Sad songs

Genevieve's picture

Why do we find beauty in melancholy? Why do we love sad songs?

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antisocial's picture

I believe it is a carthartic

I believe it is a carthartic release of tension. Not disimilar to crying. Barf!

Meg Lee Chin's picture

Yes.

Yes, but I also think sadness is attractive. We are attracted toward balance in life. In other words we are attracted to being both happy and sad. :D ;) :)

We think we only want happy, but our actions show otherwise. We could not know happiness wihtout the sad. So we seek sadness in order to experience happiness.

In other words, human beings do not have "perfect pitch" when it comes to emotions. We need relativity to be able to differentiate, just as the majority of people cannot differentiate "middle c" unless they hear, d,e,f,g,a,b

Oh, and all the sharps and microtonals too!

I think, many people are

I think, many people are complex, little-understood mixtures of melancholy and 'happiness' - and far more, besides. I know that in myself, much of the melancholy is deep and hard to grasp, both in the understanding and in its immediacy. Works of art can give a concrete form to this melancholy - and even where they don't contribute to its elucidation, the instantiation in a unified object, external to us, holds the melancholy outside of us for a time and makes its existence perfect, as something achieved and finished, in a way which appears to need no justification.

There is also the point, to which I'm sympathetic, that an achieved expression of melancholy in art gives a sense of (not necessarily shows the fact of) unity - that we're not alone in our melancholy because someone else has lived it and been able to depict it; in the fact of depiction or expression, there's also the hope that our melancholy won't stifle, but can be productive.

luminous beam's picture

soothes/suits our moods

for me personally, i feel i am an idealistic type person. but along with idealism comes high hopes and expectations, and realisticly, not everything is as i hoped it would be in regards to things, situations and people...and that can hurt. music can either help me cope and deal with how i feel while allowing me to feel sad (by listening to those sad and melancholy songs), to cheer up (by listening to happy music) or tough it out (by listening to heavy music).

refusenik's picture

Dave Carter's songs

This is somewhat off topic, but since we are discussing songs/music;
Did anyone out there ever hear any of the late, great Dave Carter's compositions?? He actually penned MANY "sad songs", albeit NEVER shallow or inane/sappy (listen to "Gypsy Rose" as sung by his former partner Tracy Grammer).

But the song from that same album (Flower Of Avalon), "Mother I Climbed" could very well be a theme song/anthem for atheists/humanists/etc. (maybe even agnostics) everywhere.

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