Everyone has addictions. You might be addicted to sugar, chocolate, alcohol, a certain TV show, sex, or drugs. I’m addicted to intense emotional states, especially that feeling that wavers between intense joy and tears of angst.
This feeling may be what Tim Buckley had in mind when he named one of his albums "Happy Sad." The French have a word for it, too: chantepleure which is normally translated as “laughing and crying/singing at the same time” or “alternation of joy and sorrow”
What better way to get into an intense emotional state than to listen to music? But everyone experiences music a bit differently and it is a very personal thing. What makes me pleasurably melancholy might put you to sleep, and what fills me with joyful anxiety might give you a headache.
Nevertheless, here are some songs that I think provide a good example of ecstatic angst:
Antony & the Johnsons: “Bird Gerhl” “Man is the Baby”
Bright Eyes: “The Difference in the Shades” “Kathy with a K’s Song.”
The Popular Front: “State to State”
Harold Budd with Liz Fraser, Simon Raymonde and Robin Guthrie: “Why Do You Love Me?”
Sugarcubes: the chorus of “Birthday”
Nick Drake: “Fly”
Jimmy Scott: “Day by Day”
Dead Can Dance: “Sanvaen” “Avatar” and the string outro in “Mesmerism”
Richard Strauss: “”Metamorphosen for 23 Strings.”
Sigur Rós: The majority of their catalogue, but “Gong” and the crescendo in “Viðrar vel til loftárása” stand out to me as good examples.
(Now if there was an easy way to share this playlist with you I would, but I’m not really into the idea of creating a MySpace page.)
Do you have an intensely emotional or "happy sad" song to share?
No comments:
Post a Comment