Why Do We Like Depressing Music?

Subject: RE: Why Do We Like Depressing Music?
From: Bobert
Date: 08 Jan 03 - 02:18 PM

I gotta agree with khandu. There does seem to be a theaputic value to singing depressing songs. I even like to hear a good one now and then. Okay, maybe it is a little like banging your head on the wall because it feels so good when you quit, I don't know.

These days, I play mostly blues music but some folks who have heard my earlier stuff might put it in a blues category if for no other reason than content.

The blues seem to be a clebration of survival! I mean, like laughing to keep from crying. Like all these terrible things happening and rather than sitting around being depressed, ya' just grab a guitar and let it rip. Feels good to get it out and not let it take you out.

And in the words of Duchamp, "Art is shit". Excuse my French 'cause you know that this ol' hillbilly don't talk like that but it says a lot. It's like stuff that just needs to come out. It's a way of dealing with grief... and misery... and injustice. And lots of folks songs do just that.

Think I'll blow my old lonesome home
Woke up this mornin'
Little P-Vine was gone...

Bobert

Subject: RE: Why Do We Like Depressing Music?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 08 Jan 03 - 08:53 PM

Whaddya mean "we"? I like some sad or moving music, but not depressing music. It's the commercial radio stuff that's on everywhere that depresses me, because of the social blindness, vulgarity, and ignorance it expresses. That's why I never listen to it if I have any choice about the matter.

- LH

Subject: RE: Why Do We Like Depressing Music?
From: michaelr
Date: 09 Jan 03 - 12:00 AM

Breezy -- "Our songs are far more demanding intellectually that is why its a minority interest.
Discuss."

I think that discussion warrants its own thread, don't you? Start it up, it's an interesting question.

I really think what we're talking about is SAD songs -- depression has different connotations, mostly unconnected to music, I'd say.

Someone above said "catharsis", and I think that's the key. It's a perfect stress relief to have a good cry from time to time, and a good sad song is like a welcome friend whose shoulder you can cry on.

In my band's repertoire, there are more sad than happy songs. This is because our repertoire is composed mostly of Irish and Scots trad songs. We mix it up in concert, contrasting a weeper with a lively fiddle tune, and saying things like "Wev were looking for love songs with happy endings... this is the one."

There is one couple that comes to our gigs specifically to hear Patricia Casey sing "Anachie Gordon". We never do that song unless they're there. They come, request the song, we play it... they cry, and go home happy.

I'm fine with that.

Cheers,
Michael

Subject: RE: Why Do We Like Depressing Music?
From: GUEST,Rain Dog
Date: 15 Jan 04 - 03:41 AM

Re: Why do we like depressing music

This thread touches on a subject that I have thought about before.What exactly is going on when we listen ( I do not play or sing so it has to be listen ) to a sad or chilling song ? I do think that a songwriter can write about any subject he wants to but I sometimes think that the medium can affect the subject matter in ways that the writer might not have intended.

I do not have a knowledge of a lot of folk songs, but as an example of what I am trying to say I would give the song Georgia Lee by Tom Waits, which has been covered also by Solas & Kathryn Roberts and Sean Lakeman. This is a song that is about the murder of a child. I find it a very sad song ( and I know one persons sad song is another persons mawkish/sentimental claptrap )yet the melody/tune has a beauty to it. The song is beautiful, what it is describing is not.

The Suzanne Vega song , My Name is Luka , is another song, where the lyrics are about child abuse, yet this melody/tune has a 'jaunty or happy ' sound to it. I am sure a number of people must have 'heard' this song, tapped their foot to it, whistled it etc without listening to the lyrics and realising what it is about. Is this defeating Vega's intention for the song ?

I will end with what I think is one of the most chilling songs that I know. The Randy Newman song, In Germany Before the War. Again it has what I think is a very beautiful melody/tune and yet it is a song about a child killer told from the point of view of the child killer. The music attracts but the lyrics repell. Somewhat confusing I think. ( Probably a bit like this message )

Subject: RE: Why Do We Like Depressing Music?
From: *daylia*
Date: 15 Jan 04 - 10:48 AM

IN my experience, people who are basically happy and reasonably content with the circumstances of their lives demonstrate no great need to play or listen to depressing music. They can listen to it, and perhaps learn something from it, but they are not particularly drawn to it.   On the other hand, I've noticed it's the discontented ones who enjoy "depressing" music. Maybe it affirms them in their "woe is me" state -- and misery loves company, perhaps?

daylia

Subject: RE: Why Do We Like Depressing Music?
From: Amos
Date: 15 Jan 04 - 12:30 PM

Back to an earlier drift, the bedrock of human experience is not tragedy; tragedy is born from life force attacking the hurdles of existence in the material universe and sometimes losing. But the bedrock is life force. Tragedy is reversable, but life force is not. Call me Bergsonian, but that's how it seems to me.

