Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(US) suffering unrequited love; thus painful emotionally; thus used of songs that evoke such emotions.

1935		M. Fulcher ‘Believe Me’ in Afro-American (Baltimore, MD) 20 Apr. 5/1: Dick Williams [...] and Marcella are torchie.
1938		Pittsburgh Courier (PA) 14 May 11/1: Paul Chocolateer and Mary Stevens are that torchy.
1939		W. Winchell On Broadway 7 Oct. [synd. col.] A melancholy ballad of the Big town – especially ‘torchy’ when you are lonely and it rains for three days.
1946		W.R. Burnett Romelle 50: [She] sang better than she had in years: all her old favorite songs, sentimental, torchy, but pleasantly nostalgic.
1997		G.V. Higgins Change of Gravity [ebook] [H]er signature song a slow, torchy arrangement of ‘You Belong to Me’ .
2021		J. Ellroy Widespread Panic 109: Tattle told the torchy tale [...] Babs screeched into the skids.