Posts tagged with "emotion"

Mellisonant Apogee

I could nev­er under­stand why some songs could make my eyes water.

  • Radiohead — Paranoid Android, with its con­tra­dic­to­ry chords
  • Thrice — Artist in the Ambulance, with its repent­ing, inspi­ra­tional move­ments
  • Dreamtheater — Disappear, as the harp leads to dis­tor­tion in a bit­ter­sweet explo­sion
  • Billy Talent — Nothing to Lose, with its heartwrench­ing cho­rus
  • Godspeed, You Black Emperor! — Hungover as the Queen in Maida Vale, right when a sin­gle vio­lin inter­rupts the ser­mon
  • No Motiv — Born Again, when the drums kick in heavy and lead the lis­ten­er to the present
  • Lovage — Anger Management, with its pin­ing soft rock melody
  • The Dears — Heartless Romantic, with its thump­ing, dis­tort­ed bass hits against the dron­ing organ synth and dual vocals
  • Elliot Smith — Waltz #2, with its steady, but heart-break­ing tone
  • Bad Astronaut — These Days, every time the effu­sive cho­rus rush­es in
  • Strung Out — Match Book, in its entire ener­getic hope­ful­ness
  • Postal Service — The Dream Of Evan And Chan, through all the open­ing lines
  • Misfits — Saturday Night, as soon as the drag­ging gui­tars kick in
  • Portishead — Undenied, with Beths frag­ile voice accom­pa­ny­ing a sim­ple, dis­tort­ed loop

For the longest time I had assumed that it was the songs them­selves, com­posed so well with so much pain, that would blur my vision. These songs were sad, and tears were the prop­er response.

Then I heard some­thing a lit­tle dif­fer­ent, some­thing that was calm­ing yet lift­ing. A dreamy song by Modest Mouse called Float On, that filled me with an inde­scrib­able sat­is­fac­tion every time I heard it. And I real­ized that all these songs, as sad as they are, were mak­ing me hap­py.

So hap­py that tears are the prop­er response.

The Differences Of Sad Songs

I have one playlist of all the sad songs in my col­lec­tion. I named it OAC because that was the year I first made the playlist (it has since come to define that time in my life), and it’s grown from 11 songs to over 50.

I late­ly find myself skip­ping songs when I lis­ten to that par­tic­u­lar playlist, and to me, the entire point of playlists is so that one does­n’t have to skip songs. I’ve start­ed to dis­tin­guish between two types of sad emo­tions, and with this dis­tinc­tion comes the sep­a­ra­tion of two types of sad songs.

There is the “true sad”, which delves into depres­sion. Songs such as Tindersticks – Trouble Every Day, or Dir En Grey – Mushi are the per­fect com­pli­ments for such a mood. Then there’s the “hurts-so-good sad”, where there’s bare­ly any sad­ness at all, but just enough to remind one­self of what one has been through and how far one has come. The ben­e­fi­cial sad­ness, which does good and not harm. The type of lin­ger­ing, resid­ual sad­ness that almost leaves one crav­ing more of the once famil­iar feel­ing. And with this beau­ti­ful emo­tion goes songs such as Bad Astronaut – These Days, Portishead – Wondering Star, Red Hot Chili Peppers – Otherside.

I need to make anoth­er playlist.

Control

With change comes the need for con­trol.

And with emo­tions run­ning through me in an almost uncon­tain­able, effu­sive man­ner, that need for con­trol has nev­er been more nec­es­sary.

Usually, this comes eas­i­ly. It feels as if I’ve been train­ing my whole life for such a thing, that I’ve spent most of my time work­ing towards becom­ing a cere­bral per­son. Except that in the past, it’s was to edul­co­rate the pain.

Now, it’s to con­trol the hap­pi­ness. The almost inef­fa­ble feel­ing of eupho­ria.

Sometimes, I can bare­ly con­tain the surge of emo­tion, and I have to stop myself from act­ing out, to keep my mind in check. I refuse to be one who acts out of emo­tion. I refuse to be one who’s at the whim of what­ev­er mood I’m in.

I will be stronger than that which has become so impor­tant to me. I will be in con­trol of that which I’ve sought so long to have.

Because bal­ance is more impor­tant than hap­pi­ness.

Charge

How odd that the themes of my writ­ings have most­ly shift­ed in one direc­tion. I always won­der what peo­ple think of what I say. I would imag­ine that peo­ple think I’m being melo­dra­mat­ic, that I’m look­ing for some sort of pro­tag­o­nis­tic pathos, or that I’m being some pre­ten­tious fuck.

It’s as if a sin­gle inci­dent has shift­ed my mind­set, that I just can’t seem to com­plete­ly get over what has passed. The hurt­ing has stopped, to be sure, but the think­ing isn’t done. I still get inspired by mem­o­ries, ideas, emo­tions, almost any­thing I’ve expe­ri­enced through this.

I was once scared that I would nev­er fall in love again, and I used to be emo­tion­al­ly numb. Perhaps all of this was sim­ply a result of a life of stag­nan­cy, of bore­dom. Now I can write again, I have things to think about, I have emo­tions to expe­ri­ence, I seem to have things to look for­ward to.

Can heart­break be so ben­e­fi­cial? I know that I can feel. I don’t need to force my artis­tic writ­ing. My mind seems to be filled with new end­less thoughts. I can even appre­ci­ate cer­tain music on anoth­er lev­el now. This com­plex­i­ty, this mys­te­ri­ous­ness is so inter­est­ing.

My only wor­ry is that this new vital­i­ty will lev­el off into noth­ing­ness.