A

Subject: RE: Why Do We Like Depressing Music?
From: Ebbie
Date: 15 Jan 04 - 01:10 PM

I tend to think that we humans react viscerally to any song (or event) that draws us out of ourselves for that moment, as Harvey implied, to the essence of what we perceive as fundamental and real, those transcendental moments when an emotion is stripped to its essentials. I agree with Art T that tragedy is the human condition, in the sense that there are no happy endings- each life ends in death and defeat.

I think that this affirmation is received by everybody over and over. Like at a car wreck, or at a just barely escaped accident or incident or the experience of war or riot. But also on the other hand, the first kiss, falling in love, crooning to a baby- all those moments of distillation to the essence. Who was it (Mark Twain, Ben Franklin?) who said something about, 'The threat of imminent death *compresses (not the right word, what is it?) the mind wonderfully.' I think that's what he's saying.

I once said to my very religious mother, Leaving religion out of it, can you see my problem- I tell myself that if all those people throughout history could stand to die, so can I. And then I realize, they couldn't stand it- it killed them! And my mother said, Yes, I see your dilemma.

Personally, like ttr, I prefer to keep myself happy- not grinning all the time or staying away from sad things- but happy within my core. I tell myself that every day that I keep myself happy I'm adding to the happiness of the world. Conversely, every day that I am miserable, I'm adding to its misery.

That said, I am one of those people (I can't be the only one!) who can stand only so much blues. Too many songs of it- and I get to feeling like the whole world is sad and living is useless.

IMO- and I could be wrong!

Subject: RE: Why Do We Like Depressing Music?
From: mg
Date: 15 Jan 04 - 03:38 PM

I call some deaths tragic...too soon, too painful, leaving young children behind. But I fail to see how a death at an old age, in comfortable surroundings, perhaps with family, is a defeat or is tragic. It is the end of one life, but other lifes continue. Of course, there is purgatory to consider and that changes the equation totally... mg

Subject: RE: Why Do We Like Depressing Music?
From: Cool Beans
Date: 15 Jan 04 - 04:26 PM

I'll tell you this: it's not about the words, it's something more primal.
When my daughter Maggie was 3 or 4 she woke up one night, came to us in tears and said she wanted to hear "the sad song." At the time we knew which one she meant (alas, we've all forgotten which song it was). We put the record on, we listened to the song, Maggie cried her little eyes out. When it was over we dried her eyes and she went to bed feeling much better. She slept very soundly that night.

Subject: RE: Why Do We Like Depressing Music?
From: Ebbie
Date: 15 Jan 04 - 11:12 PM

I agree that it's not the words. I grew up with country and folk music, and yet I love opera. Not operas, per se, but the sounds of arias, especially if I don't know the language. To me, an operatic duet is a spine-tingling, gut-wrenching bathed-in-sound experience.

Subject: RE: Why Do We Like Depressing Music?
From: *daylia*
Date: 16 Jan 04 - 08:54 AM

I agree with Art T that tragedy is the human condition, in the sense that there are no happy endings- each life ends in death and defeat.

Ooooo -- so why go to all this trouble to keep myself alive then???

Then again, maybe you're right ... so first let's collaborate on yet another gut-wrenching hand-wringing ballad to commemorate forever our torturous existences, and then ... Quick! Let's all line up and do THIS!

Hey, at least we'll keep these people happy!

Him, too.

;-)    daylia

Subject: RE: Why Do We Like Depressing Music?
From: Ebbie
Date: 16 Jan 04 - 01:08 PM

My saying that all life ends in death and defeat sounds grimmer than it should, perhaps. It leaves out any mention of the fact that I personally believe- and prefer to! that our physical bodies house our essence, that the essence continues after the separation.

And music speaks directly to that essence- and resonates and reverberates in the physical. OK?

