Mick and others...if you seek out music that has problems in it, which of course some of the best music does....well, maybe you should at least supplement it with happier stuff. I think that is a very very important purpose of music..to lift our spirits, give us hope in a vale of woe. If all we revert to, and i am not saying you are, is more woe and more woe, we will be so overwhelmed we can't go out and function. I have never really bought the notion that people universally sang about their own trials. I think they sang about other people's preferably..at least my family did..sharecroppers in the south on my mother's side. Well, that is probably irrelevant.

But I think we have to be careful about how much additional woe we take on. There is plenty to go around probably in our own lives, and if we dwell too much on past wars and coal mine disasters etc. it can sap our strength for the trials we need to face of our own. See what I mean?

No everyone go out and get some polka music. It is supposed to be the healthiest of music for our hearts I have read.   mg