MENTAL HEALTH | MUSIC THERAPY
The Official emoshitstorm Music Questionnaire — Lora Straub Brocone Edition
This playlist isn’t for one-note Eeyores. Get ready to FEEL!
THE OFFICIAL emoshitstorm MUSIC QUESTIONNAIRE
What song gets you out of a funk? Why? Is there a memory attached to this song?
I’m no Jerry Maguire, but whooo-eee do I love how FREE “American Girl” by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers makes me feel.
The guitar and the drums drive you to Petty’s first lyrics, which I buy even though the writer in me finds them corny. The bass guitar loops through. It’s deliciously manic, confident and urgent. A song that tricks you into blasting the speakers.
Although I didn’t get my driver’s license until I was 36, in my mind, every time I listen to this song, I’m driving on a highway to a destination I don’t care if I ever get to.
I always become obsessed with an artist once they die — Petty, Bowie, Prince. I’m a dumbass. I wish I’d seen all three perform live.
What song fuels your rage? Do you avoid it or seek it out?
Depression is anger turned inwards. I don’t often externalize my rage, but I was a furiously lonely teen. Everything about the emo anthem “As Your Ghost Takes Flight,” from the album Stay What You Are, 2001, spoke to me — the fast-paced drums, the mischievous guitar — but mostly the visceral story the song tells of the speaker regretting not murdering the object of their ire:
I should’ve had my hammer and a few rusty spikes To nail you on a wall and use bottles to catch your blood Display you for the neighbors so they’d know your time had come
Before you’re like whoa whoa whoa Lora, that’s a lil much, the singer’s “I” and “you” become less disparate:
And I’d drink your blood Feel it dripping down my throat And heading for my heart
Whoops, no, not THAT part, that’s distinct. This part:
Well it is nothing but dying Got a grenade stuck in your teeth and you’re pulling at the pin You’re an illusion, just a shadow flickering underneath the sun
The co-mingling of the would-be murderer and their victim —that internal dilemma resonates with me.
20 years later, I love to listen to this song while doing any form of cathartic cardio.
What song can you ONLY listen to when you’re feeling bummed?
I can listen to much of Elliott Smith when I’m in all sorts of moods. When I was 18, a guy burned his CD Either/Or for me. I listened to it in my desk chair in my dorm room without doing anything else, like I was reading a book I couldn’t put down. The jangly optimism mixed with steady despair. His hushed, certain voice folding in on itself. I felt seen, even though the singer was recently dead.
“Pretty (Ugly Before)” is from Smith’s posthumously released last album From a Basement on the Hill, 2004. He died a year before at the age of 34 from two stab wounds to the chest. The autopsy didn’t determine whether the wounds were self-inflicted. While other songs on the record more directly address suicidal ideation—cough, “A Fond Farewell,” cough — “Pretty (Ugly Before)” is a song I listen to when I feel ugly, not pretty.
Simply put, when I listen to it in a good mood, I only remember the bad. I don’t know if that’s the cycle Smith was in, but the song, with its sparse, wistful piano chords and guitar gearing up to crescendo reflects the danger of an emotional rollercoaster:
Sunshine been keeping me up for days There is no nighttime, only a passing phase And I’ll feel pretty another hour or two
I felt so ugly before I didn’t know what to do
The song ends with an echoing overlaid “ugly before” vocal track and a piano that plinks as though to say, “Sorry it’s not actually a positive song.”
It’s darkness at its very heart.
What song should you NOT listen to when you’re feeling down? Explain.
Waxahatchee’s lyrics are chock full of existential angst and her voice stokes its own red hot cathartic anger, as well as a despairing and indifferent acceptance that turns on a dime. Now, this doesn’t sound like a winning review, but I love her entire album Saint Cloud, 2020.
