WEBVTT - Sad Music 0:00:00.240 --> 0:00:03.880 So could you show me like a chord that's major 0:00:04.000 --> 0:00:06.200 and then a chord that's minor, just so we can 0:00:06.200 --> 0:00:09.960 hear the difference. Yep, So here's a C major chord 0:00:14.480 --> 0:00:22.319 C minor to meet. Anyone who prefers C major is 0:00:22.320 --> 0:00:25.759 out of their mind, Like I wish them well, but 0:00:25.840 --> 0:00:29.120 we can't ever fully understand one another or be close 0:00:29.160 --> 0:00:33.920 friends because C minor is true and C major that's 0:00:33.920 --> 0:00:37.040 for selling soap. Wow, I never knew. I mean, I 0:00:37.040 --> 0:00:39.320 know you felt strong. I didn't know you felt this strongly. 0:00:42.680 --> 0:00:46.040 That's me and Andy Thompson talking shop. He's a composer 0:00:46.080 --> 0:00:48.400 and a producer who works out of a basement studio 0:00:48.440 --> 0:00:52.000 called Instrument Landing. And I'm Dessa, host of the show 0:00:52.200 --> 0:00:55.840 Deeply Human. I'm wearing my podcast had today. But I 0:00:55.920 --> 0:00:58.120 make my living as a hip hop artist, and Andy 0:00:58.160 --> 0:01:01.360 and I are frequent collaborators. Most of the music that 0:01:01.400 --> 0:01:03.760 I write is pretty dark, so much so that my 0:01:03.800 --> 0:01:06.560 bandmates tease me about it. Even my fans tease me 0:01:06.600 --> 0:01:09.160 about it. Years ago, when I sent an early mix 0:01:09.160 --> 0:01:11.720 of an album to my mom, she said she liked it, 0:01:11.959 --> 0:01:14.560 but then asked, why do you always make music to 0:01:14.640 --> 0:01:19.120 bleed out? To I've loved sad songs since I was 0:01:19.120 --> 0:01:24.120 a teenager. My favorite genre was arguably total devastation. Tracy 0:01:24.200 --> 0:01:27.280 Chapman's Fast Car That was a big one, some of 0:01:27.360 --> 0:01:29.680 my mom's Bonnie ray Its slow Jams messed me up 0:01:29.680 --> 0:01:37.600 pretty good, and of course Jeff Buckley's rendition of Hallelujah. 0:01:38.640 --> 0:01:42.240 I played them over and over again because they reliably 0:01:42.280 --> 0:01:49.920 made me feel exquisitely awful. Listening to sad songs is 0:01:49.920 --> 0:01:53.760 a weird, counterintuitive thing to do. Why would anyone willfully 0:01:53.800 --> 0:01:57.240 gravitate towards something that hurts to hear? To find out, 0:01:57.320 --> 0:02:01.800 I'm asking a music critic, a philosopher, an experimental researcher, 0:02:01.920 --> 0:02:07.880 and a songwriter, why do we listen to sad music? First, 0:02:08.000 --> 0:02:11.200 let's holler at our critic, someone who listens to music professionally. 0:02:11.720 --> 0:02:15.080 Stephen Thompson is a writer, an editor, and a broadcast 0:02:15.120 --> 0:02:17.600 guy with National public radio in the US, and he's 0:02:17.639 --> 0:02:23.040 a serious sad song enthusiast. I know that you made 0:02:23.040 --> 0:02:27.480 a playlist called Weeping at the Wheels right, right right, 0:02:28.720 --> 0:02:30.880 and the cover image was just a box of tissues 0:02:30.880 --> 0:02:33.840 on a dashboard, and man, the car is definitely one 0:02:33.880 --> 0:02:36.720 of the best spots to be totally disemboweled by a song. 0:02:37.000 --> 0:02:40.919 There's a couple of songs that that I'm not allowed 0:02:40.960 --> 0:02:46.600 to drive to because because I become an irresponsible pilot 0:02:46.720 --> 0:02:49.600 of a motor vehicle in the throes of that much emotion, 0:02:49.800 --> 0:02:52.360 you know, you know, when