In the immortal words of Crow T. Robot, it's a good storm, but not A Perfect Storm. Nonetheless, so many uncontrollable forces batter my psyche--money woes, car problems, health issues, job suckage and, oh yeah, that whole relationship going south thing--and a major depressive episode seems to be peering over the horizon.
The result? I'm dumbstruck, functioning but not living, barely able to feel, much less think. And writing involves thinking, unless you're David Brooks. So, yes, another placeholder post, more clips. I know, I know, I'm relying way too much on these things. But it's either a clip job or no new post, and I'm sure both of my regular readers would be devastated by the silence.
And today is All Depressing Music Day!
Let's start with the Patron Saints of Depressing Music, Richard and Linda Thompson, with a song of heartstopping beauty and sadness:
Two by Loudon Wainwright, one very funny but very, very bitter:
...and one aching with sorrow:
Alan Vega and Martin Rev: One of my all time favorite bands, Suicide:
And of course, you can't have depressing music without some Kurt Weill. Here's Ashley Putnam performing Somehow I Never Could Believe, from Weill's opera Street Scene. The lyrics, incidentally, are by Langston Hughes:
John Lennon never recovered from losing his mother at an early age, and was haunted by the fact that whatever happened to him after, for the rest of his life, he could never share it with her. He fell deeply in love with Yoko Ono, of course, but even then, his love, his life felt somehow incomplete. So he wrote a song to his mother--whose name, of course, was Julia. Sing along with this, quite possibly my favorite song in the world. I'd sing, too, but I'm too busy choking back tears:
