IM and sad songs

[madgeylou]

i am a writer and a singer. lots of things i end up writing and singing about are my explorations of why i feel some way, and how it can be alchemized. not all of the songs are positive. i'm a big fan of country music, cry-in-your-beer songs, torch songs, etc., and not everything i sing is something i want to manifest -- i just like feeling and expressing that particular emotion while i'm singing the song.

i am wondering, what are your thoughts on the danger of exploring negative emotions? for instance, if you get dumped and write songs exploring your relationship, which wasnt always positive, are you in effect manifesting the same thing for yourself again?

and when you listen to and sing along with other music, are you putting the energy of that music into your life?

thinking that this might be the case makes me a little sad, because i do love me some depressing music, and i love to sing along with it. right now i have a devastating martha wainwright song stuck in my head and it's so incredibly beautiful, but the sentiments it expresses are not the ones i want to manifest in my life, so i feel a little ambivalent about playing it over and over in my skull.

any thoughts?

[Happiness]

Originally Posted by madgeylou

i am a writer and a singer. lots of things i end up writing and singing about are my explorations of why i feel some way, and how it can be alchemized. not all of the songs are positive. i'm a big fan of country music, cry-in-your-beer songs, torch songs, etc., and not everything i sing is something i want to manifest -- i just like feeling and expressing that particular emotion while i'm singing the song.

i am wondering, what are your thoughts on the danger of exploring negative emotions? for instance, if you get dumped and write songs exploring your relationship, which wasnt always positive, are you in effect manifesting the same thing for yourself again?

and when you listen to and sing along with other music, are you putting the energy of that music into your life?

thinking that this might be the case makes me a little sad, because i do love me some depressing music, and i love to sing along with it. right now i have a devastating martha wainwright song stuck in my head and it's so incredibly beautiful, but the sentiments it expresses are not the ones i want to manifest in my life, so i feel a little ambivalent about playing it over and over in my skull.

any thoughts?

Well, I am not sure that I can give you the correct answer. However, I can give you an example and maybe it might help you a little bit.

I used to be a "sad song" lover. Used to visualize my heart being broken by my boyfriend or being deceit by a loved one. Well, I noticed that every time, a while later, my vizulization would happen - when I was having these thoughts, I was in a very good relationship. And it did not seem like these things could happen to me! well, they did!
So, I decided to change this attitude. I still listen to sad songs (rarely) - however, I do not RELATE to them. I do not put any of my feelings in them. I just listen and that's all.

Happiness.

[joelyle]

seems to me: we should write the song; sing it once or twice to be true to our emotions...and then create music in the spirit of I/M
As I was on the plane, after having a negative visit with my mother, I wrote an intense/scathing poem. I got it out of my system, so to speak, and don't care to revisit it. It helped.

[Patricia]

I have thought about that a lot - not only about songs but movies too. While, like Happiness, I don't have the answer to this, I can relate to her experiences (manifesting things sometimes incredibly accurate when compared to the lyrics of a song I've been listening to). Good and bad. I recognized this pattern long before I even heard of The LoA. And then, once you recognize the pattern, you install the belief that this actually happens and then, guess what? - it does! Even faster, because there's an underlying belief about it.

The way I see it is that, if every thought is creative, if we pay attention to the lyrics in a song (whether we sing along or not) we are in the creative process just as much as if we were simply thinking about something as we usually do. Add emotion to it and things amplify. And songs - and movies, for that matter - are designed to trigger/cause emotions. And many times we relate to some lyrics, bringing back memories associated with the song or the lyrics themselves, in which cases not only are we being affected by the emotion caused by the melody, but we are also remembering the past (past events - that most likely have emotions attached to them as well). So, even if the lyrics are positive, but the song itself triggers a bad memory, you are thinking about it. And, of course, if all of this is true, it's only reasonable to assume that this logic applies both ways - for good or bad memories and emotions and positive/happy or sad lyrics and melodies.