you cry, it can sometimes 0:02:52.360 --> 0:02:55.800 like help you, like irrigate your emotions a little bit. 0:02:56.160 --> 0:02:58.000 And I think, I think sad songs kind of have 0:02:58.120 --> 0:03:01.120 that same that same function. I have a depressive streak, 0:03:01.160 --> 0:03:03.680 and I have an anxious streak. And when I was 0:03:03.720 --> 0:03:07.520 in high school, I remember my anxiety had gotten to 0:03:07.520 --> 0:03:09.560 the point where I wasn't able to sleep at night, 0:03:09.720 --> 0:03:12.680 and I started making lists of all the things that 0:03:12.720 --> 0:03:14.720 I had to do. And then when I was done 0:03:14.760 --> 0:03:17.280 writing down everything I had to do, and I was 0:03:17.360 --> 0:03:20.600 able to process and handle it. And I think in 0:03:20.639 --> 0:03:24.600 a way, sad songs for me are like those lists, 0:03:24.639 --> 0:03:27.919 those anxiety lists, you know, so I can my brain 0:03:28.000 --> 0:03:32.920 can just be this haunted circus of terrible emotions, and 0:03:33.400 --> 0:03:37.760 a song that has a way of processing those emotions 0:03:38.320 --> 0:03:40.760 can sometimes like serve as like almost like a sorting 0:03:40.800 --> 0:03:45.000 mechanism for that web of feelings in my head. And 0:03:45.040 --> 0:03:47.880 so I think sad music is really therapeutic for me 0:03:47.920 --> 0:03:52.480 in that way, clarifying a painful feeling, pinning it to 0:03:52.520 --> 0:03:55.960 a board, the clean, neat description provides some degree of relief, 0:03:56.120 --> 0:03:58.880 even if the feeling itself persists. I know that in 0:03:58.960 --> 0:04:01.680 my life being able to call demons by their proper 0:04:01.760 --> 0:04:05.400 names just helps somehow. It's a relief to know exactly 0:04:05.440 --> 0:04:07.800 what I'm up against, you know how, like your kid 0:04:07.840 --> 0:04:10.000 and you come crying to your parents you've had a nightmare, 0:04:10.000 --> 0:04:13.600 and your parents explain, like, nightmares are your brain's way 0:04:13.640 --> 0:04:15.960 of taking out the garbage. And I always thought that 0:04:16.000 --> 0:04:18.320 was a great way of thinking about nightmares. It's your 0:04:18.400 --> 0:04:21.280 your brain's way of processing difficult and dark things and 0:04:21.520 --> 0:04:24.280 so that you can handle them going forward. I think 0:04:24.320 --> 0:04:27.080 in a way, sad songs ping a little bit of 0:04:27.120 --> 0:04:29.559 that same thing. I wonder though, if there's like an 0:04:29.640 --> 0:04:33.920 undercurrent of intimacy that runs through sad music that isn't 0:04:33.960 --> 0:04:37.279 necessarily there and like dance music and that it's okay 0:04:37.279 --> 0:04:40.520 to tell anyone, hey, I want to dance, but the 0:04:40.560 --> 0:04:42.359 idea that like, hey, I think I'm getting a divorce, 0:04:43.480 --> 0:04:46.000 that's a secret, that's an intimacy, and that like there 0:04:46.000 --> 0:04:48.680 are fewer people in places that you can share that information, 0:04:49.040 --> 0:04:51.839 and so maybe, like we understand ourselves to be in 0:04:51.839 --> 0:04:55.880 a more intimate and trusting relationship with a musician who's 0:04:55.920 --> 0:04:58.680 telling us a sad story than one who's telling us 0:04:58.680 --> 0:05:02.120 is celebrating the song, can feel like you're communing with 0:05:02.160 --> 0:05:05.160 an artist who understands and has been through what you've 0:05:05.200 --> 0:05:09.240 gone through. And so it's not