[How Do Pull Off Depressing Songs Without Pretentiousness?]

When you're feeling down or depressed about something and you want to put those feelings into a song, how can you do it without venturing into "whiny" or "emo" territory? Two bands that I think do this very well are Radiohead and The Smiths. How can you recreate that sort of downbeat but not over-dramatic sound, rather than the full-blown immature whining that seems to come from most emo bands?

[What Step-By-Step Process Can Be Used To Write Interesting Lyrics?]

Can anyone offer any advice on the actual process lyricists use to turn an idea of a theme into actual lyrics? For example, would you make a list of imagery to use and then sort the images into interesting phrases, then put them in the right order and link them together? Or would you just right a song line-by-line until it is finished?