I'm in a strange mood tonight, likely influenced by lack of sleep and natural sleep supplements and a pair of replacement iPod headphones piping in the music I'd hoped would help me drift off, to no avail so far.
I have loved music as long as I've been hearing it, which likely began while I was still in the womb. I was steeped in it, raised to adore it, I learned to breathe it in.
Now, I am no particular scholar of musical theory, I have only a very rudimentary ability to read it in sheet form, and while I love singing above many, many other hobbies, I've existed in the midst of several people who do it significantly better than I do (though when that twit at the TAC office told me she was trying out for American Idol, I think I actually sneered at her. She was fucking awful. And she liked country music, which I can never understand). And I'm fine with that.
But I was discussing this with Oz the other day, and I thought it'd be interesting to rant about in my current state. I've noticed that there is a particular type of song which always seems to affect me, regardless of the mood I was in when I started listening to it. This type of song is melancholy and brooding, and its dark, sweet tone overrides the often truly disturbing lyrics, until you find yourself muttering them later under your breath, and someone looks at you like they suspect you have a bomb strapped under your clothes.
Okay, that might be a bit exaggerated.
There are a couple of songs in particular which come to mind immediately when I consider this phenomenon. The first is the very widely known and redone "Mad World," in which the melodious combination of keyboard and violin disguise the sadly honest chorus line, "I find it kind of funny, I find it kind of sad/The dreams in which I'm dying are the best I've ever had." I suppose we could get philosophical and side with some of the big names in claiming that we're all dying slowly every day, in which case this line takes on a brand new meaning. However, at face value (without this theory staring us in the face, that is), set in the already calm and melancholy song, the line takes on a kind of depressing tone I can't seem to get over, despite the fact that the song may very well be overdone to death. Especially when you notice some of the other lines in the song, such as "children waiting for the day they'll feel good/ Happy Birthday/ Happy Birthday..."
The other which immediately springs to my mind is the Postal Service's sweet and dreamy "Sleeping In." This song always calms me in an almost unnatural-seeming way. "Last week I had the strangest dream/ Where everything was exactly how it seemed/ where there was never any mystery/ Of who shot John F. Kennedy/ It was just a man with something to prove/ Slightly bored and severely confused, he/ steadied his rifle with his target in the center/ And became famous on that day in November." The sentiment, to me, is honest and desirable, until you stop to consider the very callous manner of the discussion of the assassination. It rings somewhat of the "sacrifice a few to save many" mentality, and presents it in what I find to be an exceptionally convincing voice, at least until the song is over.
Do you know what I mean? You ever find anything like this? Comment and/or link below.
Btw, here is a startlingly wonderful cover of "Mad World" by one of my favorite bands, The Dresden Dolls, and the lead singer of The Red Paintings: Mad World
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