necessarily hopeless because here's 0:05:09.279 --> 0:05:11.440 somebody who clearly went through some of the same things 0:05:11.440 --> 0:05:13.359 that I did and came out on the other side 0:05:13.360 --> 0:05:15.680 and wrote a song about it. I mean, I think 0:05:15.720 --> 0:05:20.360 empathy is just one of the most powerful and important 0:05:20.520 --> 0:05:24.719 experiences we can have as human beings. This is the 0:05:24.720 --> 0:05:28.080 whole misery loves Company thing, but the way that Steven 0:05:28.120 --> 0:05:31.640 tells it, maybe it's also like proof of life, evidence 0:05:31.640 --> 0:05:34.400 that a fellow sufferer with a misery much like yours 0:05:34.800 --> 0:05:36.520 was able to get back on our feet and get 0:05:36.600 --> 0:05:39.279 stable enough to hire a band and a publicist and 0:05:39.360 --> 0:05:45.800 release some music into the world. All right, for Steven's 0:05:45.839 --> 0:05:48.240 walk off music, let's tee up a cut from his 0:05:48.279 --> 0:06:12.679 Weeping at the Wheel playlist, and now back to Andy's 0:06:12.720 --> 0:06:16.159 basement studio for a second to talk fundamentals. What is 0:06:16.240 --> 0:06:19.920 sad music exactly? My lad jewel vary and there are 0:06:20.000 --> 0:06:22.960 exceptions to every rule, but Andy ticked off a few 0:06:23.000 --> 0:06:25.880 of the features that makes sad songs sound sad. A 0:06:25.920 --> 0:06:27.359 lot of times when you feel sad, you kind of 0:06:27.480 --> 0:06:30.120 pull inward and you're quiet, and you don't necessarily want 0:06:30.120 --> 0:06:32.320 to speak to other people. And so I think one 0:06:32.360 --> 0:06:36.640 thing a composer can do is to bring the dynamic down. 0:06:42.520 --> 0:06:46.240 Another thing a composer can do is use just sparseness 0:06:46.520 --> 0:06:48.400 and not have a lot going on, have the notes 0:06:48.400 --> 0:06:57.679 to be very alone with themselves. But there are other things, 0:06:58.160 --> 0:07:03.000 like major and minor keys that are a little bit 0:07:03.000 --> 0:07:06.280 more of a mystery. Keep in mind, this conversation is 0:07:06.320 --> 0:07:08.960 being had by two Western musicians, and the world is 0:07:08.960 --> 0:07:12.760 a very wide musical place, but in very broad strokes. 0:07:13.080 --> 0:07:16.600 Major chords are usually considered happy and minor chords sad. 0:07:17.080 --> 0:07:19.800 So let's break down the chords to see what they're 0:07:19.840 --> 0:07:24.280 made of. C major chord has a C in the 0:07:24.360 --> 0:07:28.560 major third and five. To make it a minor chord, 0:07:28.600 --> 0:07:30.679 you take that second note and you move it down 0:07:31.360 --> 0:07:35.240 a half step, which is the shortest distance you can 0:07:35.280 --> 0:07:50.280 move an interval in music. Usually they're C minor. Dissecting 0:07:50.280 --> 0:07:53.200 a chord doesn't explain the feeling it foakes much better 0:07:53.200 --> 0:07:56.720 than cutting open a candle explains romance. You're basically talking 0:07:56.760 --> 0:08:01.120 about two frequencies interacting, and when they interact one way, 0:08:01.440 --> 0:08:04.600 it generally makes people feel happy, and when they interact 0:08:04.640 --> 0:08:06.680 a different way, it makes him feel sad. And that 0:08:06.760 --> 0:08:08.960 to me is it's kind of like a black hole. 0:08:09.000 --> 0:08:13.120 I don't know. It goes like this, the F five, 0:08:13.640 --> 0:08:19.760 the minor fall and the major lived, the baffle king composing. 