What songs kept or keep YOU going in painful times in your life?
Thu, 2012-09-06 23:57
#1
What songs kept or keep YOU going in painful times in your life?
Fri, 2012-09-07 05:46
#2
Great topic, Ken, but oh so personal and painful. I'll have to reflect before I decide whether to bare my soul here. Thanks for sharing, though.
Fri, 2012-09-07 05:55
#3
ten years old...my folks had split up a couple of years earlier...a short, fat kid with glasses who couldn't play sports worth a damn...could barely run and bounce a ball at the same time...treated as you'd expect someone like that would be treated by other kids...and I went to a movie theatre and heard Gene Wilder sing this...it helped me carry on...it said "there's hope...life can be better...the world can be better...you can heal and you can help others heal as well". A lot of people from my generation could probably say that about this song...forty years later, it still helps on a bad day.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lX4tOsQnZTQ
Come with me and you'll be
In a world of pure imagination
Take a look and you'll see
Into your imagination
We'll begin with a spin
Trav'ling in the world of my creation
What we'll see will defy
Explanation
If you want to view paradise
Simply look around and view it
Anything you want to, do it
Want to change the world, there's nothing to it
There is no life I know
To compare with pure imagination
Living there, you'll be free
If you truly wish to be
If you want to view paradise
Simply look around and view it
Anything you want to, do it
Want to change the world, there's nothing to it
There is no life I know
To compare with pure imagination
Living there, you'll be free
If you truly wish to be
Fri, 2012-09-07 06:00
#4
I suppose the idea I had was that, through sharing the music, people could also share the healing.
There was another song by the Nicaraguan group Guardabarranco(named for that country's national bird), about one of the saddest possible things you could think of...a bunch of schoolchildren dying in a bus crash. But in that song, there was this incredible line(translated, of courset) "It takes one small sadness to see the beauty of the world".
Posting things like the song and memories I posted above are just part of the way I process the pain that comes with normal life. I felt kind of lifted and freed in writing what I wrote there.
Thanks for your post, U.
Fri, 2012-09-07 06:27
#5
For me, it varies. Sometimes I want music to match my mood. Other times I want music that will maybe alter my mood and drag me into a better place. It also depends on what type of pain.
A wistful sadness will make me reach for the music of my high school years - Alice In Chain's [url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TYe_No2xr7A]Dirt[/url], Juliana Hatfield's [url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gj9aOZ5DtnA]The Lights[/url], Dinosaur Jr's [url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iI53ZjHnO2g]Feel the Pain[/url], The Lemonheads' [url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=40D9iqrfk2I]My Drug Buddy[/url], or Yo La Tengo's [url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hFb1sJ9dW34]Flying Lesson[/url].
If it's not particularly wistful, but some other variety, than I'll cue up Cat Power's [url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U3XmDc9WZSo]Metal Heart[/url], Johnny Cash's cover of [url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3aF9AJm0RFc]Hurt[/url], Portishead's [url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Y26KpgZknY]It's A Fire[/url], Sebadoh's [url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lv8WEPPB21c]Think (Let Tomorrow Bee)[/url], Uncle Tupelo's [url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_uZQo3mtnBk]Whiskey Bottle[/url], or anything off The Sadies' [i]Darker Circles[/i] album.
On those rare occasions when I actually want a pick-me-up, I might throw on The Go! Team's [url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dqrAwbz5l9o]Buy Nothing Day[/url] (or pretty much anything by them), The Polyphonic Spree's [url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t6iCkzBoJ-E]Two Thousand Places[/url], Guided By Voices' [url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eSd-80X-GEo]Over The Neptune/Mesh Gear Fox[/url], or Broken Social Scene's [url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q6faXT9ebzA]Superconnected[/url].
Fri, 2012-09-07 16:55
#6
Depends on my mood but 'Crying' by Roy Orbison or any ballad by Chris De Burgh
Lightning Crashes by Live
Moonlight and Vodka by Chris deburgh
Im counting on you by chris deburgh
Tue, 2012-09-11 16:13
#7
I've always been a fan a well told musical story. Both melodically and lyrically. But, relating to the OP, I'd always liked classical music specifically because it has allowed me to involve my own interprets of "the story". I'm by no means a classial music-first fan though. And I very much prefer listening to alternative styles of rock over anything else. But what I'd found inspiring about classical is that it allows me to more freely explore my own emotions. In classical, there's no lyrics to really guide you through a particular story. If I've every been needing clarity, to reconcile, and make peace with an emotion, classical music has, most times, facilitated that for me. I'm very thankful to classical music for helping me in that respect.
I love any music that has multiple melodic layers, or a complex balance of themes, or a well placed cheeky understatement. There are times when one has to revisit (release) a lot of emotions in order to figure out where one need's to be. Classical music just happens to be the most accessible for me in that respect. I don't think there's too many things more helpful than figuring one's self out. But if I'm just looking for a more of a distraction from things, I might listen to somthing like an Electralane's Invisible Dog.
