Doesn't 99% of music just romanticize life? Isn't it ultimately harmful to hold your life up against an ideal that doesn't exist?

2ndaccount said:

99% ? i dont agree with that # ... and i dont hold my life up to an idea i hear in a song (s) ...

i am to busy creating my life through intentions

i love music

Mach said:

So, you don't hear a love song and think, "That's what I want" or "I'm so glad my life is this way and I expect this feeling to last forever, the way they say it can in song"?

2ndaccount said:

i'm 41 ... been w/ my husband 20 yrs .. happily i may add


MAYBE ... maybe when i was 20...i may have had those thoughts

now ... no, i dont

Doesn't 99% of music just romanticize life? Isn't it ultimately harmful to hold your life up against an ideal that doesn't exist?

2ndaccount said:

what about depressing music?

Anxiety said:

You mean like Morissey, for example? Doesn't he romanticize depression and isn't that harmful?

2ndaccount said:

i was thinking more about a band like Swans.

Anxiety said:

While I know of Swans, can't say I remember any of their lyrical content. Can you give me a taste?

I, I've been lonely
And I, I've been blind
And I,. I've learned nothing
So my hands are firmly tied
To the sinking leadweight
of failure

I've worked hard all my life
Money slips through my hands
My face in the mirror tells me
It's no surprise that I'm
Pushing the stone up the hill
of failure

They tempt me with violence
They punish me with ideals
And they crush me with an image of my
life that's nothing but unreal
Except on the goddamned slaveship
of failure

I'll drown here trying
to get up for some air
But each time I think I breathe
I'm laid on with a double share
of the punishing burden
of failure

I don't deserve to be down here
But I'll never leave
And I've learned one thing
You can't escape the beast
In the null and void pit
of failure

When I get my hands on some money
I'll kiss it's green skin
And I'll ask it's dirty face
"Where the hell have you been?"
"I am the fuel that fires the engine
of failure."

I'll be old and broken down
I'll forget who and where I am
I'll be senile or forgotten
But I'll remember and understand
You can bank your hard-earned money
on failure

I saw my father crying
I saw my mother break her hand
On a wall that wouldn't weep
But that certainly held in
The mechanical moans of a dying man
Who was a failure

My back hurts me when I bend
Because I carry a load
My brain hurts me like a knife-hole
Because I've yet to be shown
How to pull myself out from
The sucking quicksand
of failure

Some people live in hell
Many bastards succeed
But I. I've learned nothing
I can't even elegantly bleed
Out the poison blood
of failure

i don't consider that romanticized.

but is it healthy?

i dunno. i like it.

Music is the best thing in the world. It can move you in a million different ways.

Cloudbuster said:

A million different ways? Don't you think you're exagerrating just a tad there,Mr. Happy? Perhaps music can inspire you to rise above your current circumstances (but, ultimately, life is empty and meaningless anyway, so why bother?) and perhaps it can move you to have hopeless fantasies about "getting" the person you "love", or reuniting with the person who dumped your sorry ass (fat chance!). But move you in a million ways? Can you name some for me?

Mach said:

So, what is the purpose of music?

2ndaccount said:

Don't ruin my day.

Cloudbuster said:

A million different ways? Don't you think you're exagerrating just a tad there,Mr. Happy? Perhaps music can inspire you to rise above your current circumstances (but, ultimately, life is empty and meaningless anyway, so why bother?) and perhaps it can move you to have hopeless fantasies about "getting" the person you "love", or reuniting with the person who dumped your sorry ass (fat chance!). But move you in a million ways? Can you name some for me?

There are SO many..meditation, background, enjoyment etc.

I think music expresses much of what it is through the sound not necessarily through words. Sure, you get feelings and understandings and different points of view from lyrical content, but I don't think most put them selves up against Music as an ideal...the same goes for TV, Movies and books.

I certainly have been enlighteded by lyrics and formed points of view becasue of some as well.

But there was no ideal I was thinking of when I was down listening to the Cure's Disintegration. It wasn't telling me how to feel. But I felt the way I did when listening to it. It was a mood enhancer.

2ndaccount said:

I think this says more about you than your thread.

The song "Gloomy Sunday" has been linked to 200 suicides worldwide...don't think that's romanticizing anything.

RazzBeret said:

Not familiar with that one. Maybe it's romanticizing suicide? Who's that one by?

RazzBeret said:

Not familiar with that one. Maybe it's romanticizing suicide? Who's that one by?

Gloomy Sunday - the notorious 'Hungarian Suicide Song' - was written in 1933. Its melody and original lyrics were the creation of Rezsô Seress, a self-taught pianist and composer born in Hungary in 1899.

The crushing hopelessness and bitter despair which characterised the two stanza penned by Seress were superseded by the more mournful, melancholic verses of Hungarian poet László Jávor.

When the song came to public attention it quickly earned its reputation as a 'suicide song'. Reports from Hungary alleged individuals had taken their lives after listening to the haunting melody, or that the lyrics had been left with their last letters.

The lyricists Sam M. Lewis and Desmond Carter each penned an English translatation of the song. It was Lewis's version, first recorded by Hal Kemp and his Orchestra, with Bob Allen on vocals (1936), that was to become the most widely covered.

The popularity of Gloomy Sunday increased greatly through its interpretation by Billie Holiday (1941). In an attempt to alleviate the pessemistic tone a third stanza was added to this version, giving the song a dreamy twist, yet still the suicide reputation remained. Gloomy Sunday was banned from the playlists of major radio broadcasters around the world. The B.B.C. deemed it too depressing for the airwaves.

Despite all such bans, Gloomy Sunday continued to be recorded and sold.

People continued to buy the recordings; some committed suicide.

Rezsô Seress jumped to his death from his flat in 1968.

2ndaccount said:

Well, it was started by a no name man in Hungary, and caused a lot of suicides over there. It has been covered in America by the likes of Billie Holiday,Diamanda Galas, and Sinead O'Connor, but not as responsible for as many suicides.At one point it was banned from airwaves and it was illegal to play it.

ask and i shall google:



i have versions of this song by marianne faithfull, sinead o'connor and diamanda galas - all of them just breathtakingly beautiful and sad.

ask and i shall google:



i have versions of this song by marianne faithfull, sinead o'connor and diamanda galas - all of them just breathtakingly beautiful and sad.

Can we get some lyrics, please?

2ndaccount said:

hold on a sec, i'll orgnote you my password and username for google.