hit
22:27
Speaker 1: song that truly resonated with the public. A few months later,
22:31
Speaker 1: on a morning in late February of nineteen thirty six,
22:34
Speaker 1: Rezzo left his apartment and was heading out for the day,
22:37
Speaker 1: and on his way down the street, he passed by
22:40
Speaker 1: a newsstand and he noticed that one of the headlines
22:44
Speaker 1: mentioned his song, Gloomy Sunday. Initially, he was really excited
22:48
Speaker 1: to see that he was getting some press, so he
22:50
Speaker 1: immediately grabbed a copy and opened it up to read.
22:53
Speaker 1: But as his eyes scammed the page, his stomach flipped
22:56
Speaker 1: because this was not good press. Actually, what this article
23:00
Speaker 1: had to say was so terrible that Reso's first reaction
23:04
Speaker 1: was that he'd read it wrong, and so he read
23:06
Speaker 1: it again and again and again. But each time he
23:09
Speaker 1: read it, it just said the same horrible thing, and
23:13
Speaker 1: so Rezzo found himself starting to panic. Rezo quickly shut
23:16
Speaker 1: the paper and just began looking around him, and he
23:19
Speaker 1: saw there were a few other people who were also
23:21
Speaker 1: by the newstand, and they were reading the same paper,
23:23
Speaker 1: and they were all talking to one another in hushed
23:25
Speaker 1: voices and pointing at that headline about his song, and
23:29
Speaker 1: Rezo just stood there, listening to this unsettling murmur and
23:33
Speaker 1: feeling a wave of absolute horror wash over him. Over
23:36
Speaker 1: the next month, more and more headlines about Rezo's song
23:40
Speaker 1: continued to appear in the papers, and it was like
23:42
Speaker 1: each day they only got worse. And then the story
23:45
Speaker 1: went international, I mean, the Catholic Church weighed on it,
23:48
Speaker 1: and then the police got involved. Finally, one afternoon at
23:52
Speaker 1: the end of March in nineteen thirty six, Rezzo was
23:55
Speaker 1: sitting at his piano, staring down at the keys. He
23:58
Speaker 1: knew he should be right music, but instead he was
24:02
Speaker 1: just filled with dread, just like he had been every
24:04
Speaker 1: day since he first read that dreadful headline. And then
24:07
Speaker 1: suddenly there was a knock at the door, and when
24:10
Speaker 1: Rezo got up and answered it, a cold sweat broke
24:13
Speaker 1: out all over his body because it was the Budapest
24:16
Speaker 1: police and they wanted him to come down to the station.
24:20
Speaker 1: Rezzo's pulse raced with nerves, but at this point he
24:23
Speaker 1: wasn't surprised, because by now he knew that writing Gloomy
24:27
Speaker 1: Sunday had been a horrific mistake, because it would turn
24:31
Speaker 1: out Gloomy Sunday had been a very shockingly impactful song,
24:37
Speaker 1: just as Rezo thought he wanted it to be. But
24:39
Speaker 1: over the course of the last year, the police had
24:42
Speaker 1: begun finding its sheet music, or its written lyrics, or
24:45
Speaker 1: the actual song playing on record players at scenes of suicides.
24:51
Speaker 1: Dozens of people across Hungry Europe and the United States,
24:55
Speaker 1: from police officers to teenagers to wait staffed students, had
24:59
Speaker 1: taken their own lives basically while listening to Gloomy Sunday.
25:04
Speaker 1: These deaths were so widespread that a Hungarian archbishop actually
25:09
Speaker 1: wrote a letter to the general public begging them to
25:12
Speaker 1: stop hurting themselves, and multiple bands of the song itself
25:16
Speaker 1: were enacted across Europe, in England and the United States.
25:20
Speaker 1: On the day that the Budapest police knocked on Reso's door,
25:23
Speaker 1: they demanded that he stop sales of the song, and
25:27
Speaker 1: Rezu agreed, and eventually so did the song's publisher and
25:31
Speaker 1: his musical partner Laslow, and Resso's partner. Laslow was especially
25:35
Speaker 1: grief stricken by this whole thing because his fiance the
25:39
Speaker 1: one who had broken his heart on the day he
25:41
Speaker 1: had written this song with Rezzo. She ended up being
25:44
Speaker 1: one of the many suicide victims. Before she took her
25:46
Speaker 1: own life, she sent Laslow a telegram which simply said,
25:51
Speaker 1: gloomy Sunday. No one knows why gloomy Sunday potentially caused
25:55
Speaker 1: the sudden wave of death. One theory is that people
25:59
Speaker 1: were already really suffering from depression and feeling hopeless because
26:04
Speaker 1: of the Great Depression and the worsening political climate, and
26:07
Speaker 1: the song's popularity was either a coincidence or sort of
26:10
Speaker 1: an unfortunate trigger. As for Rezzo, he was devastated by
26:14
Speaker 1: the legacy of his song. Even though it did technically
26:17
Speaker 1: live up to his original vision, it did deeply resonate
26:21
Speaker 1: with people and was unquestionably a hit, and over the years,
26:24
Speaker 1: despite all the negative associations with the song, it's been
26:28
Speaker 1: translated into twenty eight different languages and was even performed
26:31
Speaker 1: by legendary singers like Frank Sinatra and Billie Holiday. Initially,
26:36
Speaker 1: there was an estimated twenty suicides attributed to Gloomy Sunday
26:40
Speaker 1: across Europe and the United States and the years that
26:43
Speaker 1: have followed, however, lore around the song has only grown,
26:47
Speaker 1: and some estimates put the death toll and the hundreds,
26:50
Speaker 1: although the numbers are difficult to verify. Rezzo never wrote
26:54
Speaker 1: another hit, and in fact, ultimately he followed in the
26:57
Speaker 1: footsteps of some of his listeners. He jumped out the
27:01
Speaker 1: window of his eighth floor apartment on another overcast gloomy
27:04
Speaker 1: Sunday and died two days later. Before I wrap this
27:09
Speaker 1: episode up, I want to say that if you are
27:12
Speaker 1: experiencing suicidal thoughts or suicidal ideations, or you're just struggling
27:16
Speaker 1: right now, number one, you're not alone. But number two,
27:20
Speaker 1: you really need to talk to someone. Don't hold that
27:22
Speaker 1: stuff in. Thank you so much for watching today's episode.
27:29
Speaker 1: Let me know what you thought of it in the
27:30
Speaker 1: comments below. And remember, we have a whole playlist of
27:34
Speaker 1: places you can't go episodes ready for you to binge
27:37
Speaker 1: right now, So go ahead and click here and give
27:40
Speaker 1: them a watch. All right, until next time, See