After a break up, I found myself afraid to be alone, because it left me with my feelings. I didn’t want to feel my feelings. I was scared of them. Maybe because I couldn’t control them. And yet, they stubbornly refused to go away. Like a pulled muscle, they stabbed me in the side at odd turns. When I made a mistake at work, when a friend took too long to reply to my message, when I saw a happy couple holding hands — sadness, loneliness, hopelessness. Ouch. Journaling helped, but I didn’t always have the motivation. Sometimes words just seemed insufficient. I wanted to feel understood without saying a thing.
One day, I asked a female friend what she did when she was sad. I knew the answer before she even said it. A lot of people,
particularly women, watch sad movies to feel happier. It’s a well-studied paradox and one that’s been covered when it comes to films and fiction. Hearing other people’s sadness can be a kind of catharsis. As a teenager, I would turn up my nose at the thought of watching a soppy chick-flick, but now, as an adult, I was beginning to see the appeal. Like a pulled muscle, I needed to stimulate blood flow if the hurt was going to pass. If I was going to stop being sad, I needed to start feeling it first.
Why We Love Moody Music
Many of our favourite songs are sad. Heartbreak, loss, rejection — go back to any year in the last 50 and it’ll be in the top ten. Prince’s Purple Rain. Gotye & Kimbra’s Somebody That I Used to Know. Jimmy Ruffin’s What Becomes of the Broken Hearted. Every blues song ever written. Pain and art go hand in hand. To answer why, I’d encourage you to think back to your teenage self.
I have a close friend who works as a music therapist. When struggling to engage a young student, he’ll often ask them what music they like. Then — in a genius move — he’ll ask why. How often do you question why you like what you like? You just like it. But pull that thread and you might find out something interesting.
In my teens, I was big on metal. Screaming, shredding guitar and double-pedal drums was how I wound down. Thanks to a CD alarm clock, it was literally the music I woke up to. Why? Because I felt angry, confused and misunderstood and metal mirrored that. Research suggests that listening to angry music can alleviate those difficult feelings. All I knew was that it felt good. It gave my feeling shape and form, helping me to expend the emotion without exploding.
Another genre I loved was hip-hop. Now, what are some of the main underlying messages of hip-hop? You doubted me and now look at me. I don’t need you or anybody. I’m not afraid. Cross my line and you’ll regret it. Is it any surprise hip-hop quickly became one of the most successful genres of music? Plenty of times, I’d felt doubted, stepped on and sidelined. Hip-hop had my back when it was against the wall.
Later, I found myself more drawn to funk. That might seem a far cry from metal, but both are heavy and moody. Difference is: funk lifts you. It’s party music. I used it to raise my spirits and hang up my hang ups (see Herbie Hancock’s Hang Up Your Hang Ups). I would still find myself going back to metal when my mood called for it, but it never scratched the itch of funk, nor could funk answer the call of metal.
Using Music to Manage Your Mood
Sometimes I don’t know how I’m feeling until I hear a song that says it for me. Sometimes a song comes close, but misses the mark slightly, so I fast-forward, skip, and search until at last I connect and save for later. What I now have, and I would encourage you to create, is a playlist for every mood. You can break it down to MAD, BAD, SAD and GLAD. Like an emotional compass, they can help you navigate closer to how you are feeling. Every song is different, just like every emotional experience, and you may find a few that relate in a given moment or just one. This process of listening, feeling and searching, I have found to be very therapeutic, especially when words don’t come easy.
On many music platforms, you can search by emotion. Some even offer pre-made compilations of your favourite songs within each.
Here are some examples from my playlists:
MAD
- Duality – Slipknot
- The Blacker the Berry – Kendrick Lamar
- Killing in the Name – Rage Against the Machine
- You Oughta Know – Alanis Morissette
- 212 – Azealia Banks
BAD
- Let It Be – The Beatles
- Hide and Seek – Imogen Heap
- How Can I Make it OK? – Wolf Alice
- The Weight – The Band
- Fast Car – Tracy Chapman
SAD
- Sometimes it Snows in April – Prince
- Millionaire – Kelis ft. Andre 3000
- Hallelujah – Jeff Buckley
- Lights Out, Words Gone – Bombay Bicycle Club
- Somebody That Used To Know – Gotye ft. Kimbra
GLAD
- Give it Up – KC and the Sunshine Band
- Take The Time, Do It Right – The SOS Band
- I Wish – Stevie Wonder
- Thinking Of You – Sister Sledge
- December, 1963 (Oh What a Night!) – Frankie Valli & the Four Seasons
Why not try it for yourself? Turn your phone into an empathic companion, getting where you’re coming from with just a few taps. Tune into your feelings so you can tune them out. See the rhythm in every experience — MAD, BAD, SAD or GLAD.