Biography
Rezső Seress [rɛʒøː ˈʃɛrɛʃ] (* 3 November 1899 - 11 January 1968) was a Hungarian pianist and composer. Originally a trapeze artist, an injury left Rezső with the use of only his right hand.
Despite his disability, he taught himself to play the piano, and in 1932 he composed what would be his most famous (and infamous) melody, that in English was called "The World Has Ended". In 1935, it was paired with lyrics about a man who was lamenting over a lost love and driven to suicide. It was then the track was retitled "Gloomy Sunday" and recorded by Pál Kalmár. It was after this release that reports began to emerge about people committing suicide while listening to the song, some of which were found still clutching the sheet music in their dead hands, earning it the moniker "The Hungarian Suicide Song". Then in 1941 the song found it's way to international fame after it was translated into English and recorded by Billie Holiday. This, however, only led to hundreds more of self-inflicted deaths across the globe. It was at that point that the track was banned from being played in several countries.
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From 1942 - 1944, due his being Jewish, Seress was shipped off to a German labor camp. He survived this ordeal and after WW2, he returned to Hungary where he would spend the two decades performing at a restaurant called the KisPipa in Budapest. Then in 1968, he made an attempt to commit suicide himself by jumping out of his apartment window while listening to "Gloomy Sunday". He survived the fall however, and later woke up in a hospital bed, where he finished the job by choking himself to death with the wire that medical staff had used to hold his leg cast in place. To this day, it is said that the song "Gloomy Sunday" is a cursed song.
Biography text from Last.fm, available under CC BY-SA.