However, the song “Fire,” I absolutely can’t listen to when I’m already bummed and anxious. If I do, it’s like I’m an exposed circuit board, the music is gasoline, the lyrics are the match, and her voice the friction that destroys me:
I take it for granted If I could love you unconditionally I could iron out the edges of the darkest sky For some of us it ain’t enough It ain’t enough
What song would you play for your inner child to dance to? Why?
“Twist and Shout” by The Beatles from the album Please Please Me, 1964, is a cover of The Top Notes single from 1961 that failed to chart. I loved the song before I knew what a d-bag John Lennon was. Those were heady times of dancing badly and not knowing or caring because I was busy being a kid.
My mom loves the song. Gale Straub and I performed it with her for mercifully small clusters of family and friends.
What is your favorite “instant nostalgia” song? I.e., when you first heard it, you could’ve sworn you’d heard it before already. Why do you think it makes you feel that way?
“Still The Same” by Bob Seger from his album Stranger in Town, 1978, isn’t nostalgic because of memories attached to it, but because the song is reminicent of something precious I lost long ago that I don’t have words for.
A few months ago “Old Time Rock and Roll” sprung into my head and out of my mouth one Sunday morning. According to my friend Alexa from 4th grade, my trumpet tutor, and my musician husband, I’m a terrible singer, but my toddler is a fan, and he lit up for the song in a way he hadn’t for any other yet. I knew the song — obviously — but had no idea who wrote it. I found this album, dug in, and the second track, “Still The Same” caught me from its first decisive yet wistful piano chords.
The song instantly tapped on a helix of DNA that knew it already.
Not only was the music tinged with nostalgia, the lyrics, literally and metaphorically, were sad, final, unrequited:
Still the same, baby babe you’re still the same
Some things never change.
Chef’s kiss.
What song would your best friend be surprised that you love and why? No best friend? Your mom, your cat, your plant, that coworker who calls you Lisa will suffice.
Who knew that “Maybe It’s Time” the song from the A Star is Born Soundtrack, 2018, could possibly captivate the heart and mind of this cynical wench? That Bradley Cooper’s singing auto-tuned to his taint and back would be a guilty pleasure song for me?
oh my god oh my god oh my ohhh my life makes sense now!
My research, seconds ago, revealed the song is WRITTEN BY JASON ISBELL.
The alt-country musician I adore. I have a draft titled “Jason Isbell Got Me Through My Pregnancy.”
Who else could have written these lyrics?
When I was a child, they tried to fool me Said the worldly man was lost and that a Hell was real Well I’ve seen Hell in Reno And this world’s one big old Catherine wheel Spinnin’ steel
What was your Covid anthem? How do you feel about it now? Didn’t have one? Are you a human with two ears and a heart?
Tame Impala’s The Slow Rush, 2020 came out one month before quarantine lockdown. I listened to the album constantly, and once lockdown hit, the album turned prescient, like somehow it knew my quandries and quarantine. “Borderline” is my favorite song on the album, and, according to Spotify, it was my most played song of 2020.
I listened to the song on a loop, both with headphones and without, encased in my apartment with my fiance, two cats, and a lot of puzzles. When I went outside for walks and runs, I listened to the song with earbuds. I often felt like a bubble within a bubble.
The song, in both lyrics and musicality, has a repetitive coursing beat. The lyrics show the speaker split, but the insistent rhythm betrays a swiftly moving current that can’t be quickly reversed.
In 2020, I knew I needed to find a job outside of the restaurant industry and get my driver’s license. I was caught like a fly on tape to the raw nerve of restaurant work, both the anesthetizing tedium and live wire service, and while the years ticked by, I wasn’t getting anywhere. I needed to better manage my anxiety and ADHD, face my fears and arrive elsewhere.
Shout out to what is done R.I.P. here comes the sun (I was fine without ya) Will I be known and loved? Is there one that I trust? Starting to sober up Has it been long enough?
Dang, I made a hard questionnaire. Sorry! I got eight songs done. Don’t feel like you have to answer every question if you decide to answer, dear reader.
I’ll update the playlist below as questions are answered!