This pandemic year has left a dent in many people whose mood has worsened and that is why it is important that little by little people become aware of the need to take care of our mind.
The word “depression” is often used lightly. In social networks and even in everyday conversations it has more and more weight and it is something to be careful with and of course, the best thing is to always go to a professional.
It is a fact that more often people admit that they suffer from some type of mental disorder or that they go to the psychologist on a regular basis, something that also applies to musicians. And it is that music has always remained hand in hand with this type of problems, there are many musicians who have admitted to suffering some time from a mental health problem and to get out of it, on many occasions, they resort to music, from composing it, play it, listen to it, enjoy it live, etc.
The marketing agency Take 5 published a study 3 years ago that concluded that, in 1958, 24 of the Top 100 singles addressed mental health issues. In 2017, they were 71 songs in which this topic was mentioned.
In recent years, the rock world has mourned the passing of Chester Bennington (Linkin Park) Y Chris Cornell (Soundgarden / Audioslave), both committed suicide in 2017. And since then, quite a few musicians have spoken openly about their struggle with depression.
Over the years, many musicians have used music in a therapeutic or almost cathartic way when it comes to channeling possible “mental problems”. They are still artists who, through the creation of music, the execution of their instrument, channel everything that they may have in their head, pour all their problems onto the paper or the score, doing a kind of “self-cleaning” and somehow they end up transmitting it to those who listen to their music. This is why music works at that level both on the side of the people who listen to it and those who compose or perform it.
There are many examples of songs that treat anxiety, one of the best known is “Creep” from Radiohead. As reflected in the lyrics, the protagonist of this song suffers from a clear depression. He is in love but feels that he is not good enough to get the love of that special someone. Radiohead themselves have come to loathe their song, but fans love it.
Own Elvis presley wrote “Blue Moon”, A song that her fans dance to and enjoy whenever they hear it, but that really expresses the feeling of loneliness that a person with depression suffers from. As the lyrics say:
Blue moon
You saw me standing alone
Without a dream in my heart
Without a love of my own
Nirvana, one of the most important bands in the grunge scene, a genre that already sought empathy and disenchantment with the world, also contributed to talking about this issue in many of their songs, but in particular with “Pennyroyal Tea“, from the album ‘In the Uterus‘from 1993. His own Kurk Cobain admitted in an interview that the song spoke of a very depressed person: “He is on his deathbed”. In addition, the title of the song refers to an herb that is used for medicinal purposes and that, supposedly, induces abortion.
If we go to the harder side of rock, heavy metal has also treated mental health a lot, as they did Soundgarden and the already mentioned Chris Cornell with its theme “Fell On Black Days” from the album ‘Superunknown‘from 1994. In this song depressive episodes are narrated, where they look for a way out to overcome all that sadness, but despite everything they are unable to find a place in life where they can be happy. On Audioslave he also wrote several songs on the same topic.
I’m only faking
When I get it right
Cause I fell on
Black days
How would I know
That this could be my fate
And finally, Black Sabbath in 1981 he launched “Over and Over“, from the album ‘Mob Rules‘. It is true that it is not oriented towards suicide but it speaks very clearly of a picture of depression. And the voice of Ronnie James Dio It is unbeatable for all these types of songs.
After everything we are going through, mental health is getting closer and closer to having the prominence it deserves, after all, both physical and mental health are just as important. But we still have a lot, as a public, to understand about mental disorders. The music will always accompany us and will continue to speak of the problems that are sometimes invisible to others and that we need to express in some way.
–