0:08:26.360 --> 0:08:30.040 Have we just learned that some chords are associated with sadness? 0:08:30.160 --> 0:08:32.880 Or is there a mathematical relationship between the notes that 0:08:32.960 --> 0:08:35.480 makes us feel that way? People who have spent a 0:08:35.520 --> 0:08:39.040 lifetime trying to master the how of music still don't 0:08:39.040 --> 0:08:44.160 know the why. Myself very much included segue to our philosopher. 0:08:44.559 --> 0:08:48.280 Andrew Huddleston, teaches at Birkbeck College in London. Is an undergrad. 0:08:48.320 --> 0:08:50.680 He wrote a thesis on why we're drawn to sad music, 0:08:51.160 --> 0:08:54.600 and I asked him how sad music evolks emotion. One 0:08:54.720 --> 0:08:59.240 theory is that the musical expressions resemble the expressions of 0:08:59.280 --> 0:09:02.959 sad people think of the face of a Saint Bernard dog, 0:09:03.600 --> 0:09:06.200 we say that the face is sad, even though we 0:09:06.240 --> 0:09:08.760 think the dog is not sad. Now why do we 0:09:08.840 --> 0:09:11.520 think that, Well, it resembles in a certain way the 0:09:11.600 --> 0:09:15.520 expression of sad people, maybe in a kind of caricatured way, 0:09:15.760 --> 0:09:18.720 the kind of drooping quality of the Saint Bernard dog's face. 0:09:19.000 --> 0:09:21.800 And you think something similar might be the case in 0:09:21.960 --> 0:09:25.160 the contours of music, that they might have these kinds 0:09:25.200 --> 0:09:31.120 of qualities that put us in mind of sadness. Some 0:09:31.240 --> 0:09:34.120 sad music might actually resemble the sounds that come out 0:09:34.120 --> 0:09:37.320 of sad humans, that sound like wailing or like laments. 0:09:37.360 --> 0:09:39.959 And I think that that's a very common thing in 0:09:40.240 --> 0:09:43.160 vocal music and in some purely instrumental music too, where 0:09:43.160 --> 0:09:45.640 that quality is mirrored. And I think that that really 0:09:45.679 --> 0:09:49.839 puts us in mind of expressions of sadness, that kind 0:09:49.840 --> 0:09:53.600 of rising and falling suddenly falling vocal line, or the 0:09:53.640 --> 0:10:01.559 sense of a sigh in the music. My mom used 0:10:01.600 --> 0:10:03.480 to sing a lullaby to me and my kid brother 0:10:03.559 --> 0:10:07.120 Maxie called No Nando, and I think it has the 0:10:07.160 --> 0:10:09.480 kind of melody lines that Andrew's talking about. It has 0:10:09.520 --> 0:10:14.400 these like super epic swells and cascades My mom is 0:10:14.400 --> 0:10:16.800 Puerto Rican and most of the words are in Spanish, 0:10:16.960 --> 0:10:19.839 but I've always suspected that maybe, like the trills in 0:10:19.880 --> 0:10:23.160 the vocal line were forged by Sephardic Jewish singers with 0:10:23.240 --> 0:10:26.240 roots in Spain. It's one of those songs where a 0:10:26.400 --> 0:10:28.760 mom like puts her kid's name into it, and I 0:10:28.800 --> 0:10:31.600 do not have kids, so I'm gonna use Max's name. 0:10:31.880 --> 0:10:39.480 But it goes like this an no na do no 0:10:39.679 --> 0:10:51.040 no go me baby Maxie it done, and no na 0:10:51.600 --> 0:11:00.120 gole no na go ani no na and the nina no. 0:11:05.200 --> 0:11:08.480 It is an insanely dramatic way to put a kid 0:11:08.559 --> 0:11:11.240 to bed. I used to hate it when you go high, 0:11:11.280 --> 0:11:13.319 because I knew and he was almost done and I 0:11:13.360 --> 0:11:16.679 had to go to sleep. I still sing on nonando 0:11:16.840 --> 0:11:20.000 sometimes around my apartment, and