Songfacts®:

• "Sadness" sounds like it could be about drugs, especially when you listen to the first lines:
  
  I got the devil in me
  It's a cloud
  
  Three of the four members of Porno For Pyros - frontman Perry Farrell, guitarist Peter DiStefano and bass player Martyn LeNoble - were heavy users, so this seemed to make sense, but DiStefano says it has a different meaning.
  
  "It's not about drugs," he said in a Songfacts interview. "It's about how anything that causes pain is going to pass. Everything passes. It's a moment, and if you can just hang on, it will pass.
  
  'When you laugh they can't kill you.' It's ways to deal with sadness. It's a sign that it's going to be OK and we can get through our sadness. It's just a part of life."
• "Sadness" is the first track on the self-titled debut album by Porno For Pyros, the band formed by Perry Farrell and drummer Stephen Perkins in 1992 after their group Jane's Addiction broke up. It was released as a single following "Pets," a Modern Rock hit that became the band's most popular song. "Sadness" didn't do nearly as well but it became a fan favorite.
  
  The group hung on for one more album, Good God's Urge in 1996, before splitting up as DiStefano battled both addiction and cancer. Farrell regrouped Jane's Addiction for a tour in 1997 and brought them back together again from time to time over the next few years. He rebooted Porno For Pyros in 2020. In 2024 they embarked on their farewell tour.
• When the song was released as a single in 1994, it included a mellow version called "A Little Sadness." This version got a music video and is what they played at their Woodstock set in 1994.