So, right now, in general, I consciously avoid songs with sad lyrics and songs that trigger bad emotions - be it because they are attached to a memory or because the melody makes me feel sad, etc... I carefully choose what I listen to and watch and seek for things that trigger good emotions and thoughts. In fact, I have been compiling a list of songs with this in mind and putting them together in a playlist. I already have a list of songs that most probaby weren't written with the LoA in mind, but in which the lyrics reflect the principle in some way. I've been meaning to start a thread about this so that people can share other songs like these.

So, there's no way to know for sure, but this is my opinion based on my experiences. But keep in mind that part of this is probably caused because I believe that it happens this way.

[Velvet]

Madge:

My songwriting turned an interesting corner when I sat down after my divorce a couple years ago, and started writing this sad, mopey song, and then stopped.

"What if I wrote the OPPOSITE--a happy breakup song?"

And I did, and it is still one of my favorite songs to sing, because it uplifts me. It's not Pollyanna happy, it's more like poignant, strong, "I Will Survive" type stuff.

But I think it's still cathartic to write sad songs and sing 'em (and listen to 'em), as long as, in the end, you feel better and empowered.

I will no longer sing certain old songs of mine that come from a disempowered victim-y place. Nor will I indulge myself by listening to that stuff.

Luckily, there is plenty of good stuff out there--I love Brazilian music cuz even when the lyrics are a bummer, the music tends to be so upbeat.

Love songs in general: yay!

[Nicketas]

I've thought about this too, and when listening to sad/melancholy/not-quite-positive music it depends on what you a manifesting (i.e. visualizing specifically), thinking about, how strong the emotion is, and how long it lasts.

I like some sad songs too, but I always make sure that whatever emotion I'm feeling is temporary and that the song isn't going to repeat in my head for days on end.

It's really all a matter of knowing YOURSELF and how YOU respond to such things.

That will determine the result you get.

If you still feel the need to indulge in sad songs/negative emotions, that's ok, just remember to snap out of it and go into a positive vibe much more often.

Remember, positive thoughts/emotions are hundreds of times more powerful than negative ones, so you CAN override negative intentions.

[madgeylou]

Originally Posted by Velvet

Madge:

My songwriting turned an interesting corner when I sat down after my divorce a couple years ago, and started writing this sad, mopey song, and then stopped.

what i'm writing isnt sad and mopey -- it's just country!

no, seriously, what i'm try to get at is what i love about those sad songs. there's an emotional strength and an acorn of redemption in them.

like the original "little mermaid" story (the one where she dies at the end), there is something so beautiful in that sadness, you know? something injured but still vibrant and alive. like, okay world, you messed with me, but i still believe in love. i still will not kill the prince and his princess in their sleep. i wont sell out. i still believe.

i guess when i hear a great torch song (like linda ronstadt's "love has no pride," for instance) it touches that place in me that feels noble in its sadness. like tolkien calls the struggle against evil "the long defeat" but insists we must not give up.

hmm what i'm coming to is, it's all about how i feel about what i'm expressing/singing/thinking about.

for instance, the martha wainwright song that's in my head is somewhat sarcastic and heartfelt at the same time. she sings "i have no children / i have no husband / i have no reason to be alive / please give me one."

i feel the depths of sadness and irony in that, but i dont feel it is "true." and i didnt make the little "the secret" shockwave go out through the universe in my imagination. so i guess i'm safe.

[madgeylou]

Originally Posted by Velvet

But I think it's still cathartic to write sad songs and sing 'em (and listen to 'em), as long as, in the end, you feel better and empowered.

I will no longer sing certain old songs of mine that come from a disempowered victim-y place. Nor will I indulge myself by listening to that stuff.

PS: right on! i have thrown out some of my old songs, too, cause i just cant stand the whinger who wrote them!

[KeithHandy]

I don't have "the answer" to the questions posed at the beginning of this thread, but I do have a lot of thoughts on this that I've pretty much spent the past 20+ years pondering. I'll just spit a few of them out here.

