MUSIC IS A FREE DRUG. EXCEPT YOU SHOULD PROBABLY PAY FOR IT Words and pictures by Jo Church
A
wartime journalist listens to a Portishead
Darryl was at a stage in his life where he’d been
album to help compensate for his stressful
relentlessly touring and boozing with some of the
life of danger and tough, potentially fatal
biggest cats in the sea for over 10 solid years (cats-
decision-making. Meanwhile, a zookeeper
people, sea-industry). Which sounds really fucking great right?
of hibernating lemurs has nothing short of 160 bpm Danish heavy metal on his iPod to get his ticker going
Nope.
every morning. Music can provide a counterbalance for your emotional equilibrium.
At this point he’d developed a vocal disorder, had There are dozens of reasons why people listen to music,
hardly spent a second with his wife and newborn son,
but what I’m interested in is how it affects your mood
his dad died, Jam Master Jay died, the group started to
and can influence you emotionally. From enhancing
slip off the covers of magazines and down the charts,
your dimples that extra millimetre, to making your
and err oh yeah he just found out he was adopted. So
blood boil with anger. Okay, well you might not have
basically shit got tricky. He plummeted from the top
thought about going on any killing sprees lately, but
of the top to the lowest of lows in a matter of weeks
there are people out there who are so strongly affected
and had diddily squat to shout about. On the verge of
by music, that they lose all rational thought.
suicide he heard Sarah McLachlan’s song ‘Angel’, on the radio, which completely knocked him for six.
When Mark Foster wrote the song ‘Pumped Up Kicks’ for his band (Foster The People), he wanted to get
This one song had such an immediate impact on his
right inside the head of an isolated, psychotic kid.
whole outlook of life; it made him take a big step away
Little did he know that almost exactly a year later in
from the hip-hop scene. He wrote an autobiography,
September 2011, a 14 year old boy was to get arrested
worked tirelessly to help charities supporting foster
for comments on the song’s YouTube page. After
kids and visited various businesses and colleges as a
obsessing over the lyrics which urge all the cooler kids
motivational speaker, using his story as the inspiration.
that they’d better ‘outrun my gun’, the young outcast threatened to take his rifle into Wigwam Creek School
This begs the question, why can’t that song affect
and go on a shooting spree the next day.
everyone’s life for the better? Sure, not everyone needs their life to take a 180, but if we pinned down
Foster claims he was bullied at school, but the band’s
Mel Gibson and forced that song into his anti-semitic
bassist, Cubbie Fink (great name), used to share bunk
ear-holes, would he be converted into a loveable chap?
beds with someone who very nearly suffered at the
Almost definitely not. It’s a great song n all, but some
hands of similarly troubled youths during the Columbine
people are simply bad eggs. Every good or bad song
massacre. Cubbie’s cousin fortunately survived but he
resonates with each individual in a unique way, and it
shared much of her emotional torment after the event.
takes a certain state of mind to want to change in the
The band felt that they could use these experiences
first place.
as a platform to communicate the message that youth Almost everyone has a go-to song (some have many)
gun violence in the States needs to be addressed.
that takes them to a place emotionally when others Initially, when I heard this story, I was shocked that a
can’t. For some, that song can change over time
young boy could get himself arrested for writing words,
depending on trends, lifestyle or whatever, for others it
YES WORDS. But then it got me thinking about the
remains a constant beacon. There’s no right or wrong,
influence music can really have on people. Let’s not get
that’s just the way it goes.
too bogged down in depressing stories of worryingly impressionable folk who start etching away at their
Don’t get me wrong, music doesn’t always want to
wrists the second they get caught downwind of a
be taken too seriously, I’m all for sticking Hall & Oates
Coldplay concert though. I stumbled across an uplifting
on full whack and dancing in my pants until the seam
story about Darryl McDaniels (formerly one third of hip
gets breached. It’s just great to have a song or album
hop group Run-DMC). He openly talks about how he
you can fall back on because it helps you revisit that
was on the brink of suicide when he heard a certain
special place.
song, which transformed his entire outlook on life for My song? At Last - Etta James.
the better.
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