TUNAGE – LNG

WHOT Episode 144 – “Ballad of the Sad Young Men” by Roberta Flack
Hosted by Mangus Khan

[A low crackle. A piano chord that barely dares to speak. The room holds its breath.]

“This is WHOT.
Late Night Grooves.

I’m Mangus Khan, and tonight…

I won’t talk over the silence.

I’ll sit in it with you.

Because that’s what this track demands.

Roberta Flack.
‘Ballad of the Sad Young Men.’

From Chapter Two, 1970.

And what a chapter it is.

Not just in her catalog, but in all of ours.

Because this song doesn’t care how tough you act.

It doesn’t care about bravado or performative pain.

It cuts past all that.

And it speaks to the truth we don’t say out loud:

That so many of us—especially men—were taught to carry our sadness like it was shame.

And what do you do with that?

You drink. You drift.
You disappear one piece at a time.

“Trying not to drown…”

Those words aren’t poetry.

Their documentation.

Roberta sings like someone who has seen people fall apart from the inside and still held them close.

Her voice doesn’t tremble. It understands.

She sings from a place of deep, unspoken mourning—
not for death, but for potential.

For the lives that could have been whole, had they just been allowed to feel.

There’s no big chorus.
No crescendo.

The song just… lingers.
Like grief.

Like a memory you keep folding and unfolding in your pocket.

And that’s why this track matters.

Because in a culture that praises resilience but punishes vulnerability,
This song dares to say: Some of us are barely holding it together.

And that’s not weakness.
That’s human.

Episode 144.

For the ones who never got the space to fall apart.
For the people who never asked for much—just room to be real.

Roberta Flack.
Ballad of the Sad Young Men.

You’re listening to Late Night Grooves.
WHOT.

And I’m Mangus Khan.

Still playing what the world forgot.

Still honoring the ache we carry quietly.”

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