As a teenager, my father criticized me for my record collection because it wasn't "up" enough. My position at the time was that I would be much happier listening to somewhat "down" music that I could identify with, than to force myself to listen to something I couldn't relate to. Keep in mind, in the 80s, if you looked for "happy" music you found extremely shallow, plastic-sounding dance music with obnoxious drum machines and vapid lyrics. So in a way, even if I was listening to something more downbeat, I was listening to something that I felt gave me a little more personal dignity ... so if I was manifesting any moodiness, I was at least manifesting some self-respect along with it.

But then again, at the time I didn't believe I was manifesting anything. I thought the feelings in music and art were only a reflection of how you felt, not something that would actually influence how you felt.

Being a rather detail-oriented person, when I write and record my own music, I spend hours and hours on any given song. I might spend a whole weekend just perfecting a harmony vocal or something. So I'm subjecting myself to a lot of repetition of whatever it is I'm working on! And I will say this, after that much exposure, the mood of the music will affect how I feel coming out of it. Maybe not in a long-term way, but in the same way that we get hung over when we drink too much. I have a high tolerance for dissonance and weirdness in music, and there are so many unusual things to try and explore that I don't want to rule out any ideas solely on the grounds that they "might affect my mood". But I am closer to agreeing with my father that I should have musical antidotes, something to snap me out of it and bring me back to a good-humored state after a long session.

I just happen to be really interested in doing some bizarre and sometimes dark musical ideas - different kinds of scales and chords, instrumentation, and so on - and if the music is powerful enough, then again I'm still manifesting something positive, a feeling of "power" - not power over people, but mastery of an art. It's like storytelling; a really powerful story is going to have conflict in it. It's not just going to be a series of mushy affirmations!

But this all comes down to my take and my perception. There are plenty of people who absolutely love horror films (not me personally, but some people I know and respect), who are extremely well-balanced, and who for their entire lives will never have a run-in with a chainsaw-wielding maniac ... because for them, the love of the medium overrides any fear or true negativity that would manifest anything like that.

Ooh, I like that! ... Lemme say it one more time because I liked it so much ... because for them, the love of the medium overrides any fear or true negativity that would manifest anything like that.

I guess that's what it boils down to, isn't it?

[Susie]

Originally Posted by KeithHandy

As a teenager, my father criticized me for my record collection because it wasn't "up" enough. My position at the time was that I would be much happier listening to somewhat "down" music that I could identify with, than to force myself to listen to something I couldn't relate to.

I had the exact same conversation when I was a teenager, hah. I spent a lot of time listening to Morrissey, the Smiths, the Cure (Disintegration especially), Bauhaus, Swans, etc. I actually felt <i>good</i> listening to that music because I could relate to a lot of it, and I suppose it validated my feelngs in a way. But I honestly don't know if it had an IM effect on me or not.

[RallyMcnally]

The passage is an English translation from the Chinese poet Lu Bu We's "Spring and Autumn":

"The origins of music lie far back in the past. Music arises from Measure and is rooted in the great Oneness. The great Oneness begets the two poles; the two poles beget the power of Darkness and Light.

"When the world is at peace, when all things are tranquil and all men obey their superiors in all their courses, then music can be perfected. When desires and passions do not turn into wrongful paths, music can be perfected. Perfect music has its cause. It arises from equilibrium. Equilibrium arises from righteousness, and righteousness arises from the meaning of the cosmos. Therefore one can speak about music only with a man who has percieved the meaning of the cosmos.

"Music is founded on the harmony between heaven and earth, on the concord of obscurity and brightness.

"Decaying states and men ripe for doom do not, of course, lack music either, but their music is not serene. Therefore, the more tempestuous the music, the more doleful are the people, the more imperiled the country, the more the sovereign declines. In this way the essence of music is lost.

"What all sacred sovereigns have loved in music was its serenity. The tyrants Giae and Jou Sin made tempestuous music. They thought loud sounds beautiful and massed effects interesting. They strove for new and rare tonal effects, for notes which no ear had ever heard hitherto. They sought to surpass each other, and overstepped all bounds.

