Pages

Monday 12 December 2011

Music feeds the soul

Music is always close to me, and I have always turned to it in times of trouble. It never fails to soothe me when I am feeling stressed or worried, and it never ceases to amaze me how much of an effect music can have on one's mood and overall wellbeing.

Despite the above, I couldn't bear to listen to any music whatsoever shortly after the break-up. Even my happier moments felt so delicate that I didn't want everything to come crashing down upon hearing a painful lyric or a song with personal meaning. Instead, I drove about in my car in complete silence, not even a talky radio station in the background, went to sleep to the sound of the wind crashing about, and put the TV on as background noise to my activities rather than the radio.

Even, a little later, when I wasn't feeling as weak any more, I didn't even have any desire to listen to music. Perhaps I still felt somewhat numb; I'm not sure any art form could have moved me or pleased me at that time. Silence was just preferable.

Fortunately, that passed after a couple of weeks, and I proceeded to make up for lost time by immersing myself in a choice few albums. I always find at periods like these of great personal reflection or growth that I tend to listen to certain albums extremely frequently; often, a certain album will be the only thing I play for a week or maybe more. It is comforting to become so familiar with the album, but I also like going back to the album some time later and being reminded of my feelings and thought-processes during that time.

Here is some of the music I was listening to during my getting-better phase:


I have read reviews of this album that describe the music as being middle-of-the-road. I'm not sure I would describe it as such, but then I'm not entirely sure how accurate my descriptions of music ever are! I like the emotiveness of the first track, and I find the music throughout slightly haunting and most definitely female. That's a good thing, by the way. I like that it is so emotional, but I still found in the end a positive, strong and inspiring feeling. I listened to this album pretty much all the time for about two weeks, and I still listen to it occasionally now.

This song was all over the radio shortly before we broke up, and at first I didn't like it very much. My feelings on it were that it was a bit drone-y, too slow and not very interesting. However, it grew on me and now I like it for possibly the very qualities I disliked in it at first; although now, I would describe it as languid and slightly seductive. I won't get into a debate about Lana's authenticity, as that's been done to death all over the internet and frankly I'm not very interested in it.

This has always been a much-loved album, but I discovered new elements to it recently and got a lot more out of it. I have always had a weakness for 80's-style electro-pop and nearly all of the songs on this album are ultra-catchy. I liked it during this period for the strains of defiance running through the lyrics (particularly the lyrics to Better Than Sunday) and it definitely helped me to feel stronger and more self-assured.

Belle & Sebastian - The Life Pursuit (and other albums to varying degrees)
Belle & Sebastian is quite possibly my all-time favourite band ever, or at least in the top three (I do love making lists of my favourite things). This album never fails to cheer me up and feel a little bit more whole. It's usually the first thing I listen to whenever I'm feeling the slightest bit down, a musical cure-all. While some may consider this a bad thing, I genuinely do love the twee-ness of it all, and I like that some of the songs sound like the 70's but so much better, like without the bad clothes and haircuts.

No comments:

Post a Comment