my voice right now sounds 0:11:20.000 --> 0:11:24.120 a lot like my mom's did then. But why I 0:11:24.160 --> 0:11:26.520 am a grown adult who could listen to dance music 0:11:26.600 --> 0:11:29.160 or just eat Peanut M and M's or right a 0:11:29.240 --> 0:11:32.679 Shetland pony through a field of daisies. I asked Andrew 0:11:32.760 --> 0:11:35.120 for the philosopher's take on why we listen to sad 0:11:35.240 --> 0:11:41.000 music at all. We're interested in knowing about what the 0:11:41.040 --> 0:11:45.040 world is like, even about extreme kinds of suffering and horror, 0:11:45.440 --> 0:11:48.560 even if that's not particularly pleasant. You know, why are 0:11:48.600 --> 0:11:51.360 people drawn to tragedy? Why are people drawn to films 0:11:51.360 --> 0:11:53.760 that are about really horrible things? Why do they read 0:11:53.800 --> 0:11:55.600 novels that are about really horrible things? And I think 0:11:55.640 --> 0:11:58.480 one of the explanations is we care about knowledge. We 0:11:58.520 --> 0:12:00.880 care about knowing what the world is, even if what 0:12:00.960 --> 0:12:04.679 we find out is something that's depressing. There might also 0:12:04.760 --> 0:12:08.480 be something important about packaging sadness in music. So I 0:12:08.559 --> 0:12:12.240 think the beauty plays a really considerable role here. One 0:12:12.240 --> 0:12:14.760 thing that it can provide is in itself a certain 0:12:14.840 --> 0:12:18.640 kind of consolation. Perhaps the presence of the beauty in 0:12:18.720 --> 0:12:23.520 this expression of something that's sad or depressing, it might 0:12:23.600 --> 0:12:27.560 also intimate a certain kind of hope as well. Maybe 0:12:27.600 --> 0:12:30.280 the music here becomes the mixer and a stiff drink, 0:12:30.880 --> 0:12:32.960 or the sticker the doctor gives to a little kid 0:12:33.000 --> 0:12:35.960 after her shot. It's still going to burn, but the 0:12:36.000 --> 0:12:38.040 beauty of the music gives you something for the pain. 0:12:39.400 --> 0:12:44.120 Andrew himself is a Wagner guy, So DJ drop something 0:12:44.120 --> 0:13:03.240 from the ring cycle. Yeah, my name is Boskowski. I 0:13:03.280 --> 0:13:07.280 work at the University of Oslo as an Associate professor 0:13:07.360 --> 0:13:10.720 in music cognition. Yana was part of a team that 0:13:10.800 --> 0:13:14.520 conducted an experiment to study fans of sad music. They 0:13:14.559 --> 0:13:18.839 wanted to find out what kinds of personality traits are 0:13:18.880 --> 0:13:23.079 related to people's enjoyment of sad music. Jana's team recruits 0:13:23.080 --> 0:13:26.080 a bunch of research participants, put some in fancy headphones 0:13:26.320 --> 0:13:34.280 and presses play on eight minutes of sad instrumental music. Next, 0:13:34.400 --> 0:13:37.160 you wanna hit some with a questionnaire to record their feelings. 0:13:37.679 --> 0:13:42.080 It's got different emotional adjectives like moved, melancholic, sad, peaceful, 0:13:42.280 --> 0:13:45.600 and intensity scales from one to seven. Also, they filled 0:13:45.600 --> 0:13:50.880 in a whole battery of different kinds of personality tests 0:13:50.920 --> 0:13:55.880 and questions about their current mood and also their experienced 0:13:56.200 --> 0:13:59.720 quality of life and kind of general health related questions. 