Songs about Insanity

Subject: RE: Songs about Insanity
From: Stewie
Date: 20 Sep 16 - 10:18 AM

Townes had several dark songs related to manic depression. Perhaps the darkest were:

Sanitarium blues

and

Kathleen

About the latter, his friend Chito, who also was bipolar and experienced the same treatment that Townes underwent at Galveston, said that Kathleen was 'the embodiment of the dark depths of manic depression'. He said: 'You don't know Kathleen, do you? Well I know her and Townes sure knew her. She's real and when you go down to see her, you're really going down ... You don't want to go but, on the other hand, you do want to go. You have to go, and there's comfort in that'.

Quoted in Robert Earl Hardy 'Deeper Blue: the life and music of Townes Van Zandt' p 85.

--Stewie.

Subject: RE: Songs about Insanity
From: GUEST,HiLo
Date: 20 Sep 16 - 12:18 PM

Would Warren Zevon's Excitable qualify. In any case, great song.

Subject: RE: Songs about Insanity
From: GUEST,HiLo
Date: 20 Sep 16 - 01:11 PM

Of course it should be Excitable Boy...sorry

Subject: RE: Songs about Insanity
From: Mrrzy
Date: 20 Sep 16 - 02:18 PM

Yes, mentioned above. Great song, great example.

Subject: RE: Songs about Insanity
From: GUEST
Date: 20 Sep 16 - 06:45 PM

"Maxwell's Silver Hammer" -- The Beatles
"Aqualung" -- Jethro Tull

Subject: RE: Songs about Insanity
From: GUEST,.gargoyle
Date: 20 Sep 16 - 07:52 PM

It is difficult to become connected to the songs and plot of the the current (fall 2016) touring musical production of "Hunchback of Notre Dame," without leaving behind a profound disgust of perversity, sodomy, necroophilia, and beastiality.

The "man" abandons a beautiful, alluring woman, to sleep with a goat.
The dead hunchback is found decades later, within the city wall, clutching a woman's skeleton.

The intertwined stories weave for two-and-half-hours in a Freudian confusion that must have poor misognomist Walt dancing a two step to his mother's uncle.

Sincerely,

It is a blessing some of the "old guard" MC are still having problems pushi g up daisys.

Subject: RE: Songs about Insanity
From: Mrrzy
Date: 21 Sep 16 - 03:02 PM

His mind's in the sink... yeah, crazy.

I'm my own grandpa? I have a cousin a few times removed who went mad after figuring out she was her own niece... she got removed to the insane asylum a few times.

Subject: RE: Songs about Insanity
From: FreddyHeadey
Date: 04 Jul 20 - 05:37 PM

note Charlie Baum's post above linking to earlier threads
thread.cfm?threadid=160585#3809742
& a 2020 thread
thread.cfm?threadid=168149

Subject: RE: Songs about Insanity
From: Jack Campin
Date: 04 Jul 20 - 06:36 PM

In the Hills of Shiloh... yet another woman driven mad by grief.
Are there any where the MAN goes mad with grief?

Frenet Ha.

Subject: RE: Songs about Insanity
From: GUEST,Bert
Date: 05 Jul 20 - 11:58 PM

And Melanie sings

Look what they've done to my brain Ma
Look what they've done to my brain
They've picked it like a chicken bone
and I think I'm half insane Ma.
Look what they've done to my song.

Subject: Lyr Add: CRAZY JANE (M. G. Lewis)
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 06 Jul 20 - 08:21 AM

The Bodleian has a broadside of the following song, but its text is not as accurate, I believe, as the following text, which is also the oldest I can find; it was repeated in several songbooks.

From The Lady's Magazine, Vol. 30, (London: April, 1799), page 184.


CRAZY JANE.

[The following lines were written in consequence of a lady having, in her walks during a residence in Scotland, met with a poor mad woman, known by the above appellation, at whose appearance the lady was much alarmed.]

By M. G. Lewis, Esq. M. P.

Why, fair maid, in every feature,
Are such signs of fear express'd?
Can a wandering wretched creature,
With such terror fill thy breast?
Do my frenzied looks alarm thee?
Trust me, sweet—thy fears are vain:
Not for kingdoms would I harm thee!
Shun not, then, poor Crazy Jane.

Dost thou weep to see my anguish?
Mark me! and avoid my woe!
When men flatter, sigh, and languish,
Think them false—I found them so.
For I lov'd—oh, so sincerely,
None could ever love again!
But the youth I lov'd so dearly,
Stole the wits of Crazy Jane.

Fondly my young heart receiv'd him,
Which was doom'd to love but one;
He sigh'd—he vow'd—and I believ'd him.
He was false—and I undone.
From that hour has Reason never
Held her empire o'er my brain;
Henry fled—with him for ever
Fled the wits of Crazy Jane.