"The cause of the degeneration of the Chu state was its invention of magic music. Such music is indeed tempestuous enough, but in truth has departed from the essence of music. Because it has departed from the essence of real music, this music is not serene. If music is not serene, the people grumble and life is deranged. All this arises from mistaking the nature of music and seeking only tempestuous tonal effects.

"Therefore the music of a well-ordered age is calm and cheerful, and so is its government. The music of a restive age is excited and fierce, and its government is perverted. The music of a decaying state is sentimental and sad, and its government is imperiled."

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I find this passage to be very true. Music has such a major affect on our minds. Look at the "emo youth" these days, and how they dress & act according to the "harsh" music they listen too.
Just go on myspace to see how they talk to one another. It's quite sad.

Look back to the 60's and early 70's and see how much music had an affect on people & the government. Music can truly change the world.

Musicians should wake up and take more responsibility for the music their creating, especially if it's being mass produced and being heard by millions.

Anyway I use to be a big siouxsie sioux, cocteau twins, diamanda galas and other gothic style music fan. I thought I was so cool. Nobody was listening to what I was listening too.

It's amazing how music affects you socially. I was a lonely kid. Not many gothic music lovers have many friends, as I'm sure you've noticed. Because they isolate theirselves from being social with people who aren't listening to the music they are listening too.

I think we all need to open our minds more. Bleh!

[KeithHandy]

Originally Posted by RallyMcnally

They thought loud sounds beautiful and massed effects interesting. They strove for new and rare tonal effects, for notes which no ear had ever heard hitherto. They sought to surpass each other, and overstepped all bounds.

"The cause of the degeneration of the Chu state was its invention of magic music. Such music is indeed tempestuous enough, but in truth has departed from the essence of music. Because it has departed from the essence of real music, this music is not serene. If music is not serene, the people grumble and life is deranged.

This is interesting enough, but so far removed from how I perceive things that I'm really just plain not going to agree with it. If the only form of happiness we can hope for is "serenity", then fine, "been there, done that, bought the t-shirt, *yawn*, check please". I think the healthy and alert mind can have a perfectly good relationship with much more unusual and stimulating art forms, and since that's what I've been passionate about all my life, I'm not going to flush it all down the toilet and replace my record collection with George Winston CDs.

With all due respect, I file the quoted philosophy in the same bin wherein lies the bit I once read about rock music being proven bad for plants (and therefore for all living things) because of its "unnatural" emphasis on beats two and four.

[Jochem]

There was a girl who liked me, I liked her too. So something good was happening there. One day, I was listening to one sad song all the time. The song inspired me to visualize myself being hurt by this one girl (because I just couldn't believe she liked me, and I've always been hurt by girls I loved). Somehow, the next day, we had fights from then on. Now the fights seem to be over, but we did choose different paths... So the thing we almost had one time, is not something which will be happening again, unless I intent it that way. I will never make that same mistake, the power of intention is just too strong. It's OK to listen to sad songs, but don't visualize yourself in the song, or however you like to put it. We don't want things to manifest that we don't want. Just keep in mind that you can be intending both good and bad things with both your conscious and subconscious mind.

[danas]

Once, when I met my first love, it was wonderful, we were both in love with eachother, but I remember listening to the Led Zepplin song that whole era, "Im gonna leave you in the summertime". in the end he left me a year in a half later, in the summetime. The song became my reality. I just couldnt believe it even when it was so good. Even when I hear that song now it reminds me of our relationship.
I believe I simply manifested this statement.

[songwriter]

If you want optimistic songs with lyrics that say that everything will be allright... you know. Paul McCartney!.

[Frans]

A few years ago, I was on a wedding party. The first song they played was "I'm not in love" (10cc)...
Apparently, the wedding couple had never heard of I-M.

(I don't know whether they're still a couple.)

[cylon]

This is my first post, so I'd like to say "hey everyone!"

I registered so I could post in this particular thread. This topic has been in my mind because I write music as well. This topic has kept me up at night in the past.

How can I have a happy life if I love sad music? If I write sad music does that mean I will be sad? Doesn't music have to be sad to be "meaningful"? Isn't life boring when everything is happy?

