The Art of Sadness

We all love to be happy, after all, happiness creates energy, eliminates anxiety, and makes all of our troubles seem trivial and insignificant. Yet, being happy all the time is not only impossible, it's just not human. Human beings possess a wide range of emotions that define our behavior, performance, and thinking patterns. While our lighter emotions encourage our minds to relax, it's the darker emotions that make us so complex, so fascinating and so very creative.

Think of the feeling you get when you hear your favorite happy song. Happy songs give people a rush of adrenaline that stimulates a feeling of euphoria - although there isn't much to them lyrically, and the musical arrangements are simple and repetitive. The happy song can temporarily erase concern, and for a brief moment we do not care. We become momentarily dumb, and it's an excuse to act silly - we dance! The happy song provides a release - an escape that allows our overworked brains a temporary vacation from anxiety and stress.

On the flip side, think of the feeling you get when you hear your favorite sad song. Sad songs resonate deeper than your average happy, fluff song. Lyrically intricate and mysterious, they are chock-full of minor notes that provoke painful memories and allow us to relive heartbreaking feelings. But for some odd reason, judging by the sad song collections of most music enthusiasts, people seem to enjoy feeling that melancholy over and over again. It's a craving for something that is "bad," but like your average run-of-the-mill addiction, it feels "oh so good."

When it Hasn't Hit You Yet...

Greg Keelor conceptualizes this hidden gratification in sadness in Blue Rodeo's, Hasn't Hit Me Yet, when he sings:

You say that you're leaving
Well that comes as no surprise
Still I kinda like this feeling
Of being left behind...

He later compares the emotional shock of being left behind to the "stoned" feeling you get when watching a sunset. You experience sadness, but it's that feeling of sadness combined with wistfulness that causes some sort of enlightenment or transcendence. And it's that transcendence to a higher level of consciousness that produces a sad, yet unique form of melancholic bliss.

What Lies Beneath...

The Beach Boys' 1966 hit, "God Only Knows What I'd Be Without You," is regularly mistaken for a conventional love song; but not many love songs begin with the words, "I may not always love you..."

Musician and chief songwriter, Brian Wilson, had an interesting way of artfully intertwining a cheerful ditty with deep melancholic undertones, revealing through simple confessions a surrendering acknowledgement that life is full of sadness, frustration and disappointments.

Listen to the music and lyrics on the album Pet Sounds (written by Wilson in collaboration with lyricist, Tony Asher) and notice that the arrangements on the surface appear jovial and good-humored. But behind the facade the playfulness is relentlessly taunted by premonitions of torment and suffering. It's this eccentric mix of happiness and despair that give the songs that bittersweet harmony that Pet Sounds is best known for - a far cry from the carefree simplicity of their earlier music.

Sadness Spawning Creativity...

Some of the world's greatest music, sculptures, paintings and written texts have been the products of deep depression and melancholy. When we are sad or down in the dumps, we are forced to take a look inside ourselves. We become introspective, and reflective, when we temporarily shut out the outside world and delve into the confines of the self.

There is a peculiar kind of satisfaction that sometimes emerges when we experience sadness; it's that distinctive mix of emotions that can stimulate a burst of creativity. Perhaps this is why Elton John declared in Sad Songs (Say So Much), "It feels so good to hurt so bad." So the next time you're feeling sad and blue, instead of wallowing in self-pity, try your hand at something creative. You may just come up with a masterpiece - and that's something to be not so sad about!