0:14:00.320 --> 0:14:02.720 Some of the participants were hooked up with electrodes to 0:14:02.760 --> 0:14:07.520 measure bodily responses to evidence of intense emotional reactions. With 0:14:07.559 --> 0:14:10.000 all the data collected, Yonah and her team crunch the 0:14:10.080 --> 0:14:13.959 numbers looking for patterns, and they find one one thing 0:14:14.040 --> 0:14:19.720 that really consistently seemed to predict people's enjoyment of sad music. 0:14:20.320 --> 0:14:25.680 Was empathy. Those who score the highest in empathic concern 0:14:25.920 --> 0:14:28.720 or sympathy for others, they seem to be enjoying sad 0:14:28.800 --> 0:14:32.880 music the most. So perhaps they are connecting to something 0:14:33.040 --> 0:14:36.400 human in the music. They're reacting to sad music, gus 0:14:36.440 --> 0:14:40.480 they would to a sad person. Got admit as emo. 0:14:40.600 --> 0:14:44.480 Kids are coming off pretty good right now, kind compassionate. 0:14:45.720 --> 0:14:47.920 Sure you could date somebody from the varsity team will 0:14:47.920 --> 0:14:50.280 only listens to metal, but they might let your cat 0:14:50.320 --> 0:14:52.880 on fire something. And if they do, we will have 0:14:52.920 --> 0:14:54.600 a hot cup of tea ready if you want to 0:14:54.600 --> 0:14:58.400 talk about it all right. For Yonah's walk off music, 0:14:58.920 --> 0:15:02.160 I persuaded her to say the melancholic finish lullaby that 0:15:02.240 --> 0:15:07.520 her mother used to sing, You want me to sing? Okay, 0:15:07.800 --> 0:15:13.720 here goes bier Nicki, Sulin boy Gan and Holy yon 0:15:14.040 --> 0:15:20.400 None ohmak Covery, be a nil, Lucky Soli, loly Bion, 0:15:21.720 --> 0:15:32.600 Bion and Bienny. And we listened to sad music for clarity, 0:15:32.800 --> 0:15:35.600 for comfort. But what about the people who write the songs? 0:15:35.680 --> 0:15:39.240 Why do we wallow and suffering? I invited a fellow songwriter, 0:15:39.440 --> 0:15:42.320 Mayotta to talk it out. She's found herself in tears 0:15:42.360 --> 0:15:46.200 over her keyboard while crafting a particularly sad joint. Why 0:15:46.240 --> 0:15:48.000 do you do that? Why do we do that? That 0:15:48.000 --> 0:15:53.200 doesn't make any sense that um my general thought that 0:15:53.280 --> 0:15:56.040 why we do that? I think it's for catharsis, and 0:15:56.120 --> 0:15:59.360 for me specifically, it's definitely for catharsis without sweating the 0:15:59.400 --> 0:16:01.680 dictionary different and like, what does that mean when you 0:16:01.760 --> 0:16:05.560 use that word says release? I think, like that's the 0:16:05.560 --> 0:16:10.160 main thing I'm thinking of, is release. I really see 0:16:10.440 --> 0:16:16.440 trauma as like stagnant energy that got stuck and wasn't 0:16:16.480 --> 0:16:19.000 allowed to like move through you. Like I literally just 0:16:19.000 --> 0:16:20.600 heard this from my therapist a couple of days ago, 0:16:20.680 --> 0:16:23.000 and she dragged me and was like, well, you have 0:16:23.120 --> 0:16:25.720 to feel to heal. If you don't let yourself feel 0:16:25.760 --> 0:16:28.040 your lows, you don't get to feel the highs either, 0:16:28.280 --> 0:16:36.400 Like everything numbs out. I know from personal experience that 0:16:36.480 --> 0:16:38.840 it can be a serious challenge to perform while your 0:16:38.840 --> 0:16:41.760 body isn't the throes of a big feeling. Your hands, 0:16:41.800 --> 0:16:45.760 shake your voice titans, your diaphragm might want to do 0:16:45.920 --> 0:16:49.720 that spasm thing. Sadness affects all the muscles that are 0:16:49.760 --> 0:16:52.800 supposed to be playing the damn song. But Mayada built 0:16:52.840 --> 0:16:55.960 room for these feelings into the architecture of her arrangements. 