Huge life hack – consider yourself a content creator and capitalize on your relatable anxieties. Perhaps make a blog post about it.
Tuning out today’s drivel with thoughts on music
Disclaimer Author has no expertise, but her opinion is probably better than yours nevertheless.
4 Songs for My Day and Maybe Yours
Alas, we arrive to the real purpose of this post
As disclosed above, I have no musical expertise. I am, however, intimately familiar with mental illness and the woes of the unoccupied but anxious mind.
One of my tried-and-true solutions to this perennial plague is literature. I have many, many, many (many!) lists. They are hyperspecific and unnecessary! It is therapeutic to categorize my literary recommendations into niche fixations – and today I introduce to y’all the first of many musician-centric lists.
I find musicians to be particularly interesting memoirists because their relationship to language is so unique – they are poets but often do not label themselves as such. Lyricists often state that they struggle to verbalize their feelings, and instrumentalists are never satisfied with their rhythm. The people we idolize specifically for the crafts that have made them memorable are plagued by their inadequacies. Is it a bit malicious of me to seek comfort in their anxieties?
Maybe.
But, maybe it’s also just a little bit grounding to know that even the experts can’t silence the voices of idealism in their own silly little minds.
One of us! One of us!
I’ll give a small taste of my music-centric book recommendations today by sharing a few books that I would consider to be written by fellow ~overthinkers~ I say this with love and empathy! These are mainly essayists, absolute experts with incredible analyses. That being said, I think many would agree with me when I say essayists are often obsessives. Society needs us.
Don’t fret. (That Is A Music Pun)
I will be including a feel-good, very-good, book by a good-hearted person at the end of this list.
Published in 1979.
Joan Didion was not a musician but she knew many. This is a dense collection of essays centered on Joan’s interviews and interactions with the “it” bands of the 60’s and 70’s primarily in southern California where she was based. She was an intellectual and it takes a lot of intellect to dig into her writing. I adore Joan, and I dive into her works whenever I really need to silence my own disorganized ramblings and focus on something with a bit more organized analysis.
Published 2017.
Hanif Abdurraqib is unequivocally one of my favorite people making art and spreading happiness on the internet and in print today. Primarily a poet, he has also published a few music and basketball-centric essay collections – like this book – that are absolutely gorgeous. I read literally everything he puts out to the public – even his Instagram posts make me tear up on occasion. Some of his observations on concerts and specific artists in this collection have stuck with me for years and forever altered how I consume music. If I can convince you do do anything, become a Hanif fan.
Published 2022.
Essays written by women in music about women in music who have disrupted musical spaces. Lots of feminine rage! Made me fully aware of how much disparity there is even in this industry that could really be argued to be feminine and gentle in many spaces – nope, still men and male-presenting folk taking in and reaping the majority of the wealth, fame, and commodities in the field. Read this to be angry about something when you have rage and you don’t know where else to put it!
Alright, and lastly, a book that is not a collection of essays, but I feel compelled to include because overall this has been a very doom and gloom, mentally-ill post.
If you have dabbled in music writing, you have heard of Rob Sheffield. He has written for Rolling Stone for years, met and interviewed many, many, (many!) artists and is an absolute icon in the space.
I really don’t want to spoil too much of this book. It is a memoir, he has 2 others focusing on other eras of his life that I will also recommend down the road. There is a huge element of grief and bereavement that he does not attempt to downplay. I love that about him.
It’s beautiful. It’s not that it is the most well-written, artistic piece I’ve ever read – it’s simple and it’s raw and it feels like a friend of mine could’ve sat down and shared any of these stories just as they were, on any night out, and with the same enthusiasm and sincerity as Rob gave us in a fully edited and published work.
I read this last summer shortly after a I ended a 6-year, live-in, ride-or-die relationship with a man I thought I was going to spend the rest of my anxious little life with. This book genuinely made me feel like I would find love again. And not in a corny way. Well, even if in a corny way, in a very real way.
That’s it! Bye bye.
Take your meds, go outside, read a book.
pro-whimsy agenda 