My Problem With Songwriters

Ever notice that the songs you turn to to get you through the hardest of times don’t ever offer you any form of advice on how to feel better or get through your hard time? They are simply written to empathize with you, how lovely.

Sorry people but I want to turn to music for answers! Knowing other people feel my pain(?!) doesn’t make my pain go away, it makes me feel worse!

Take for instance “Dark Side” … Kelly Clarkson’s latest depressing, screaming, uber-catchy z100 top 20:

“everybody’s got a dark side, do you love me? Can you love mine? Nobody’s a picture perfect but we’re worth it — you know that we’re worth it. Will you love me? Even with my dark side?”

So let’s say you know they won’t love you, your dark side, or your light side, then what?

“Like a diamond from black dust, it’s hard to know what can become if you give up so don’t give up on me please, remind me who i really am.”

What if they gave up on you and all your screaming and pleading isn’t working? They aren’t making any promises, and don’t want to stick around to see what can become of the diamond… you’re still pretty depressed right? Probably.

Or are sad depressing songs solely meant to speak for you… say the things you can’t say? Like Adele, one her greatest, “Don’t You Remember” depressing as sin, but speaks to a lot of my feelings and emotions a couple of months ago that I wish I could have spoken to a certain person; I still want to sing it that person, but… I won’t, just like you won’t actually sing that song to him/her. In which case, we’re just listening to the song over and over feeling no better, and equally as depressed and lost.

Adele, give us some answers! He doesn’t remember. He really really doesn’t remember the reason he loved me, and I can’t hijack his brain or heart and make him remember. I still have a fickle heart, my head is still heavy, and he won’t come back to me! So what do I do?!

So my point: I’m no record label or mass consumer audience but songwriters… from the depressed and lonely across the world…YES songs that empathize sell your music, but I bet songs with answers would sell more.