Why You Listen to Sad Music

This week found me driving to a doctor's appointment, listening to music, when an old beloved song came up on my playlist. I found myself singing along, and then soon, tears found their way down my cheeks. I had no idea why I was crying, but my body knew. She knew that the tears needed to come with their cleansing medicine.

In the Wild Edge of Sorrow, Francis Weller tells a story about a young African woman that he met when he was visiting Burkina Faso with his friend and mentor, Malidoma Some. This young woman glowed with joy. And when he asked her about her delight, she said her secret was that she cried every day. Her tears enabled her to fully feel her joy, to take in life's beauty, even as she also honors its sorrow.

That story has stayed with me - especially when people comment on my tendency to smile. I tell them I also have a strong tendency to cry. I'm often doing one or the other!

I wrote this poem in the doctor's office, while I waited for my appointment. Many of my poems arise while I'm waiting for something else, woven into the rhythm of daily life.

The song is U2's Bad, from their album The Unforgettable Fire.

To learn more about the surprising benefits of listening to sad music. you may enjoy reading Susan Cain's beautiful book, Bittersweet, especially Chapter 2 on Sorrow and Longing.

Why You Listen to Sad Music

with thanks to U2 for the song, and to Susan Cain

Hearing the familiar chords
you're pulled in by the guitar,
open your mouth and sing along
with the lyrics as you drive.
You remember the first time
you heard this song at fourteen –
a time before you knew the ins
and outs of depression as a native tongue.
But you already knew the low ache
in your belly, the hollow you'd begun
to fill with food and shows on TV.
It was too hard to stay, to bear
the hurt by yourself, and that, you realize,
is why you find comfort in sad music,
in any music that evokes an earlier sorrow.
The song gets it, and gets you, and as you
hum along, your pain's no longer alone.
I'm with you, the chords sing, and you melt
in this understanding, relax a sigh in finally
having a companion for your pain.
Your shoulders soften, your fear softens,
your judgment softens. Sadness is not
an indictment against you, a measure of
your success or failure as a human being,
what others call heavy, or dark.
Yes, it's true, that sadness, like love,
isn't always easy to carry. It's even harder,
practically impossible, to carry alone.
You remember the time you wept
with a friend, how she said,
“Sometimes there's so much to be sad about,”
the wonder you felt at her invitation.
You feel her with you now,
singing harmony with your sadness,
cradling the hurt that rises to meet you –
the tears that can lodge in a body
for years, huddled in their neural beds
until the light of kindness finds them –
what may come in loving arms,
or a sad song – what bids them welcome
and ease, until they and you
can rest, and stay.

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With a grateful heart, Karly