Hey everyone! I'm back. Sorry for the little month long hiatus there; it's been a crazy month, for sure. Maybe one of the craziest of my life?... Hmmm... There was October 2014, the month that I got home from my two year mission in California, started listening to music for the first time in two years, moved back to San Antonio, started dating the girl who would become my wife, flew to Iowa to see my brother and then drove to Minnesota to see a good friend... That month could probably have a little, quirky indie chick flick written about it.
This month, though, has felt more like Love & Mercy. Have you seen it? The new biopic on Brian Wilson, musical savant and mastermind of the Beach Boys, detailing his struggles with schizophrenia and paranoia in the midst of some of the most wonderful moments of his life (writing his masterpiece album and twenty years later falling in love with his second wife). While I neither want to compare myself to a musical savant nor my condition to schizophrenia, I definitely related in the sense that, for me, life is at its prime, but my mental health is not.
 |
| Sometimes, even writing the best love song of all time can't life you out of the blues. |
See, I just got married to the girl of my dreams. I just got a scholarship at school. I just became an uncle again too!
I also just quit my job. Part time, for 20 hours a week, I was listening to entitled people yell at me about malfunctioning technology while juggling a new semester in school, a sick wife, newly found financial independence, and two bands, with varying success. In my three months working this job, I've had four full-blown, certifiable panic attacks, the last of which took me to urgent care and very nearly the ER. It was a scary time, especially for my sweet wife who was tasked with taking care of her mentally ill husband each of these four times.
During that last episode, though, my wife did something simple which got me thinking: she played me Sufjan Stevens' new album Carrie & Lowell to calm me down. And it worked! Now, I'm not ashamed at all to talk about my mental health conditions, just like someone with bad eyesight or diabetes isn't ashamed of their condition. I also know that there are many of you who suffer from similar issues.
So, I wanted to share with you 10 songs that help me calm down and defuse, even in the middle of psychological, physiological crisis. Music is powerful, and these songs are gentle giants.
Sufjan Stevens - Death With Dignity
"Spirit of my silence, I can hear you."
The song that kicked this idea off. Sufjan's voice here is so soft and airy, like a blanket of soft cloth, draped over the backdrop of his gentle guitar playing. It's literally physically relaxing to me.
The Postal Service - Recycled Air
"I watch the patchwork farms' slow fade into the ocean's arms."
This song is best suited for people with airplane anxiety, especially since that's what the lyrics are about. But more generally, Ben Gibbard and Jimmy Tamborello have here created a cloudy, soft sky in the form of a song. Calm down, release your cares.
Sigur Rós - Untitled 1 (Vaka)
Close your eyes while listening to this track and imagine yourself in the snowy, grassy woods seen on the album cover through the two curves. Imagine yourself warm in a soft coat made by your grandmother just for you, walking slowly without haste through the lightly crunching snow, thinking of one you love, a child, a lover, a friend, a parent.
Brian Eno - Complex Heaven
From the hands of the godfather of ambient electronic music we get "Complex Heaven," off of his fantastic 2010 solo album Small Craft on a Milk Sea. The piece is subtle yet rich with emotion and musical counterpoint. Each sound is carefully and deliberately woven together by Eno to bring us into his other-worldly place of meditation. Just try not to drift to sleep.
Iron & Wine - Naked As We Came
"I lay smiling, like our sleeping children. One of us will die inside these arms."
Sam Beam has got to have one of the most soothing voices that God has ever given a human. Sufjan is one of his close rivals, in my book. "Naked As We Came," with its tenderly picked, lone guitar accompaniment, shows Sam's voice at its most tender, gently assuring his love that peacefulness, unbound by materialism, is the beginning and end of their destinies.
Explosions In the Sky - First Breath After Coma
Like Sigur Ros' "Vaka," and like most post-rock, this song is best enjoyed in a quiet place where you don't have to concentrate on anything but the music where it takes your imagination. I love the ebb and flow of tension, building with each entry of the drums and releasing which each final splash of cymbals. It's another physically therapeutic song (and album) for me.
Mogwai - How to Be a Werewolf
I absolutely love this video. If you've made it this far in the post, please take 2 minutes to watch it. There is something serene, triumphant, and peaceful about the combination of Mogwai's deliberate crescendo and the lone, steady journey of the biker through the rainy hills.
Fleet Foxes - Meadowlarks
"I do believe you gave it your best try. My hummingbird, sing to me."
I am going to sing this song to my babies as a lullaby.
Thomas Newman - Nemo Egg
I know Marlin's face in the thumbnail isn't very relaxing! But, for 99% of the human population who has seen Finding Nemo, this tender, oceanic melody is enough to bring tears to the eyes. Newman conveys in sound here the feeling of being underwater and parental love, all in like two minutes. My wife and I listen to this often when we need to unwind.
Gregory Alan Isakov - Second Chances
"If it weren't for second chances, we'd all be alone."
So often, my anxiety comes because of my perfectionism. I want, obsessively, to be the best husband, friend, student, employee, whatever that I can be, and whenever I my mortality shows in that regard, I get really stressed. My sweet wife included this song as the last one on the playlist that made me fall in love with her, and whenever I slip up, she reminds me of that wonderful chorus line.