0:16:56.520 --> 0:17:02.640 Oh man, oh wow, Wolf, I'm just like I'm like 0:17:02.760 --> 0:17:06.639 viscerally coming back to a couple of times. I wrote 0:17:06.640 --> 0:17:10.919 a lot of like really belty swelling, like kind of 0:17:10.960 --> 0:17:15.840 squalling type of moments into these songs, and so it 0:17:15.880 --> 0:17:19.879 was like a yell just dropped jaw on an awe, 0:17:20.160 --> 0:17:24.080 but like really loud, and I think that was the 0:17:24.160 --> 0:17:28.720 release instead of like straight up crying like something needs 0:17:28.760 --> 0:17:31.000 to get out of me. But I'm gonna do it 0:17:31.040 --> 0:17:33.320 in a kind of pretty way because my choir teacher 0:17:33.359 --> 0:17:36.440 taught me, like in high school, when you have to scream, 0:17:36.840 --> 0:17:40.560 do it musically right, like breathe like you would be singing. 0:17:40.920 --> 0:17:43.600 And while my body was like on some very like 0:17:43.760 --> 0:17:47.639 shaky type of thing, I knew that if I just 0:17:47.920 --> 0:17:51.199 made it to the chorus, I could basically scream, And 0:17:51.240 --> 0:17:54.720 I think that was kind of what shorted up. Does 0:17:54.760 --> 0:17:57.440 it feel like you're sometimes writing sad songs for political, 0:17:57.840 --> 0:18:03.679 you know, reasons, like specifically absolutely? Actually, I would venture 0:18:03.720 --> 0:18:05.760 to say that those are the ones that are the hardest, 0:18:06.480 --> 0:18:10.760 like ones that came out of some very specifically rough 0:18:10.880 --> 0:18:13.960 stuff about just like my my black experience. For example, 0:18:14.680 --> 0:18:16.920 it's like, in the most technical of senses, I am 0:18:16.960 --> 0:18:20.160 literally performing my pain right now. But like, I'm doing 0:18:20.200 --> 0:18:22.560 this thing and I know that I'm incurring damage from it, 0:18:22.600 --> 0:18:25.800 and I know that it's like stress. It's like stressing 0:18:25.840 --> 0:18:28.480 my body to have to explain this over and over again. 0:18:28.680 --> 0:18:31.720 But also like, I still believe in the power of 0:18:31.880 --> 0:18:37.400 sharing my experience, but I need you to hear me. 0:18:38.320 --> 0:18:40.800 Some sad music might be used as a call to action, 0:18:41.040 --> 0:18:43.439 a request, or a challenge for listeners to come to 0:18:43.480 --> 0:18:47.080 one another's aid. I think that a lot of Western 0:18:47.119 --> 0:18:53.800 experience of music, particularly of art, is for entertainment, and 0:18:54.640 --> 0:18:57.160 I don't really see my job as one as as 0:18:57.160 --> 0:19:00.320 an entertainer. If you had a business card, like would 0:19:00.320 --> 0:19:03.040 it say, Wow, what was the first thing that came 0:19:03.080 --> 0:19:07.000 to my musical healer? Yeah? I think musical healer. That 0:19:07.119 --> 0:19:09.760 song with the belty yell instead of cry chorus that 0:19:09.800 --> 0:19:13.400 Mayatta was talking about is called Cracked Chest. She hasn't 0:19:13.440 --> 0:19:15.600 recorded a studio version yet, but we're lucky enough to 0:19:15.640 --> 0:19:24.880 premiere the Devil here. It's oh mind, oh my, oh mind, 0:19:24.920 --> 0:19:38.359 oh my, oh my, oh my. Was somebody my hen 0:19:49.160 --> 0:19:51.280 for a while? My dad made his living as a 0:19:51.359 --> 0:19:53.800 loot player. If you can't picture it, a loot is 0:19:53.800 --> 0:19:56.080 a precursor