Like the Mother Mary of “Let It Be,” who we meet “speaking words of wisdom,” have you ever found yourself either playing a “song of wisdom” for a friend in times of trouble – or in fact been that friend receiving such musical wisdom from another friend?
I know this topic may require you to dig into your emotions, a practice that may seen to contradict your participation in Rock Town Hall. Trust me, there are ways to handle this question that should allow for your wit and cynicism to shine, such as a “Thanks for nothing!” tale of an inappropriately offered song of wisdom.
This subject came to mind yesterday while listening to Talking Heads‘ “No Compassion.” It’s a song I’ll forever link to a college friend sophomore year in college, when I was as down as I’ve ever been. If memory serves, he sat me down and had me listen to this song with him, the musical equivalent of throwing his arm around me and telling me that everything was going to work out all right. Actually, I think he was telling me to grow a thicker skin and stop being such a pussy. Thanks, man.
In 1997 I played the album The Harder They Come for a friend who just got out of rehab for heroin addiction in an effort to inspire him.
He said it “was bumming him out”, and asked if we could listen to something else.
A few days later he stole all the money i had in my house and i haven’t seen him since then.
PERFECT, shawnkilroy! I knew I could count on a Townsperson to demonstrate both sides of this coin.
In college and after I used to regularly advise guys who were bumming out after a relationship broke up that they should listen to the second side of St. Dominic’s Preview, that song and “Independence Day” especially. They’re dark songs, but they both have the firm implication of moving on in them. They call for tapping an inner strength you may not know you have.
I’m not sure it belongs on this list, but my greatest moment of this sort of thing came in graduate school and involved a poem rather than a song. I was hanging out with a bunch of friends, and this one guy was bemoaning and bemoaning and bemoaning the recent loss of his girlfriend, and people felt sorry for him but it was annoying. So finally I said to him, “Here’s what you need to do. Go home, strip all the covers off your bed, take all your clothes off and lie down on the mattress. Then pour a beer over yourself and read John Donne’s ‘Batter My Heart, Three-Part God.'”
I don’t know whether it healed him any, but it sure shut him up.
I don’t really remember doing this other than with a Junior High girlfriend. Maybe that soured me on sharing the “good” reasons for playing a certain piece of music at a certain time. I remember her never getting why something reminded me of her or any other reason I’d like a song when I was bummed, or happy or whatever. I swear, if it didn’t have lyrics that said, “Hey, this is what he’s thinking about you right this instant,” she didn’t get it.
After my parents divorced, my dad was living with a guy that listened to rock music (dad was strictly showtunes and classical). The guy must have got the old man drunk (a rarity), and then played Pink Floyd’s Comfortably Numb for him. Dad called the next day to ask me how great I thought that was. I didn’t want to tell him I thought Pink Floyd was boring for the most part, and that I thought Roger Waters had as much depth of feeling as a turnip so I said something generic about how he missed out on a lot of good stuff by not listening to any rock music. He said I missed out on more, but he could understand what I got out of it for once.