Puff the Blubbing Dragon

A comment from Marionnette strikes a chord: isn't Puff the Magic Dragon the saddest song you ever heard? Even if did reach the age of twenty-five thinking the little boy was called "Baccy Paper".

A dragon lives forever but not so little boys
Painted wings and giant rings make way for other toys.
One grey night it happened, Jackie Paper came no more
And Puff that mighty dragon, he ceased his fearless roar


It's strange that you don't notice when childhood leaves you. It just gets up and tramps away and doesn't even say goodbye.

Steely Dan's A Little With Sugar is another one:

All the years that she was with us
You could count them on one hand
I was taken with her showboat style
But too young to understand


But if you want an unsettling poem, Our Mothers Depart by Yevgeny Yevtushenko is top of the list.  

Our mothers depart from us,
gently depart
On tiptoe,
but we sleep soundly,
stuffed with food,
and fail to notice this dread hour.
Our mothers do not leave us suddenly,
no —
it only seems so 'sudden.'

Slowly they depart, and strangely,
with short steps down the stairs of years.
One year, remembering nervously,
we make a fuss to mark their birthday,
but this belated zeal
will save neither their souls
nor ours.

They withdraw ever further,
withdraw even further.
Roused from sleep,
we stretch toward them,
but our hands suddenly beat the air —
a wall of glass has grown up there!
We were too late.
The dread hour had struck,
Suppressing tears, we watch our mothers,
in columns quiet and austere,
departing from us.


And don't get me started on Coz I Love You by Slade.