Tue, 2012-09-11 17:52
#8
Boom Boom
Jumping Jack Flash is my all time favourite feel-good song. In fact, anytime I feel down on my luck, I put on the Stones, and I'm better again.
Tue, 2012-09-11 18:08
#9
My earworm is the intro to Creeping Death.
Tue, 2012-09-11 18:13
#10
In fact, anytime I feel down on my luck, I put on the Stones, and I'm better again.
Not Gimme Shelter, surely. Or Sympathy for the Devil. Or Satisfaction. Or Ruby Tuesday. Or... Buncha downers!
But still wonderful.
Tue, 2012-09-11 18:23
#11
Boom Boom
U, dear friend, I love all that stuff when I'm down and out, played loud through my big 1990s music system. I'm normally a very reserved, proper person, but when I hear Jumping Jack Flash or Honky Tonk Woman, all I wanna do is get my ya yas out.
Tue, 2012-09-11 20:46
#12
knownothing
My dad just passed away and my uncle sang this song about 5 times over the course of the week.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yCm83w1dAPE&feature=related
Nobody sings it as good as my uncle though
and this scene and this song
Tue, 2012-09-11 23:08
#13
Anything by Jackson Browne.
Tue, 2012-09-11 23:21
#14
The album that really got me lately is the debut album of a band called We Are Augustines. The album is called "Rise Ye Sunken Ships". It's absolutely heartbreaking in that it tells teh story of the singer's brother, who suffered from mental illness and ended up committing suicide while in prison but there's a lot of hope in it as well. I really can't recommend it enough. Here's a cool intro video for the band: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xcgw8SG6jCo
Also, "In the Aeroplane Over the Sea" by Neutral Milk Hotel, my all time favourite album
Wed, 2012-09-12 00:05
#15
Catchfire
Great thread!
Also, "In the Aeroplane Over the Sea" by Neutral Milk Hotel, my all time favourite album
Yep.
As an employee of rabble.ca for over two years, it's been awhile since I've experienced pain, since I live my days in a utopian daze of satisfaction, fulfillment and bliss; but in the old days, I got through hard times with Mazzy Star, Spiritualized and their precedent, Spaceman 3, Verve, The Jesus and Mary Chain, Belle and Sebastian and, of course, The Velvet Underground.
Oh, and others.
Wed, 2012-09-12 00:16
#16
laine lowe
As an angry and depressed teen, I loved this song:
[url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XkLI121OBms]Behind Blue Eyes[/url]
Wed, 2012-09-12 00:29
#17
As an employee of rabble.ca for over two years, it's been awhile since I've experienced pain, since I live my days in a utopian daze of satisfaction, fulfillment and bliss; but in the old days, I got through hard times with Mazzy Star, Spiritualized and their precedent, Spaceman 3, Verve, The Jesus and Mary Chain, Belle and Sebastian and, of course, The Velvet Underground.
Good list. At my wedding, my wife gave all of our guests a CD with the songs that mean the most to us and the tracks you listed by Mazzy Star and Jesus and Mary Chain were both on it. Along with the Dinosaur Jr. cover of The Cure's "Just Like Heaven", which we coniser "our song"
Wed, 2012-09-12 00:29
#18
Catchfire
laine: I have been playing Who's Next for my 13-month old son regularly for weeks.
Wed, 2012-09-12 00:56
#19
As an employee of rabble.ca for over two years, it's been awhile since I've experienced pain, since I live my days in a utopian daze of satisfaction, fulfillment and bliss
Haha!
Wed, 2012-09-12 01:10
#20
laine lowe
Catchfire, that is such an excellent album. Your baby will be infused with righteous indignation and a will to fight injustice imho :-)
I was thinking of my go to songs when i was depressed in the 80s and the first two that came to mind were:
[url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wp43OdtAAkM]Running up that hill[/url]
and
[url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XAj-yISMpfk&feature=related]Jokerman[/url]
Strange that I was so drawn to songs with overt religious references. The Dylan song was spun on my turntable so many times that the upstair neighbour opened up his door and screamed out: "play it one more time asshole". LOL.
Two more honourable mentions in my make me feel better song collection of that era were:
[url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vgf4aW9Vqcg]Ain't Life a Brook[/url]
[url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bVUHWFY0w1Y&playnext=1&list=PL98060693191... of Shelley's Blues[/url]
Thank you Ken for starting this thread. It's a very cathartic exercise. Reminds me of how healing music can be.
Wed, 2012-09-12 08:31
#21
In my late teens I liked Billy Joel's song Vienna. As an adult, I have loved Simon and Garfunkel's El Condor Pasa.