Now forlorn and broken-hearted,
And with frenzied thoughts beset,
On that spot where last we parted,
On that spot where first we met,
Still I sing my love-lorn ditty,
Still I slowly pace the plain;
Whilst each passer-by, in pity,
Cries—"God help thee, Crazy Jane!"

Subject: Lyr Add: MARY THE MAID OF THE INN (Robert Southey)
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 06 Jul 20 - 12:42 PM

From Poems, Vol. 1, by Robert Southey (Bristol: Longman and Rees, 1799), page 151:


MARY [THE MAID OF THE INN]
By Robert Southey

Who is she, the poor maniac, whose wildly-fix'd eyes
Seem a heart overcharged to express?
She weeps not, yet often and deeply she sighs.
She never complains, but her silence implies
The composure of settled distress.

No aid, no compassion, the maniac will seek.
Cold and hunger awake not her care.
Thro' her rags do the winds of the winter blow bleak
On her poor wither'd bosom half bare, and her cheek
Has the deathly pale hue of despair.

Yet chearful and happy, nor distant the day,
Poor Mary the maniac has been.
The traveller remembers, who journeyed this way,
No damsel so lovely, no damsel so gay,
As Mary, the maid of the inn.

Her cheerful address fill'd the guests with delight,
As she welcomed them in with a smile.
Her heart was a stranger to childish affright,
And Mary would walk by the abbey at night,
When the wind whistled down the dark aisle.

She lov'd, and young Richard had settled the day,
And she hoped to be happy for life;
But Richard was idle and worthless, and they
Who knew him would pity poor Mary, and say
That she was too good for his wife.

'Twas in autumn, and stormy and dark was the night,
And fast were the windows and door.
Two guests sat enjoying the fire that burnt bright,
And smoking in silence with tranquil delight,
They listen'd to hear the wind roar.

"'Tis pleasant," cried one, "seated by the fire-side,
To hear the wind whistle without."
"A fine night for the abbey!" his comrade replied.
"Methinks a man's courage would now be well tried,
Who should wander the ruins about.

"I myself, like a school-boy, should tremble to hear
The hoarse ivy shake over my head,
And could fancy I saw, half persuaded by fear,
Some ugly old abbot's white spirit appear,
For this wind might awaken the dead!"

"I'll wager a dinner," the other one cried,
"That Mary would venture there now."
"Then wager, and lose!" with a sneer he replied.
"I'll warrant she'd fancy a ghost by her side,
And faint if she saw a white cow."

"Will Mary this charge on her courage allow?"
His companion exclaim'd with a smile.
"I shall win, for I know she will venture there now,
And earn a new bonnet by bringing a bough
From the elder that grows in the aisle."

With fearless good humour did Mary comply,
And her way to the abbey she bent.
The night it was dark and the wind it was high,
And, as hollowly howling it swept thro' the sky,
She shivered with cold as she went.

O'er the path so well known still proceeded the maid,
Where the abbey rose dim on the site;
Thro' the gate-way she enter'd; she felt not afraid,
Yet the ruins were lonely and wild, and their shade
Seem'd to deepen the gloom of the night.

All around her was silent, save when the rude blast
Howl'd dismally round the old pile.
Over weed-cover'd fragments still fearless she past,
And arrived at the innermost ruin at last,
Where the elder-tree grew in the aisle.

Well pleas'd did she reach it, and quickly drew near,
And hastily gather'd the bough,
When the sound of a voice seem'd to rise on her ear!
She paus'd, and she listen'd, all eager to hear,
And her heart panted fearfully now.

The wind blew; the hoarse ivy shook over her head.
She listen'd; nought else could she hear.
The wind ceas'd; her heart sunk in her bosom with dread,
For she heard in the ruins distinctly the tread
Of footsteps approaching her near.

Behind a wide column, half breathless with fear,
She crept to conceal herself there.
That instant, the moon o'er a dark cloud shone clear,
And she saw in the moon-light two ruffians appear,
And between them a corpse did they bear.

Then Mary could feel her heart-blood curdle cold!
Again the rough wind hurried by.
It blew off the hat of the one, and behold!
Even close to the feet of poor Mary it roll'd.
She felt, and expected to die!

"Curse the hat!" he exclaims. "Nay, come on, and first hide
The dead body," his comrade replies.
She beholds them in safety pass on by her side.
She seizes the hat, fear her courage supplied,
And fast thro' the abbey she flies.

She ran with wild speed, she rush'd in at the door,
She gazed horribly eager around;
Then her limbs could support their faint burthen no more,
And exhausted and breathless she sunk on the floor,
Unable to utter a sound.

Ere yet her pale lips could the story impart.
For a moment, the hat met her view.
Her eyes from that object convulsively start,
For—O God! What cold horror then thrill'd thro' her heart,
When the name of her Richard she knew!

Where the old abbey stands, on the common hard by,
His gibbet is now to be seen.
Not far from the road it engages the eye.
The traveller beholds it, and thinks with a sigh
Of poor Mary, the maid of the inn.