Music is Hope

[sorcyress]

Y'all miss me? I was looking back over my archive and realized I've made painfully few posts this month. This is a damn shame, and I'm gonna see what I can do about fixing it a bit.

'Cause what doesn't kill me, doesn't kill me, so fill me up for just another day!

I don't like depressing music.

This might surprise a lot of you, who I'm sure have observed the lyrics I post and tweet with a skeptical eye. How is "freedom is being alone, I fear liberation" not depressing, for instance. And do you really expect us to think you don't like depressing music given how often you use music to sob?

I do use music to sob. I use music to sob out the last of the pain and force it away from my head so I'm empty. It's a hell of a lot easier to reach stability from empty than from anywhere else. Music doesn't make me sad. It makes me stable.

And so the music I really like, when I'm in one of Those Moods? It's not sad music. I skip the slit-your-wrists emo and goth in exhange for music that puts me into an entirely different mood.

I like music that makes me hopeful. "Go Away Godboy" is a song about telling the bad things to sod off. "Oasis"¹ is about how much life sucks, so might as well dwell on the positive. "Whatever You Want" is a song of taking power back.

And Next to Normal?

Every song I regularly listen to out of Next to Normal is a hopeful song. The whole musical is tinted by the pain and frustration and misery exhibited by every member of the family. And the songs I like? Are about fighting back, against your family, against your insanity, against your fear, and against your whole damn potential of inexistence.

This is music that goes straight past eleven into the category of howling along at the top of my lungs, and laughing maniacally as I do so. In chronological order, "Just Another Day", "Everything Else", "You Don't Know", "I Am The One", "I'm Alive", "I've Been", "Didn't I See This Movie?"², "I'm Alive (reprise)" "The Break", "Maybe (Next to Normal)", "I Am The One (reprise)", and "Light" are all songs I can no longer listen to at a normal volume, because they are just so good at drowning out my internal monologue when sung along with.

It's not all the songs from the show that I have starred, but it's all the ones I have starred for a reason other than just being clever with the lyrics or musically fun. And you have no idea how hard it is not to toss in lyrics from every song I mentioned. No idea, because this musical is Just That Good.

So no, I don't listen to sad music. Why bother? Sad music would just reinforce the mood. I don't want to reinforce moods when I fight bottom. I want to break them.

And you find some way to survive. And you find out you don't have to be happy at all, to be happy you're alive.

~Sor
MOOP!

1: (pre-note: Do not be with the Amanda wank in my comments. I'm still not sure I'm recovered from the last batch. There are plenty of other places to discuss her and the issues surrounding her right now.) It does not matter what else wank Amanda brings to the world, for this song, I will always have at least a little bit of respect for her. Hell, if she gets bad enough, I will rerecord this song myself, because it is a perfect microcosm of how I feel about all the doom and gloom in my world.

After all, I've seen better days but I don't care, oh I just got a letter in the mail, Oasis sent a photograph, it's autographed and everything, Melissa's gonna wet herself I *swear!*

(I really really like faking it like a giggly giddy typical teen girl. I have scared people with my like totally valley cheerleader voice OMG! It pleases me that Amanda does this at least a little bit too --hide the pain behind enough snark, and maybe people will never realize you're in pain in the first place.)

2: Curses, I missed a chance to quote swatches of this one in every day conversation. Yes, because sometimes my life is just that fantastic and weird.

Comments

[harena.livejournal.com]

i think i need to hear those songs (except Oasis which i have heard... linked to me by either you or probly Swinger) especially Go Away Godboy and ye gods that Next to Normal sounds parallel to my Life in a nutshell musical ;P

i do listen to sad songs because it helps me vent but i have noticed my sad songs tend to have a wistful/hopeful bent to them, hence my Hopeful Wistful CD.. things like Shangri-La by ELO what starts off with "So Sad; I'm getting out of love" and ends with a brilliant orchestral bit (which W keeps saying she needs to tell you about for your Songs That One Wouldn't Think Of For Cranking To 11 List) and "I will return... to Shangri-La"

And of course, my current favorite Hopeful song of all is OK Go's Let it Go... Rube Goldberg machine and all ^_^

[woozle.livejournal.com]

I'm wondering if a distinction should be drawn between

{music I like to turn up loud which isn't traditionally turned up loud}

and

{music which has a lot of emotion and sonic detail and hence sounds/feels good turned up loud but might do even better listened to in headphones (preferably loud) but which isn't traditionally considered "headphone music" (or "turn up loud" music)}.

I seem to have more of the latter, so for now I'm combining them so I don't end up with one really long set and one kind of lame set... but I could be persuaded to keep them separate.

[sparr0.livejournal.com]

to-do: prevent Sor from posting to LJ for 7 days straight

[kdsorceress.livejournal.com]

Oh yes? And just how would...um...

'kay, my mind is far too creative to even finish that sentence. I'll be over there now, uh, sorting my brain out. Yeah.

~Sor

[macaroniandtuna.livejournal.com]

Personally, I like sad or angry or whatever music when I'm in a funk. Sometimes you just have to wallow for a while, let it stew a bit before it's ready to leave.