My tastes are similar to some of the posts I've read in here. At a very young age I was introduced to Depeche Mode, and that basically changed my life and got me addicted to music. I love all types of music, but the music that has alwasy resonated with me, is stuff like Depeche Mode, the Cure, The Smiths/Morrissey, Cocteau Twins, the "gloom and doom" stuff.

The last couple of years, I still love that stuff, but seem to be more interested in uplifting dance music. I just seem to be gravitating towards that. Recently I had a relationship go bad, and I listened to Morrissey constantly, exclusively, every sigle day, all day long. I guess for this period of my life I was a "vibrational match" for the type of emotion and perspective in his songs "another lonely man who knows what it's like... let's mope" As I feel better about the end of that relationship, and more hopeful for my future, I'm not listening to Morrissey so much anymore, or Depeche Mode, or the Cure, even though I still love that music, and buy all the songs/albums/b-sides. I'm still a full-time fan but my "energy" seems to be with more uplifting stuff.

It's like letting an old friend go, because you grow apart naturally. Like the person who mentioned the way the Goth kids talk to each other, and how the negativity and loneliness are the way they identify themselves. I'm 30 now, not into that scene anymore, but I was very much like that my entire adolescence, and up until just a couple years ago. If you get what you focus on, and music is the main way you experience the world, you will probably get the negative stuff you are imagining. I have really wrestled with this. The music I write tends to be a litte depressing sounding, but it also transcends that into something hopeful. It sounds like my influences that I have mentioned, even though I am feeling better about my life.

I don't know how much my lyrics are going to change, now that I am actively choosing to feel good about life. I will always have a place in my soul for that music, because it's beautiful. And you do have to have contrast. You can't know happy without knowing sad. But it seems the more happy you are, the more choices you naturally make that reflect that. Like for me, going from listening to the "gloom and doom" music to more upbeat dance music.

I think a big answer to this is "don't take it so seriously". But when music is so important it's hard to not take it so seriously.

A long post, I'm just really happy to find a thread that's exactly what I've been thinking about. See you around!

[Lucas]

I have been writing instrumental music since I was 16 (im 28), and mainly it has been sad music, and for the longest time I thought that I had to be sad to make sad music, and that isnt the case at all. I am a much happier person than I was before, and I still write sad, triumphant music. Not only that, but with increased clarity, my band is able to create more vaired songs that still sound like us, happy, sad or otherwise. Sad songs can be beautiful, especially when written in the context of the human condition...something everyone goes through.

I suggest people checkout the bands Godspeed You Black Emperor and Explosions in the Sky if you want to see how sad music can still feel uplifting.

[The Probabilist]

A happy life is a boring life? Sorry, but I can't relate to that. How is there beauty in sadness?

Anyway, what matters is the lyrics and not the melody or instruments. The music itself is a very strong medium into the subconscious mind as it loves patterns. This is why the lyrics has such a strong influence in your subconscious behaviour. I suggest listening to HunaTrainer podcast #012 over here. It starts at about 13 minutes.

[cylon]

Thanks for that link, interesting site as well.

[KeithHandy]

Probabilist: I don't see where anyone said "a happy life is a boring life".

With music, though, like any other form of expression -- literature, movies, theater, and so on -- you lose the vast majority of your vocabulary if you decide to self-censor any creative ideas that don't pass some sort of "all happy, all the time" test.

It might be one of many effective ways to manifest positive things in other areas of your life, but not the best way if you're genuinely passionate about the art forms themselves.

This isn't to say you shouldn't work towards doing pieces with a greater amount of hope and humanity, but if there's no conflict, there's no story. If there's no dissonance, there's no resolution. If there's no tension, there's no release.

[cylon]

A happy life is a boring life, I basically said that. Not like that's my opinion, but what you mentioned about a needing conflicts to resolve. It would be boring for life to have no challenge. Yet challenge can get you down at the same time.

[Lucas]

Originally Posted by The Probabilist

A happy life is a boring life? Sorry, but I can't relate to that. How is there beauty in sadness?