Subject: RE: Why Do We Like Depressing Music?
From: GUEST,JennyO
Date: 17 Jan 04 - 09:22 AM

Looks like I'm a guest here for a few days. My computer had a major problem (possibly a weird new virus, a workmate of my son thinks) which resulted in my having to get a new motherboard. So I'm on John's computer, which seems very old and slow by comparison. But it's only for a few days anyway. And the seat height and setup is all wrong (grumble grumble) - maybe a depressing song about that?

Anyway, I remembered a time a couple of years ago when my then singing partner and I were singing "Past Caring" which is extremely depressing and wrist-slashing, at a friend's BBQ. There were people sitting around a fire. Two people we know, who are famous for dropping off to sleep wherever they go, chose this moment to do this, and as one of them started to tip in her chair, her husband, who was also dropping off, started to tip sideways too. They slid like dominoes, in slow motion, right in front of us. It was so funny we cracked up - right in the middle of the song - and totally destroyed the moment. Probably just as well - you need a little light relief after that song.

Jenny

Subject: RE: Why Do We Like Depressing Music?
From: Willa
Date: 17 Jan 04 - 03:16 PM

Hi, Ebbie Your post Jan 15th; the word is 'concentrates'.

I quote:Samuel Johnson, who had an opinion for every occasion, once said, "Depend upon it, sir, when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates the mind wonderfully."

Subject: RE: Why Do We Like Depressing Music?
From: PoppaGator
Date: 17 Jan 04 - 03:36 PM

What depressing music? If we like a given piece, it doesn't make us depressed, it makes us feel *good.* A song whose lyrics describe a unhappy situation can be a joy to sing or play or hear -- especially for those who understand the story only too well.

(Of course, different folks have different tastes, and you might find my favorite blues song, etc., to be depressing to you.)

As someone mentioned long ago and far above in this thread, the key word to understand is "catharsis." Giving voice to one's sorrows (or to someone else's sorrows, assuming one is not the songwriter but simply the interpreter) can feel really good, for the singer and also for those "actively listening."

Subject: RE: Why Do We Like Depressing Music?
From: GUEST,hotspur
Date: 17 Jan 04 - 04:18 PM

I think maybe it has something to do with the multiple intelligences. Some people--i consider myself fortunate to be one of them--have a musical intelligence. It's like living your life to a soundtrack--in the movies, they always play somehting depressing when the main character is depressed, right? Well, I think that's why people sing sad songs. It fits the moment. Also, of course, it's better to sing about throwing yourself off a cliff then to actually do it.

Subject: RE: Why Do We Like Depressing Music?
From: freda underhill
Date: 18 Jan 04 - 08:42 AM

jennyo - were you singing Past Chairin'?

freda

Subject: RE: Why Do We Like Depressing Music?
From: JennyO
Date: 18 Jan 04 - 08:56 AM

LOL Freda! Actually, they narrowly missed falling into the fire, so I suppose you could call it "Past Charring".

Jenny

Subject: RE: Why Do We Like Depressing Music?
From: freda underhill
Date: 18 Jan 04 - 09:01 AM

the burning times are here once more..

Subject: RE: Why Do We Like Depressing Music?
From: MickyMan
Date: 18 Jan 04 - 11:11 AM

I think Art Thieme hit the nail of this depressing thread directly on its' depressing head back on Jan 7th, 2003. He used the word ENLIGHTEN. Perhaps we look for songs about depressing situations in order to enlighten ourselves so that we and our loved ones will not come to harm as the song points out.
There also is something therepeutic about hearing a song where somebody else feels crummy. It makes me feel less alone in the world.
My wife seems to have a much lower threshold of pain when it comes to depressing music, or movies for that matter (She thrives on those romantic comedies). Of course that could be because she lives with me day in and day out and so she is in constant need of a positive support system.

Subject: RE: Why Do We Like Depressing Music?
From: SINSULL
Date: 18 Jan 04 - 11:37 AM

I wallow in sad songs including "Put My Little Shoes Away" but hate movies that are similarly designed to make me cry. Maybe it is because they are rarely well done.

But on the movie theme (or TV for that matter), even the romantic comedies are built around a theme of loss or potential loss. You know the hero will get the girl in the end but he has to work for it. As has already been said, it would be pretty dull if every day were sunshine and happiness - at least at the movies.

