I used to love Bonnie Raitt's music (when I actually listened to music while I worked). One album:
Luck of the Draw was my favorite for a while. There was the song "I can't make you love me if you don't". I played it over and over and cried myself to sleep, when a love affair went south. There was "All at once I see your face and time just disappears". It got me to a place of forgiveness and neutrality about that same affair. Music used to help me understand how I really felt about things. The lyrics could articulate in words what emotions the music moved inside me. Before CDs I'd rewind, play… rewind, play, then it got easier… set the CD player to continuous loop and play the same song over and over and over until I
was the song. Usually this was an activity I only did when I was depressed. (No need to be a song when things are going well.)
After an incredible trip to Ireland in 1998, I listened to Loreena McKennitt's
Book of Secrets. "Dante's prayer" was my favorite. I played it over and over in the background while I worked on my computer with photographs from that magic land. Eight rolls of film produced six final composites from that month of grieving. And at the time they were my best work.
Which begs the question: why does my best work always come out of despair? When I am adrift on the sea of confusion and regret I retreat into a morbid but creative space. I fantasize about my own death and imagine people being sorry I'm gone. Why is that? Beats me, but it usually works. I need to find some new music.
After an incredible trip to Ireland in 1998, I listened to Loreena McKennitt's Book of Secrets. "Dante's prayer" was my favorite. I played it over and over in the background while I worked on my computer with photographs from that magic land. Eight rolls of film produced six final composites from that month of grieving. And at the time they were my best work. 
Which begs the question: why does my best work always come out of despair? When I am adrift on the sea of confusion and regret I retreat into a morbid but creative space. I fantasize about my own death and imagine people being sorry I'm gone. Why is that? Beats me, but it usually works. I need to find some new music.
1 comment:
I've often wondered the same thing. Do you suppose that it is because we are more attuned to our emotions when we are unhappy? We tend to wallow in them. And yet it seems that emotions can lead to the greatest art. Maybe it is because we are feeling so much, so deeply.
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