Mixing Music with Depression can be Dangerous
Hey, I even have a playlist
When talking about depression and coping, someone will often bring music into the conversation. Everyone knows music offers the potential to soothe a weary or sad soul.
Yet, music also has the power to worsen mental illness, as well. In this discussion of music and its relationship to depression, I want to start with an author-created playlist.
The following is unlikely to raise a person out of the depths of sadness. However, I have created what I think is a sadness-free playlist for anyone who is suffering with serious despair (more on the specifics a bit later).
We shall explore how we, as in those of us who wage ongoing war with mental disorders or diseases, must be careful not to allow art to make us feel worse. For me at least, it is a very easy pitfall I must work hard to avoid.
Here is a playlist. I am not up-to-date on new music and never have been, by the way.
Iggy Pop — Lust for Life
Langhorne Slim — The Way We Move
J.D. McPherson — Wolf Teeth
The Squirrel Nut Zippers — The Suits are Picking Up the Bill
Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros — I Don’t Wanna Pray
Stevie Wonder — Higher Ground
Led Zeppelin — Dancing Days
The Black Crowes — Soul Singing
The Black Keys — The Baddest Man Alive
Dire Straits — Walk of Life
John Lennon-Instant Karma
White Stripes — The Denial Twist
Creedence Clearwater Revival — Don’t Look Now or Lookin Out My Back Door
Jimi Hendrix — Highway Chile
Gary Clark Jr. — Don’t Owe You a Thang
The Blues Brothers — Soul Man
Robert Randolph and the Family Band — Ain’t Nothing Wrong with That
J. Roddy Walston and the Business — Pigs and Pearls
Alabama Shakes — Always Alright
Slash and Chris Stapleton — Oh Well
In my daily life I spend lots of time around my peers with mental health challenges. We talk about music sometimes, and there is always one or more who speaks up with “when I feel down, I go to my music and escape the doldrums.”
There is nothing wrong with that, of course.
Still, I am reluctant to prescribe myself the same medicine. At least, I know I must be careful.
For many of us, art in every form has enough force to seriously impact the heart in ways that are not wholly under our control. Songs have almost supernatural abilities to motivate and captivate. This is why music has always been part of religious ceremonies.
To stir people into frenzied activity, or to induce them to act together in mass worship, music is like a magic spell.
This is true for the simplest drum beats to the most complex symphonies. Oh yeah, and Rock and Roll is in there too somewhere.
About two or three generations back, many Americans railed against Rock and Roll for its nefarious influence on young people. You probably know something about that story.
Conservative types intervened when the music reached the mainstream, and argued that it encouraged criminal and immoral behaviors. Rock and Roll was anti-establishment, anti-religious, and fomented youthful rebellion against parents.
Also, the music indicated that the races could and should party together — which was too much for some.
Now, we view early Rock and Roll as tame and not the least bit revolutionary. The 1950s and 1960s songs do not compare with the explicit lyrics of today, as we all recognize.
This little historical overview is placed here to highlight the force of music. I use that word on purpose, because force summons thoughts of things unstoppable. Religion has force, and so does depression.
I sense the need to add a little more. My aim is not to say that music is powerful in the same way that a bumper sticker, t-shirt, or an introduction to a middle-school essay expresses it.
No. It is primal like love and hate, and anyone who feels the soul of music understands. Well, I hope so.
Again I might be on the outside looking-in as to how the so called normal people see things. I mean, “happy music” makes most people happy, and there is no more that needs to be said.
Well, this is not the situation with everyone, including your author.
Great lyrics can force a person to recall lingering heartaches or transport that person right back to a traumatizing state or time. Or, more often, words intended in one way strike someone’s heart in a manner uniquely theirs and inaugurates a flood of memories of all kinds.
As the rain pours, great moments of contentment or even joy mix with other thoughts about being hurt that time or of an individual no longer in the picture.
It starts to get very messy. I cannot compartmentalize pain and good memories separately without incredible feats of mental strength. Sometimes, I am too weak.
Great musicians combine the extreme emotions. It must be this way. Every idyllic peace is interrupted, and all good times end.
To a depressed person, joy and excitement are empty. “Seize the day” lyrics or slogans mock us, just as do some people who offer us some version of “cheer up and think positive.”
Some music might be considered neutral. In other words, these are songs that do not invite us to dwell on either the positive or negative. But I still must be careful.
Music is wonderfully individualized without the artist even trying to make it so. I guess I am mostly stating one piece of music means a great deal to me, or perhaps has a line or two of enormous force, while that same piece leaves someone else unaffected.
There is more that must be written that I sincerely hope others relate to.
The saddest music in the world is not “sad music.” When Adele burst into our consciousness, folks rightly categorized those now-classic songs as sorrowful. That music is difficult to experience (in a grand way) for the highly-sensitives and perhaps others. I cannot say for sure.
Adele (just an example here among several) sings mournfully, has soul, and can make my eyes moist most of the time. Yet, her music is not what I would call depressing.
With that in mind, let us think about an opposing example in order to illustrate a major point. Soulless art does not touch any exposed nerves at all, and the following is the real important thing to know — this includes music that some authority judges as sad, heartbreaking, and such.
Music served to me as art to cry over has little impact at all. There are no tears, no intensity, and no strong emotions that make me close my eyes and exist out of time.
The actual depressing aspect about this music is that it is emblematic of a mass-production, bottom-line-oriented society that has lost its way. I speak of people and things, organizations and corporations, that have long-ago disconnected from the raw sources of true emotions.
These people and things will implore you to accept huge loads of the mediocre as good or better than the honest output of artists’ soulful and original creations (such as writing…).
I do not like being manipulated and will not buy into the dishonesty that substitutes a poor imitation for the real thing.
So, what is actually sad music in this author’s estimation? That is tricky, and I can give you no specific genre or theme to light your way toward understanding (assuming anyone cares).
It can be just one line, or anything really. Paul Simon’s Graceland is upbeat, playful, and not depressing by anyone’s standards.
It has that one string of words, though. I know where it comes in the song, everytime it is played. He sings, “losing love is like a window in your heart, everybody sees you’re blown apart, everybody sees the wind blow…”
Marriage, failure, depression, heartache, regret, and loneliness; the magic of the lyric takes me back and makes me sit uncomfortably in these former woundings. Some things are never past, though, and are just waiting around on us to realize that fact.
I am on my guard when it comes to music and, in general, the better the music the higher the potential to swing my mood in an unwanted direction.
Now, back to the playlist for a second. Admittedly, I could have spent hours on it, but my depression or maybe everything has left me with low energy as of late.
The purpose is to provide those sensitive souls with depression, or not, some minutes of sadness-free listening. My choices also are upbeat, spirited, and a little defiant in the way that makes me feel better.
If you disagree or have other songs you think should be part of the anti-depression playlist, let me know. It would be neat if people participated and the list became large and very good. Why not post suggestions in the comments? If my list is terrible let me know that too.
Don't worry be happy.