My Playlist #413: What music teaches about grief.

L'Empire des lumières is a series of paintings made by the Belgian artist René Magritte. Despite disagreements, there is relative consensus among those who analyze art that Magritte intended to discuss dreaming with this work. A beautiful detail about surrealist works such as the one above is that they can have really whatever meaning the interpreter decides. In my interpretation, I see two paths and a choice between how we try to restore balance after loss.

On their own, words carry messages, and sounds create reactions; together, music echoes emotions. To reflect, I often use music as an echo chamber of emotions and thoughts, and it’s always helped me identify exactly what I am feeling. A while ago, I opened Spotify and created a playlist with six songs I often listened to after loss. I never bothered to name it, so the platform automatically titled it “My playlist #413.” I listened to these songs after all kinds of losses. The loss of an anchor when someone we’re attached to departs our world. The loss of confidence after enduring defeat. The loss of trust when someone close to us changes for the worse. The loss of hope in a dark time. All of these losses occur often and on different scales, but no matter what, the six songs always give me an answer to a question that follows loss.

Why should we grieve over seeking revenge?

I'm Not Them

Them & I

“If I could waste another life, I'd give my all and do you right”

In my experience, people can find ways to blame themselves for anything. Even if a traumatic event isn’t your fault, it feels natural to take blame. We ask ourselves, 

“Why didn’t I tell them this?”

“What if I acted differently there?”

“How did I let this happen?”

And we tell ourselves, 

“I treated them poorly.”

“I didn’t have the courage.”

“It was my fault.”

I think I’m Not Them shows this feeling clearly with its questions and voiced regrets, and listening to it made me realize that it’s important to make peace with the fact the world takes away things we can’t let go of. Carrying frustration towards ourselves doesn’t fill any hole, but it causes us to tear ourselves further apart. Yet it feels right because accepting that no matter what we do, bad things will still happen feels like taking the hope out of life. I think that if we hope, there is a better world waiting for us.

Futura Free

Frank Ocean

For an album that has made many people cry from sadness, Blonde by Frank Ocean has a surprisingly upbeat and hopeful ending. The song talks about positive changes within the areas of struggle in Frank’s life. The upbeat instrumental and lyrics about his progress carry a message about grieving. There is nothing we can un-lose, but we still stand to gain enough where we can rebuild ourselves to be whole again. Allowing the hope that it will get better to exist is vital in completing grief, and the song is a great example that there is a better end waiting somewhere; even in moments that everyone perceives as deep struggle.

Cool

Daniel Caesar

It comes from a kind place to offer support to someone who has recently suffered a large loss, but I think it’s more important to imagine the perspective of someone who has more eyes on them than they are comfortable with after they just lost a shade of their world view. Like most people, I hate being pitied, so when there are eyes of pity looking at me, I try to act normal. There is a disconnect of acting alright when you aren’t, which comes with a recurring sinking feeling. I think Cool captures this feeling perfectly with the contradiction of its emotional strings and calming lyrics. Daniel Caesar shows how hard it is to deal with sadness on your own, so I think we shouldn’t. We can’t handle letting everyone in, but just leaning on a few people makes it much more feasible to carry a burden. Even if sometimes we sting them a bit in the process.

Fake Plastic Trees

Radiohead

“It wears me out”

When someone is burdened by loss, it is only natural that they’re slowed down. I’ve found that the frustration that comes with not being where you want is overwhelming while grieving. For me, the climax of Fake Plastic Trees simulates this perfectly when Thom Yorke raises his voice as the instrumental grows louder, and I’m dealt emotions that are difficult to handle. I’ve learned from this song, along with outbursts of emotion, that it’s not a bad thing to let out anger when frustration is overbearing, but it is bad to hate yourself for being angry while not learning anything from it. The passion in Fake Plastic Trees and anger within grieving are similarly beautiful because they show that even when we are not complete, we still have the raw passion that defines us.

Svefn-g-englar

Sigur Rós

I can’t understand what Sigur Rós is saying in their song because I don’t speak Icelandic, but I do understand the song makes me feel an intense numbness. It is fitting that Svefn-g-englar is the longest song in the playlist because starting to face the emotions paired with loss is one of the most drawn out parts of grieving. I think our brains find it hard to move forward and face emotions after loss because it feels like we don’t have the strength to hold up with part of us already missing. It takes a long time to build back enough emotional ground to stand strong and face the emotions of grief, and what Svefn-g-englar taught me is that if we have direction, if we know that each day is another day to rebuild. I like to think the song consists of howls for guidance, but even when we find guidance, grieving still takes a long time.

Rain Song

Emile Mosseri

Minari is one of my favorite films, and within it there is a song that calmly pleads for rain to bless a farm. The beautiful, mellow nature of Rain Song taught me what I needed to know about patience within grief.

“Sing softly in the calm, safely in my arms, waiting for the rain” (translated from Korean).

When you are waiting to fully move past the pain of loss, there is obviously frustration involved, but I’ve found that having a mindset where you can appreciate the wins of the journey to moving on makes it a lot easier to live while grieving. It is easier said than done, but having the calm, subtle, and beautiful moments like those described within the Rain Song make it feasible.

We’re all people with complex problems in a world that optimizes simple answers. As I see it, grief and revenge are both natural ways of restoring balance after loss. With revenge, the aim is to create balance by taking from others or trying to forcefully insert something that doesn’t fit into the hole created by loss. By all means, Revenge is a simple attempt at closure with many glaring flaws. After a life altering loss, people who decide to live with vengeance always have less than they did before; while people who grieve eventually rebuild themselves to where they were before and then even stronger. Grief is complex and difficult, so to justify it, imagine yourself within L'Empire des lumières. If you fly through a light blue sky with clouds of challenge, it will be difficult and drawn out, but there is no limit to where you can end up. If you swim furiously against the current that used to carry you in a dark blue river, you’ll stay in place until the current eventually carries you far from where you desire to be. Between these two shades of blue, I will always pick the lighter one because of the message of My Playlist #413: what we lost yesterday will never be more than what there is to gain tomorrow.

In loving memory of Brennan Warren and Bryan Baum.