Anyway, what matters is the lyrics and not the melody or instruments. The music itself is a very strong medium into the subconscious mind as it loves patterns. This is why the lyrics has such a strong influence in your subconscious behaviour. I suggest listening to HunaTrainer podcast #012 over here. It starts at about 13 minutes.

I think there are myriad beautiful sadnesses..for instance, the death of a loved one. It is sad, but at the same time they return to where they came from. Tornados are magnificent and beautiful, but rarely bring good to us. Hope itself is beautiful and yet kind of tragic.

However, I completely disagree on your point about lyrics, because those are just poems, and poems arent music. Melody and the instruments are what make up music, and are more important to music than the lyrics, because without melody, rythym and the instruments, its not music, but without lyrics iit can still be music.

They can betray each other though, for instance, The Cure has some of the happiest sounding songs, but the lyrics are horribly sad. Jeff Buckley has some beautifully optimistic lyrics with very sad music.

Not only that, but the music itself changes the state of your brainwaves, which is why Baroque music is considered to be superlearning music, because of the state it puts your brain in. While words can do that, its nowhere near as powerful as the music. Words are arbitrary in comparison, and the music is the vehicle for the words, and not the other way around.

[KeithHandy]

Originally Posted by cylon

Yet challenge can get you down at the same time.

While said challenge is getting you down, I would assume you're probably not using the word "challenge" to describe it. But yeah, even Steve has alluded to something like this in his posts comparing life to a game that we decided to play just before being born. Why be a bad sport now? Why say "this game sucks because everything isn't handed to me on a silver platter"?

And I think part of the role of music is to express that challenge, that difficulty.

It's a two-way thing -- music is us speaking to the universe, and the universe speaking back to us as well, if that makes any sense. Even if you don't play an instrument and just listen to records, I think that's still true. In a way, non-musicians become a musician while listening, because they're still synchronizing their brain with it, even if they don't have the skill to involve their fingers or voices -- so I consider active listening to be a form of expression.

(I get frustrated with people who seem too passive about listening to music, because I don't consider their lack of musicianship to be a good reason for this.)

[cylon]

Originally Posted by KeithHandy

While said challenge is getting you down, I would assume you're probably not using the word "challenge" to describe it. But yeah, even Steve has alluded to something like this in his posts comparing life to a game that we decided to play just before being born. Why be a bad sport now? Why say "this game sucks because everything isn't handed to me on a silver platter"?

And I think part of the role of music is to express that challenge, that difficulty.

It's a two-way thing -- music is us speaking to the universe, and the universe speaking back to us as well, if that makes any sense. Even if you don't play an instrument and just listen to records, I think that's still true. In a way, non-musicians become a musician while listening, because they're still synchronizing their brain with it, even if they don't have the skill to involve their fingers or voices -- so I consider active listening to be a form of expression.

(I get frustrated with people who seem too passive about listening to music, because I don't consider their lack of musicianship to be a good reason for this.)

Good points Keith. It's funny when you mention people who are passive about listening to music. I've had people say, "I've never met someone who was so interested in music! There are more important things in life" and that kind of bothered me, but now I realize that to them there are more important things in life. Everything to me revolves around music because that's the context I've always viewed life in. I can't get enough of it, and I know it's good for me. I used to be kind of elitist about it when I was younger, like I understood something other people didn't, and people who didn't care about music (I liked) were missing out. Now I realize people are all unique and have different interests. In the past it cost me a lot of potential friendships, because I was so busy trying to be cool and like music no one had heard of, and I judged people on that basis. I'm much more open-minded now. I can actually relate to people who have different interests than me.

I also like what Lucas said, about Jeff Buckley. Sad music with hopeful lyrics. That's what I tend to do as well. The music is usually sad sounding but the lyrics are almost always transcendent. I'm already doing what comes naturally. I think the problem is when you think too much. You can get in your own way. When you start second-guessing your motives, there's no way to grow, you stay stuck.

So this year I resolve to not take everything so damn seriously, lighten up, relax, and accept that I don't have to have all the answers.