Art made an interesting point: "If you allow that to depress you, you need some serious work done on your ability to find sustenance and energy, enlightenment and, yes, happiness from knowing that insecurity and lack of control in our lives is just how stuff is."
And it reminded me of the times I was severely depressed. No one would go to the movies with me because I would burst into sobbing tears with no warning. E.T., Jonathan Livingston Seagull, Empire Of The Sun - are a few of the films I ruined for companions and everyone within six rows because I was reduced to near hysteria by the sorrow.

But at the same time, I daily sang my usual list of sad songs and derived a strange comfort from them.

After the "serious work was done" I no longer cried in the theater - not even Schindler's List got me. But I still sing the sad songs...for comfort.

Subject: RE: Why Do We Like Depressing Music?
From: CapriUni
Date: 18 Jan 04 - 03:37 PM

Does anyone here remember the BioDome -- that experiment, out in the American desert somewhere that attempted to recreate the whole of Earth's life web in miniature, within a closed closed system? It started with such high ambitions, and failed on many levels.

Around the time that it was still in the news, I remember watching a documentary on it, and this one fact has stuck in my memory: All the trees there became weak and sickly, and died premature deaths because they had no winds to buffet them as they were growing.

That "Life Force" that Amos spoke of, it seems, not only survives in spite of trouble, it only thrives in the midst of trouble. To repeat the old cliché: "Without sorrow, there can be no joy."

When we are content, we feel complete unto ourselves. It is good to feel whole, and strong. But if that is all we feel, it can also become very empty, as ironic as that sounds. When we open ourselves to the experience of pain and sorrow, especially in sympathy with the pain and sorrow of others, we open ourselves to Life itself.

The crack in a broken heart is an opening through which life and love can pour in.

Subject: RE: Why Do We Like Depressing Music?
From: Larry The Radio Guy
Date: 07 Jan 14 - 05:31 PM

I don't like depressing music just because it's depressing.   But I love it if there is something about it that seems to 'understand' some aspect of my own dark side......whether it's my violent urges (which I'm glad to say are relatively weak), my moments of despair (brief, fortunately), or a number of not so positive emotions and thoughts.   I also love songs that 'enlighten' me or give me a sense of a 'way out'. I find that in most of my favourite 'depressing' songs, there is at least a glimmer of hope.   

But I think my main attraction is that sense that there is an interconnection between me and either the song writer, or the 'protagonist/narrator' of the song.   Helps me feel more human.

Subject: RE: Why Do We Like Depressing Music?
From: kendall
Date: 07 Jan 14 - 08:18 PM

My ex hated sad songs; called it emotional rape.

I think the creator gave us many emotions, why not enjoy all of them?

Subject: RE: Why Do We Like Depressing Music?
From: GUEST
Date: 08 Jan 14 - 03:14 AM

Politicians running the shop.

Subject: RE: Why Do We Like Depressing Music?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 08 Jan 14 - 08:34 PM

There's a hymn with the line

The stars shine only in darkness

I like that image.

The only songs I get depressed by are some hyper-cheerful ones. Even a happy song needs a touch of shadow.

Subject: RE: Why Do We Like Depressing Music?
From: Phil Cooper
Date: 09 Jan 14 - 08:19 AM

I, too, like songs that have teeth in them. Tom Rapp, from Pearls before Swine, said that dark songs give the ultimately hopeful message that someone else has been through hard times and come out the other side.

Subject: RE: Why Do We Like Depressing Music?
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 09 Jan 14 - 12:28 PM

You can't assume 'we like depressing music.' I, for one, don't like it.

Subject: RE: Why Do We Like Depressing Music?
From: Eldergirl
Date: 09 Jan 14 - 12:44 PM

Fair to say that different folks will find different songs depressing? We are not all identical, after all.
Many yrs ago in college I was practising Gene Clark's song 'Spanish Guitar'. One of my flatmates came in and begged me to stop, why was I playing such a dismal song, she'd never have thought I was a young woman in love, etc etc.(at the time, I was.) For me, it's one of the most positive songs I know, being basically about creativity, but my friend only heard minor chords not v well played..
Well maybe that's the answer, and why I packed in playing guitar!
Still, it's different strokes for different folks, innit?
X el

Subject: RE: Why Do We Like Depressing Music?
From: Larry The Radio Guy
Date: 09 Jan 14 - 01:10 PM

I agree with Tom Rapp. His songs are dark, sad, and contemplative.......but to my mind, never hopeless or 'depressing'.