This is good one. I was watching the NCAA tourney this morning while listening to some music my brother gave me when I was in town visiting. I had a Jack Johnson song going and the I-tunes "genius" was recommending different albums, artists, etc. So I glanced at them and didn't think much more about it. Then something hits me and I look back and actually comprehend the album this is suggesting:
Funeral: Songs of Mourning
hmmmmmm. Ok, lets check this out. First song- Tears in Heaven...(no way...) up next- I'll be missing you (P diddy- this made me laugh), Landslide (fleetwood mac), Boys to Men, the freakin Titanic theme...it went on and on. As I read the rest of the songs, it hit me that these were really, really depressing songs. Any one of them by itself would be a song in a mix that would briefly calm the party down, or take a smile off your face during your forced contemplation of the big picture. However, combined together in one long depression I-tunes mix, and you have Suicide Music- music to die to. I listened to the short clips of about 8 songs, the grimace on my face growing with every passing awful note.
Seriously, who would listen to all this at once, or even worse, bring this crap to a funeral. Could you imagine? Then it got worse. I suddenly noticed that the list was only just beginning, there were two other tabs of depressing tracks. You can imagine the smile on my face as I thought of the irony of the title of the third set list of songs "Deep Cuts"...are you kidding me?
If anyone ever tried to listen to all these songs without a break they would never make it. 99% chance they would brain themselves with the nearest blunt object before the reached the last song. And waiting for the last 1% happy enough to have survived the first 66 songs (notice the irony here), is a gem titled, "holes in the floor of heaven". This isn't a nudge off of a window ledge, its a shove.
Here are the words in a thirty second clip:
there's holes in the floor of heaven....
and her tears are pouring down....
that's how you know shes watching...
wishing she could be around...
but sometimes if you re lonely...
just remember she can...(end of clip)
oops, sorry, just went and threw myself down a staircase...(in my head of course). I don't know if its a mom (probably given its a country singer) or a sister/wife/girlfriend, but the premise is that the rain falling on the person this song is being sung to, are really the tears of his dead (insert loved one here). AAAAGHHHHH!!!
67 songs...probably about 2 and a half hours of music. As a musician I can't tell you how much this disturbs me. For me, music has always been a channel to purge a bad mood, get rid of negative energy and bring myself to a place where I am able to think clearly. Seeing a list of music designed specifically to depress a person to the brink of insanity kills me. This is so not what music is about. Even the most angry, depressed heavy metal I have listened to doesn't come close to this...seriously.
Maybe I am too harsh or just set in my ways (maybe one of you would have this as your playlist in your car), but besides music of hate, this is the worst perversion of music I have seen in a long time.
Ugh...I'm gonna go listen to some Jack Johnson or better year, some Bob Marley..."Is this love? Is this love? Is this love? Is this love than I'm feeling?"
feeling better already....
BE EXCELLENT TO EACH OTHER!
2 comments:
Music is also a way for artist and listener to cope with sadness (or really any other mood).
I think it all depends on the mood you are in. I have found that depressive music actually helped me thru some of my tougher times by expressing feelings and emotions I thru music I could not create on my own. I'll always be a bigger fan of Dark The Cure vs. Light The Cure for example.
I've also had 'happy' music put me into a depressive mood due to experiences and people long ago, and vice versa.
I hear ya...sometimes its good. My point mostly was that 67 songs in a row...not good.
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