of the guitar, the kind of instrument you 0:19:56.119 --> 0:19:58.679 might see on a tapestry. It's not the line of 0:19:58.680 --> 0:20:01.119 work you pursue hoping to get rich. And by the 0:20:01.200 --> 0:20:03.920 nineteen eighties my dad had missed the loot craze by 0:20:03.960 --> 0:20:09.240 like so years. Still he sat alone for many hours 0:20:09.440 --> 0:20:13.440 playing these delicate, melancholy songs written by other sensitive men. 0:20:13.760 --> 0:20:17.879 Now long did When I asked what drove his musical obsession, 0:20:18.160 --> 0:20:21.480 I met the hard limit of his sentimentalism. He said 0:20:21.480 --> 0:20:23.880 he was deeply moved by the music. He found great 0:20:23.920 --> 0:20:26.960 beauty in it, but he just didn't see any evidence 0:20:27.000 --> 0:20:29.600 that it had some higher meaning. He used the phrase 0:20:29.760 --> 0:20:32.920 mental masturbation, like that might be what all this loop 0:20:32.960 --> 0:20:36.239 playing amounted to. And some people have suggested that our 0:20:36.280 --> 0:20:39.960 affinity to music is just a byproduct of evolution, that 0:20:40.000 --> 0:20:43.399 our pattern sensitive brains built for language might just geek 0:20:43.440 --> 0:20:45.359 out our music like a house cat does on a 0:20:45.440 --> 0:20:50.840 laser pointer. Stephen Pinker, a famous cognitive psychologist, characterized music 0:20:51.160 --> 0:21:04.600 as auditory cheesecake. H I don't understand music in theory, 0:21:06.080 --> 0:21:09.560 but I understand it in practice, and I see how 0:21:09.560 --> 0:21:12.119 the faces in the crowd change when the big ballad 0:21:12.200 --> 0:21:14.840 begins and the strings lift like a tidal wave, and 0:21:14.880 --> 0:21:17.359 we are all briefly relieved of the obligation to be 0:21:17.400 --> 0:21:21.320 our professional, presentable selves, and instead the full truth of 0:21:21.320 --> 0:21:23.959 our lives is welcomed into the room, the fears and 0:21:24.000 --> 0:21:27.480 the fractures, and until the final notes ring, we are 0:21:27.520 --> 0:21:31.359 suspended in communion with one another, like rafts and rough water, 0:21:31.560 --> 0:21:38.280 somehow fortified by the storm. The music sensitizes us to 0:21:38.320 --> 0:21:41.200 the world and to the other people in it. There's 0:21:41.240 --> 0:21:44.480 this line often attributed to the Persian poet Roomy, that 0:21:44.560 --> 0:21:47.720 about sums it up for me. You have to keep 0:21:47.760 --> 0:21:53.520 breaking your heart until it opens as I let myself out. 0:21:53.800 --> 0:21:56.240 Here's a clip of a song I sometimes play on tour. 0:21:56.920 --> 0:22:10.639 It's called good Grief. How can it's head bad? Maybe 0:22:13.440 --> 0:22:24.320 good grieves one's good? How can it at our next meeting? 0:22:24.480 --> 0:22:27.840 Deeply Human is examining the teenage brain to find out 0:22:27.840 --> 0:22:31.360 why there's such an intensity of feeling during adolescents. Why 0:22:31.359 --> 0:22:36.280 does the world burn brighter in your teens? Deeply Human 0:22:36.400 --> 0:22:39.080 is a co production of the BBC World Service and 0:22:39.119 --> 0:22:42.600 American public media with I heart Media and as you 0:22:42.640 --> 0:22:45.080 know by now, I'm a musician and a songwriter too, 0:22:45.480 --> 0:22:47.280 so if you'd like to share your thoughts on songs, 0:22:47.480 --> 0:22:50.320 sad or happy ones, you can find me at Duessa 0:22:50.520 --> 0:22:53.040 Darling on Twitter. Thanks for listening.